How to Help
CHURCH LINK
The Church’s role in the Foster Coalition is to provide the called and equipped workers to meet the long-term needs of the foster system. James 1:27 tells us: “There is no greater religion than helping widows and orphans.” Foster children need the love, acceptance, and care that Church members can and are best suited to provide. The greatest needs are not only for mentors for adolescents aging out of the system but also for social workers, care supporters for foster families, counselors, and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) workers. If churches could meet these needs in each county, it would solve many problems in the foster system and drastically reduce the number of children in the system. Please view the video on our front page.
Foster Coalition can provide church lay leaders with proven foster ministry model tools to easily start and operate a foster ministry, as described in an article published by Focus on the Family: How to Start a Foster/Adoptive Family Ministry. This Promise686 ministry model already operates in over 1,300 churches. Foster Coalition can guide ministry leaders through the training and implementation process at no charge to churches. The only work required from the church pastoral staff is to support their church foster ministry.
A church foster care ministry is a great outreach tool. With the tools provided, awareness events for members and community can expose foster system problems and needs. Church and local community members would move into the effort with a passion.
The legal system is doing all it can to help these most vulnerable children. Local foster organizations will help the ministry with education and knowledge to make workers competent, comfortable, and well-equipped with what they need to be successful. The bottom line is we all are equipping the saints to be successful in their ministry. They include kinship care or grandparents raising grandchildren. When successful, we glorify God, and the children are the beneficiaries.
Please contact us at church@fostercoalition.org to get started or get more details. We’ll be more than happy to meet with you and explain the details of how it all works.
LOCAL FOSTER ORGANIZATIONS
LOCAL FOSTER ORGANIZATIONS
In the unified Foster Coalition, local foster organizations and ministries meet the specific needs of the foster children and families. They are organizations like clothing closets, counselors, special education, tutoring, mentors, support groups, adoption ministries, residential care services, foster parent agencies, legal services, and many more. Most of these organizations help children find their forever home – back with birth parents, relatives, adoption – or with foster care or aging out to independence.
These organizations also help educate new workers about recognizing situations and trauma, how to parent trauma, the system, and where to get help and financial resources. They also educate each other about their services. Often, organizations may not be aware of some of the others. Foster Coalition frequently creates conferences to discuss problems and come up with solutions. Foster Coalition may also facilitate special situations to implement solutions to a problem. By working together, we can accomplish more than working separately. When we work together, the whole system benefits, especially the children, who are always the real winners.
GOVERNMENT SYSTEM
The government system includes agencies like the Department of Human Resources (DHR), the judicial system, local and state police and investigative departments, local school systems, fire departments, rescue squads, mental health, medical, and hospitals. Some agencies remove vulnerable children from abusive, negligent, and violent situations to protect them from more harm. Others assist with placement of removed children back in their homes after the required steps are made for them to be safe again. When that is not attainable, they are placed with relatives, in safe foster homes when one is available, in residential care facilities, institutions, or placed for adoption. Other agencies help identify situations such as malnutrition due to poverty that should be investigated or shared with churches and other organizations and the needs required in order to keep children from having to be removed from the situation.
These agencies are doing their best to provide protective care for vulnerable children. However, there are still many problem areas they cannot address. When this happens, other outside organizations, ministries, and churches must do what the government cannot do. And just like organizations, ministries and churches sometimes cannot do what government agencies do.
Contact us today for more information or report a situation with a family that may need help. If you are not in our resources section, we would love to meet with you and add you to our list.
COMMUNITY
How can you participate with Foster Coalition as an individual, family, or business to solve the foster care problem? Over 6,000 children are in the foster care system and need your help.
Start a Foster Care Ministry at Your Church
Get a passionate partner to team up with and start a foster ministry in your church. A Foster Coalition member will meet with you and a church pastor to share the foster care ministry model. We’ll walk with you through the building and equipping process. Contact us at church@fostercoalition.org
Mentor, Foster, or Adopt
If you want to explore becoming an adolescent mentor, foster, or adoptive parent and need to find an equipping foster ministry church, we can refer you to nearby church ministries to get equipped for success. If you’re not ready, we recommend going through a devotion entitled Ready or Not available on Amazon to help you determine if mentoring, fostering, or adoption is for you. Contact us with questions and to join a group that meets weekly to discuss the book in detail. We can provide video links to better equip you for fostering or adoption.
Volunteer
The great thing about the foster care system is that everyone can do something. You can help in many areas, including:
- Participate in a care service group to help serve foster, adoptive, and birth parents as well as pregnant mothers who want to keep their child.
- Provide meals, babysit for nights out, and assist with chores to relieve burnout.
- Become a CASA (Court Appointed Child Advocate).
- Become a mentor for aged out foster youth as they learn to become independent.
- Help parents overcome financial struggles as to not lose their children.
- Browse a church ministry list for a church who can train and equip you as a foster care worker.
Social Workers and Counselors
If you are a social worker or counselor and want to become equipped for work in the foster system, contact us at info@fostercoalition.org.
Businesses
If you have a business, there are many ways for you to participate in Foster Coalition. We’d be happy to talk with you and find the best way to help, give us a call at 205-490-1545.
Financial
If you’re too busy to offer time and talent right now, you can help us by sponsoring many areas financially. Just use the form below or click DONATE.
Donate Transportation to Aged Out Youth
Often, youth aging out of the foster care system don’t have access to reliable transportation. If led, you can donate a vehicle for foster youth to use to get to and from work. If you’re a dealership or auto repair shop, you can offer repairs and/or car work at a reduced rate to recently aged out foster youth.
Connect
Always follow us on social media to keep abreast of what’s happening and find opportunities to plug in. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Sign up for our email list for our newsletter to keep up with current events and developments.
Contact Foster Coalition
We’d love to talk with you about how you can use your talents and resources to the benefit of the foster care system.
Bottom Line – everybody needs everybody else to be a successful foster system. Otherwise, the children suffer. These children did NOTHING WRONG to be in foster care, and they need all our help.