Our goal is to create a culture of awareness and understanding around the foster and adoptive community. Whether we are foster parents, have adopted, are a financial partner, or donate our time and resources, we each play a part of this community. To make it easier for you to find your role in this community, we have provided helpful resources and some educational tools.
Welcome to the team!
Resources
You have gifts, personality traits, and experiences that make you who you are. But, how do these best fit into the many different pieces of the foster care system? We’ve grouped these gifts, personality traits, and experiences into the 7 “faces” of foster care engagement. Chances are that more than one, or even several, will describe facets of who you are.
Find Your Fit
You care about kids in foster care. You want your church and other churches in the community to take action, but you’re not sure where to start.
Growing A Foster Care Movement In Your Community
Check out what is going on in your region
Program-In-A-Box
Honoring foster, adoptive, and kinship families by treating the parents to a couple of kid-free hours while their children are cared for by a volunteer team to provide a safe, structured, and fun environment. This single-day event is a great entry level way for members of your church to volunteer together while providing some much needed respite to our network of families! In your “Parent’s Night Out Kit” you will find resources, documents, and suggustions that will make your next PNO a huge success!
Parent’s Night Out Kit
Giving Tree
Each holiday season, Help One Child requests Christmas wish lists from at-risk children and coordinate with donors who choose an ornament depicting a child’s first name, age, gender, and wished-for. The donor attaches the ornament as the gift tag and returns it to their church or workplace, that in turn delivers them to Help One Child.
Giving Tree Kit
Camper Drive
Equip the campers who attend our Signs of Hope Camp with new necessities that are often forgotten or not provided. The kids love their Welcome-to-Camp care package that consists of a towel, bathing suit, flip flops, PJ’s and a sweatshirt. We often have kids who show up without a few of these items. This is one way we can ensure no one misses out on the fun activities due to lack of resources. Churches can sponsor by cabin or specific number of donations.
Camper Drive Kit
Christmas Pary
Transforms your church into a child’s Christmas Wonderland with decked out halls and rooms of carnival games and intricate arts and crafts. When the families arrive, live music and carols greet them. Santa brings presents and poses with foster families for a Christmas photo. The kitchen is filled with the smell of roast turkey as volunteers lay out a seasonal feast. Foster children dress in Christmas pageant costumes and present the story of Christ’s coming to an auditorium of families and volunteers.
Easter Eggstravaganza
To celebrate our Risen Savior with a fun Easter themed festival that families can enjoy together. In years past, this includes lunch, games with prizes, a petting zoo, story reading, egg decorating, and an egg hunt.
Mother’s Day Brunch
To honor and celebrate the Mothers who have opened their homes and hearts to foster, adopted, and kinship children with a nice brunch. It is a time for reflection, inspiration and renewal as moms share written prayer requests and praises. Childcare is also provided.
November is Adoption Month
Highlight and bring awareness to the cause and to celebrate those who have expanded their home. Involvement and frequency may look different for each church/ministry.
May is Foster Care Awareness Month
“The training and education by Help One Child helped me to grow in empathy and compassion for the children I would be serving. It provided a foundation of knowledge about how the trauma the children have experienced impacts the way they relate to people. It also prepared me for how I can care for a child with compassion and kindness.”
Daniel Ong (Support Group Volunteer and Camp Counselor)
