Faith Community Partnerships
impacting outcomes one child at a timeFaith Communities can directly impact the lives of kids in foster care and the foster, kinship, and adoptive families who care for them. Faith communities are in a unique position to care for the vulnerable kids and families in our communities. Starting with a willingness to serve, each faith community can find their specific niche of service. Some will serve birth families, others may focus on foster families, kinship families, youth aging out of care, child welfare workers or trauma response. VKB empowers faith communities to develop a unique response that fits the identity of their organization.
Why Should Faith Leaders Get Connected?
people of faith are called to careFoster care is an upstream issue.
People in your faith community already care.
People of faith are twice as likely to adopt and three times more likely to consider fostering than the general population.
Justice, mercy and grace are universal themes.
Foster care is a non-partisan, unifying issue.
Not all are called to be foster or adopt,
but EVERYONE can do something to END the foster care crisis
WRAP Support
NO ONE SHOULD FOSTER ALONERaising someone else's child is hard! No one should try to do it without a strong community of support. At VKB we call this WRAP.
WRAP support changes everything. While the model was developed through clinical research, people of compassion and faith will recognize it as the commandment to "love your neighbor." Faith Communities are predisposed to care for others. WRAP invites deeper connections and support as foster and kinship families help children find safety, stability and healing.
Faith Communities provide one on one support for foster, adoptive and kinship families within their membership. Through VKB's Connected Communities, Faith Communities can unite with other community leaders to serve more families. Through collective impact Faith Communities directly and indirectly create positive change in their localities.
Examples of WRAP
How it Works in Real Life- A small group painting and prepping a bedroom in advance of a child being placed in a new foster or kinship home.
- Buying new clothes for a foster family to hang in their child's room for when they first arrive.
- A meal train being orchestrated for a family when they get a placement.
- Someone coming by and mowed a family's lawn after a hard week.
- Someone babysitting for the birth kids so a foster mom can bond with her new child.
- A faith network offering Caregiver Nights' Out to provide respite for weary parents.
- A faith network sponsoring events and support groups to allow parents to interact and find comfort and encouragement.
- Someone coming over to do laundry, clean the house, spend time listening, and more!