Foster Care

4 Keys to Building Up Family Care When it Seems Impossible

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening As the body of Christ, we are called to be advocates for orphans and vulnerable children. But what happens when we find ourselves living or working with those that don’t necessarily value the importance of family-based care? We asked HaTikva Families, a Messianic Jewish nonprofit that is pioneering the movement for family care in Israel, what advice they would give to others trying to engage communities in similarly complex environments. 1. Understand the context “We must have a solid foundation of understanding the current system we want [...]

4 Keys to Building Up Family Care When it Seems Impossible2024-01-10T13:03:55-05:00

Partnering to Find a Family for Every Orphan

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Economic Empowerment A Family for Every Orphan (AFFEO) envisions a world where every child knows the love and stability of a family. To see this vision come to fruition, they partner with and provide support to Christ-centered local organizations around the globe that have developed foster care and adoption programs. Their international partners are strongly vetted to ensure organizational integrity and adherence to best practices. One of AFFEO’s international partners is a locally led faith-based organization (FBO)[i] in Southeast Asia composed of trained social workers, pastors, and a large network [...]

Partnering to Find a Family for Every Orphan2024-01-10T13:57:27-05:00

Expanding a Vision of Care for Kenyan Children

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment After years of caring for vulnerable children within a residential setting, Vision Africa, a faith-based organization in Kenya, expanded their vision by adjusting their strategies to support the healthy development of children in families. Vision Africa was founded in 2001 by John and Vera Packard in response to the overwhelming needs of the children they encountered in the community as they administered a children’s home in Nairobi. Initially, they took on the management of two children’s homes from an organization that was unable to continue their administration. John [...]

Expanding a Vision of Care for Kenyan Children2024-01-10T14:26:57-05:00

Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children

Tags: Adoption | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Best practice in caring for orphaned and vulnerable children indicates the need for a continuum of care options for children currently living in—or at risk of being sent to—institutions. While a growing number of ministry leaders, practitioners, and researchers agree that children are best cared for within families, the question of what type of family placement setting looms large. One child may have living parents with whom they can reunite, while another may have no trace of a family. It is God’s inherent love for every child that [...]

Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children2024-01-10T14:21:42-05:00

CAFO Webinar on Finding Your Piece of the Foster Care Puzzle

Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 9th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will host a webinar entitled, "Finding Your Piece of the Foster Care Puzzle." When people think about getting involved in foster care, the first things that often come to mind are foster parenting and adoption. To be sure, these are two important pieces of the foster care puzzle. But, what are some of the other pieces and how can God use your unique gifts and experiences in some of these vital areas? This webinar is designed to help you and others in your church understand multiple pieces of the foster [...]

CAFO Webinar on Finding Your Piece of the Foster Care Puzzle2024-01-10T14:18:46-05:00

Foster Care in Panama: Our Journey

Tags: Foster Care Growing up in the U.S. I dreamed of moving to Africa to start an orphanage. But I met and married my husband at a young age, and in 2008 we moved to Panama City, Panama, with our then three-year-old daughter. Our new Panamanian church had a volunteer program that involved holding babies and playing with children in local orphanages. When I signed up I didn’t know anything about institutionalization (what a mouthful), attachment disorder, or alternative care. It didn’t take more than a few visits to see the children were not thriving. [...]

Foster Care in Panama: Our Journey2024-01-17T17:20:15-05:00

Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of Care

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment It is perhaps human nature that we gravitate toward stories with inspiring plots and resolved endings. Those of us tirelessly advocating for vulnerable children love stories of children placed in families happily ever after. In reality, care for orphaned and vulnerable children is typically much more complex than a singular solution. As the Faith to Action Initiative explains in the document A Continuum of Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, “Preventing unnecessary separation, strengthening family care, and reducing placement in orphanages requires the existence of a ‘continuum’ of approaches [...]

Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of Care2024-01-17T17:29:36-05:00

Bethany Christian Services Announces New Program in Haiti

Bethany Global, a division of Bethany Christian Services (BCS), announced the launch of social services in Haiti that will serve and support foster care. Partnering with a local church in Port-Au-Prince, Bethany is currently recruiting families to undergo its rigorous foster care training program, and anticipates serving 60 children by summer 2016. In spring 2014, Bethany launched a small project in Haiti called Operation Exodus, working with vulnerable families living in the tent cities around Port-Au-Prince. This project serves to strengthen families through economic and psychosocial support. Relocation to safe housing is a priority, but so is financial sustainability, [...]

