The Knowles: Orphan Care Ministries: Foster Care (Part 2)

I didn't want my first post to get too long but I also didn't want to leave out these other ways to get involved. So here are a few more great ways to volunteer to help children in the foster care system. I hope by sharing about some of these organizations this month it will help you find a program that resonates with your heart and connects with your talents and gifts.
-Become a?CASA Volunteer?(Court Appointed Special Advocates)
www.becomeacasa.org is a great website to find out more about becoming a CASA volunteer. The following is a short description from their website about how you can make a difference through this program.?
CASA volunteers get to know the child and speak to everyone involved in the child?s life, including their family members, teachers, doctors, lawyers, social workers, and others.?The information they gather and their recommendations help the court make informed decisions. CASA volunteers commit to a child until the case is closed and the child is in a safe, permanent home.?CASA volunteers offer children a consistent helping hand to guide them through the foster care system and a strong voice advocating on their behalf.? As a result, children represented by CASA are more likely to:

• receive the services and resources they and their families need;
• maintain stable placements while in foster care;
• avoid the court system once their case is dismissed.

-Many churches will have Christmas tree angel projects in the coming weeks where you can choose a paper angel off the tree and buy gifts for that child. This is also a great way to help your own children understand what other children are going through and to help them build a healthy narrative about foster children and adopted children. My friend Catie recently wrote a short devotional for families to use in praying for orphans and teaching children about orphan care. -Become a respite care provider or get certified to babysit for a foster family.?Respite care providers offer short term care (usually a weekend) for foster families enabling them to take a short break or if they are going on vacation out of the state (most foster children are wards of the state and can not leave their home state). Respite care is a huge blessing to foster families and helps them do what they do without getting burned out.

-Become a mentor or tutor for a child in foster care. Children of all ages are in need of adults that will invest in their lives. Two programs that help mentor teenagers who are aging out of foster care (and may not have any family support in the next stage of life) are the Foster Care to Success Program?and The Purple Project. Also,?Big Brothers, Big Sisters is a well known organization that has a mentorship program for children of all ages.

-Talk to a foster family you know and ask how you can help meet their family's and foster children's needs this holiday season. Make them a meal, help buy Christmas gifts, or maybe even give them a monetary donation that will help pay for a foster child's special interest like piano lessons or swim team fees. -Volunteer for a local group home. If you are in Birmingham,?Grace House?is a great group home that I have done a lot with, the girls there are always so appreciative and they love Mason. Most states also have a Baptist Children's Home that is a group home for foster children. There are so many others too but those two came to mind first. ?Many of them have mentoring programs, or you could fundraise for a specific need, or coordinate a holiday party for the kids or teens at the home, or even help with maintenance and care of their facilities.

-To find out more about becoming a foster parent or respite care provider, a great first step is attending an informational meeting in your area just to find out more about it. Here is a list of links by state.??If you live in the Birmingham area, I recommend going to one of Lifeline's informational meetings to learn more about their partnership with local agencies and the training they provide.

Feel free to share in the comments other ways that you are involved in caring for children in foster care. I'm SURE I am forgetting something! :)

My next posts will be about orphan care on a global scale through child sponsorship, adoption, fair trade purchases, and similar avenues.

Source: http://jeremyandheatherknowles.blogspot.com/2012/11/orphan-care-ministries-foster-care-part.html

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