What is Foster Life?
Foster Life is a ministry that supports the children, families, and workers involved with foster care. This includes vulnerable children, caseworkers, and foster, kinship, adoptive, and biological families.
Children who are not safe in their home need to be removed and placed with a safe family where they can grow and heal while providing their biological families time and space to do the same. These children are placed either with a family member in what’s called a “kinship” placement, or with a licensed foster family. Unfortunately, there are not enough homes for the number of children that need them. And it’s very common for foster families to burn out under the overwhelming challenges that can come with fostering. Foster families that are supported are able to keep their homes open longer and provide a safe place for these precious children. Foster Life is a ministry that seeks to provide support and connect the church directly to these urgent needs in our community.
How can you get involved?
One way we support the foster care community is by helping to provide material needs, such as beds and clothes. We have the privilege of collecting and delivering the items directly to the family in need, which allows us to make a new connection. You can get involved by:
· Sign up to receive text alerts about material needs.
· Help deliver needed items to the families
Care Portal
Care Team
Another way we support the families is through care teams. A care team is a group of volunteers from the church who are assigned to a foster family to build a relationship with them and the children in their care by providing regular, practical support. Each care team looks different based on the needs of the family, but here are the many ways you could help:
· Provide a meal once per month
· Help regularly with childcare as an “alternate caregiver” (1-2x a month or less as needed by the family).
· Becoming a child mentor of a current child in foster care or a child that has been adopted (1-2x month).
· Be the Team Leader of a care team by overseeing the team and checking in regularly with a family.
· Helping with transportation of the children to appointments and visitation.
Lastly, we are starting a new kind of care team for biological families called a peer support team. This is a group of people who will walk alongside families to help them toward independence and stability by providing consistent, encouraging, Christ-centered relationships. This would look like:
· Build a relationship with the parent, communicating with them regularly, helping them stay on course to complete their case plan, and connecting them with community resources.
· Being the Team Leader, updating and coordinating the team, connecting them to the unique needs of the family.