This week's Northern Express - sister publication of The Ticker - features an investigative report on the challenges facing area foster families who are looking to adopt. Writer Patrick Sullivan explores the case of Melissa and David West, an Elk Rapids family who spent three years working with Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan in the hopes of adopting a child. The couple endured what they describe as countless setbacks, false hopes and conflicting reports from the agencies they worked with before ultimately concluding foster parenting wasn't a viable path to adoption.

"I knew, for our family, fostering to foster just wasn't a good fit," says Melissa, who at one point took in a pair of siblings with her husband she was told would be available for long-term placement. Shortly thereafter, the family was informed a mistake had been made, and the children were later returned to the care of their birth mother. "What they had told us when we went through all the courses and stuff is that was a possibility and we could do that - permanent placement - and it would take a long time, but we could do it," says Melissa. "Since going through the experience, they have said, 'Oh, we don't tell people that anymore.'" The West's experience illuminates the tensions within a system that prioritizes returning children to their birth parents yet also seeks to attract caring individuals to fill the desperate shortage of foster families, many of whom grow emotionally attached to their charges and desire to provide them with a new life. Read more in this week's special report, "Foster Family Odyssey."

This week's Express also features a fascinating dive into the history of Petoskey and Little Traverse Bay with a profile of author Michael Federpsiel and his new book "Little Traverse Bay, Past and Present," as well as a Q&A with successful Little Traverse entrepreneur Clayton Brown and features on the Zoo-de-Mackinac bicycle bash and Crooked Tree Art's Center's Swirl series in Petoskey. Check out the Northern Express online, or pick up a free copy at one of more than 600 distribution spots across 13 counties. And, stay connected throughout the week on Facebook.