Lacey City Council proclaims June as National Family Reunification Month 

The City of Lacey is celebrating families who have been able to reunify, as well as the people involved in the process.

To that extent, the Lacey City Council proclaimed June as National Family Reunification Month. The city council issued a proclamation calling for the observance at a meeting on Tuesday, June 2. 

The proclamation serves as a reminder that parents and caregivers can face challenges serious enough to place their children temporarily outside the home. 

Maintaining family connections whenever safely possible, the proclamation states, is vital to the emotional health and long-term success of children. 

Michael Rihtarich, a Social Worker with the Parent Representation Program at the Washington State Office of Public Defense, said the transition out of therapeutic court left him wanting a community that would last beyond the program. He accepted the proclamation on behalf of a local alumni network. 

"When I was getting close to graduation for therapeutic court, I felt something a lot of people don't talk about," Rihtarich said. "I was excited, proud, and ready for the next chapter, but I was also scared. For so long, the support and the people around me had been part of my daily life, and as graduation got closer, I realized that I needed something that didn't just end." 

The alumni network has since grown into an active support operation for families in the dependency process. It runs food assistance programs, organizes community gatherings for parents, and prepares holiday meals. 

Rihtarich told the council the alumni group takes the experiences of its members and channels them into support for families still working through the dependency process. 

The proclamation also calls on community members to support families working toward reunification and the foster parents, social workers, attorneys, courts, educators and advocates who help make it possible. 

Mayor Andy Ryder then recalled that his best friend’s parents regularly took in foster children while he was growing up, saying the experience showed him firsthand how far a family can extend. 

"I just want to thank you for going through the process and making your family bigger," Ryder said. "At the end of the day, that's what we are as a community. We're extended family, and sometimes it does take a village."