Bethany Christian Services Announces New Program in Haiti2024-01-17T19:37:48-05:00

CAFO Webinar on How to Be a Welcoming Church for Special Needs Foster & Adoptive Families

Today, November 18th from 2-3pm EST, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will host a webinar on helping welcome and support special needs foster and adoptive families. As special needs and older child programs are on the rise, this means churches need to be prepared to accommodate families affected by disability or complex trauma. Shannon Dingle will share five ways your church can be a safe place for these children and teens, drawing from experience as a special educator, a disability ministry leader, and a mom to six by birth and adoption. You can register for this webinar here. [...]

CAFO Webinar on How to Be a Welcoming Church for Special Needs Foster & Adoptive Families2024-01-17T18:06:15-05:00

Fostering Hope in Guatemala

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment In Guatemala, when a child becomes an orphan, is a victim of abuse or exploitation, or is separated from family-based care, the primary response, historically, has been to place that child in a residential care facility. In 2013, UNICEF reported that 5,800 Guatemalan children were living in orphanages with large disparities of caregivers and children. Unfortunately, research shows that there are long-term, and sometimes permanent, negative effects institutional care can have on a child physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Buckner International, a Christian organization working [...]

Fostering Hope in Guatemala2024-01-17T17:56:19-05:00

Continuum of Care Resources Now Available!

Faith to Action is excited to announce the launch of three new resources on the continuum of care. The continuum of care provides an overview of a range of alternative care options for children who have been separated from parental care. In keeping with research and evidence-based guidance on the importance of family in the life of a child, the continuum places a high priority on family care while also recognizing the role that temporary residential care and small group homes can play in the spectrum of options to meet individual situations and needs. The continuum of care highlights [...]

Continuum of Care Resources Now Available!2024-01-17T17:50:43-05:00

Children in Families: A Community Approach to Reintegration

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning Everyone in Kampong knows Sopheat* — his mischievous laugh, his lively personality, his story. Sopheat was among the very first children to be placed with a foster family in Kampong, a Cambodian village of sweeping rice paddies and swaying sugar palm trees. Sopheat’s street is now home to several other children living with foster families, and over the past few years their village has welcomed 35 children previously living in vulnerable situations. Children in Families (CIF) is a Christian organization in Cambodia working to reintegrate at-risk children into families. Many of [...]

Children in Families: A Community Approach to Reintegration2024-01-17T19:16:10-05:00

Pioneering Foster Care in Peru

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment In May 2007, Buckner Peru and Peru's National Comprehensive Family Welfare Program (INABIF) signed an agreement to develop a foster care program. On March 10, 2008, Buckner Peru made history when officials from the Ministry of Women and Social Development and Buckner placed eight Peruvian children into the country’s first foster families. Prior to this significant event, there was no foster care in Peru. Nearly seven years later, children are thriving in families in ways that would have been unknown to them without the foster care option. Their foster [...]

Pioneering Foster Care in Peru2024-01-17T19:06:30-05:00

Bethany’s Foster-to-Adopt Program

Tags: Foster Care The family unit is at the core of African culture and society; decisions are family decisions and the emphasis is placed on the collective will rather than the individual. When a child becomes an orphan because of poverty, war, death, illness, or some other cause, relatives will often take in a child. However, the idea of taking in a child who is not from one’s own family or tribe is a newer concept. Ethiopia, home to 80 million people, has over 5 million orphans or vulnerable children. The government child welfare system in Ethiopia [...]

Bethany’s Foster-to-Adopt Program2024-01-17T19:03:35-05:00

Care for Children: Seeking to place 1M Chinese orphans into local family care

Tags: Foster Care Lu Lu* is from Daxing, China (a suburb of Beijing) and was in institutional care from birth until he was four-years-old. When he was young, he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and at the age of four, he was removed from institutional care and placed with a foster family. At first, the transition was difficult. He was withdrawn, had no interest in playing with toys, and would rarely speak. However, after living with his family for over three years, Lu Lu’s behavior transformed. Care for Children’s vision is for one million children [...]

Care for Children: Seeking to place 1M Chinese orphans into local family care2024-01-17T19:33:06-05:00
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