What Your Church Can Do To Support Foster Care
Does your church want to support the foster parents, kids, and families in your community but don’t know where to start? The foster care system in America has over 420,000 kids in circulation on any given day. These children are in need of love and support, and your church can make a difference in the lives of foster kids in your community. With over 350,000 churches in America, each church that invests in foster care makes a difference in the life of foster kids.
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You may be asking yourself “what can my church do to support foster care?”
If you are feeling a call to care for foster families around your church, here are 5 ideas to help you get started on a foster care ministry.
Idea 1: Support Foster Families in Your Church
If you are wanting to invest in foster care with your church, it’s likely because you have foster care and adoption families in your congregation. Encourage your church to rally around those families and provide them with emotional, financial, and spiritual support. Covering needs like babysitting, providing meals, even doing household chores can support your foster families.
Every foster family has unique needs, so ask those in your church how you can best serve and support them and meet their needs. Consider creating support groups for these children and families.
Idea 2. Try CarePortal
There are immense needs in the foster care system outside of the families in your church. CarePortal is a tool that connects you to the immediate needs in your community and allows you to donate directly to the individuals who need it. Foster families share their needs for food, clothes, furniture and more, allowing you to tangibly see the impact of your donation.
CarePortal allows you to connect with those people directly and make a meaningful impact in the lives of foster mothers, fathers, and vulnerable children.
Step 3. Train Sunday School Teachers and Youth Ministers About the Needs of Foster Children
Children in the foster care system have a very high rate of trauma; nearly 90% of foster kids experience some form of trauma before or during their time in foster care. If you have foster children in your Sunday programming, your Sunday school teachers, youth and children’s pastors, and volunteers need to be trained on how to care for those kids.
Foster children training programs can help your foster children feel safe and welcome in your church.
Idea 4. Pray
James 1:27 says that we should “look after orphans and widows in their distress.” Organizing times of prayer for those involved in the foster system, including case workers, children, and parents is key to “taking up the cause of the fatherless”.
Encourage your congregation to pray for those involved in foster care, or consider praying publicly during your Sunday services or in small groups.
Idea 5. Host a Parent's Night Out
Parenting is a hard job, and the foster parents in your community are no exception to that. Giving your parents (and kids!) a fun night out can alleviate some of the stress and allow foster parents time to recoup and go on much needed date nights.
A parent’s night out event is also super easy to put on and can often be accomplished with the resources your local church already has. Games, crafts, snacks!
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Written in partnership with Reach The Lost.
