Making Sure They’re OK

In 2011, Jeff Gordon received a text from a state licensing agency notifying him and his wife, Gay, that a 5-year-old girl in need of fostering was on her way to their house. She spoke no English and had experienced a recent trauma, although the Gordons weren’t told that initially.

“You get very little information, and you have to say yes or no. They show up at your house within 10 minutes,” says Gordon. “And then she’s yours, and she could be yours for a while. And it’s your job to make sure she’s OK.”

The Gordons’ foster journey began months earlier, when they read a newspaper article about children being removed from their parents; the article highlighted the community need for foster parents.

At the time, three of the Gordons’ biological children were either in college or living on their own. Their youngest, Rayna, was in elementary school. “We feel like we’re good parents, and we wanted to give back to the community. We felt like we could make an impact,” says Gordon, a partner and personal injury attorney at Lesser, Landy, Smith & Siegel. He and Gay, a pediatric eye specialist, began the monthslong process of becoming licensed, which involves taking classes and undergoing deep background checks.

Since then, they’ve fostered more than 30 children. Gordon still remembers vividly the arrival of that first one. “She was this wonderful little girl who had just witnessed her brother getting run over by a truck,” he says. She and her siblings had been playing in their neighborhood unsupervised when her brother had been hit and killed. “She couldn’t stop talking about seeing all of the blood, and we had to try to get her over that trauma,” he says. Fortunately, his wife speaks a little Spanish. 

“Being prepared for [kids having] that kind of shock is important,” says Gordon. It’s one of the pieces of advice he and Gay offer as they help to recruit new foster parents. They also share how to handle next steps, such as enrolling foster children in local schools and helping them to feel safe. “You love them like your own kids immediately. It just happens,” Gordon says.

While some people see this attachment as a challenge—especially given that the foster children typically stay with a family fewer than two years—Gordon stresses the benefits. “Of course you get attached to them, but you’re able to make an impact on their lives for however long you have them, and that’s the important thing.”

He adds, “As a personal injury attorney, I deal with victims of catastrophic accidents on a daily basis. Fostering may have helped me in learning how to deal with those clients who have had trauma.”

The Gordons fostered their last child full-time at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, they offer respite to other foster parents. If those parents need to take a break or go on an extended trip, the Gordons step in to help.

Gordon also spends time volunteering and doing pro bono work for a variety of child welfare organizations, such as Champions Empowering Champions. As immediate past president, Gordon is still involved with the nonprofit, which supports students at Florida Atlantic University with a history of foster care and/or homelessness. He’s also board president of Friends of Foster Children of Palm Beach County, vice chair of the board of American Association of Caregiving Youth, and vice chair of the board of FLITE Center, which offers support to vulnerable youth.

Being part of a foster family has influenced the Gordons’ youngest biological daughter, Rayna, who is finishing her second year at UF’s Levin College of Law. “She went to law school thinking that she wanted to represent foster kids in court,” says Gordon. “I think fostering gave her a perspective that none of her contemporaries had. … She saw things that nobody in her peer group saw.”

Today, the Gordons remain in touch with about half their foster children, who were between the ages of 5 and 11 when they lived with the family.

“They still say back to us some of the things we said to them, and they still have some of the habits we taught them, even years after they’ve left our care,” says Gordon. “Knowing that we have impacted them by showing them that there is a situation where you can feel safe and feel loved, it’s really rewarding.”