Thousands and thousands of children--almost half a million--are in foster care in the United States today. This amount is shocking, and it is overburdening the foster care grant program or grants for foster parents, which suffers from a scarcity of resources and a lack of training for foster parents. Many foster families report getting burnt out of the lack of support, and the resulting high turnover rate of foster parents puts more strain on an already overtaxed system and not as much focus on providing the stability that kids need during vulnerable times.
Olive Crest
Kinship House
Amara
Child Bridge
Strengthening communities is a key component to helping children in foster care grant. Nonprofits all across our area are doing their part to provide warm, secure and loving homes for children who need care and to support the families who care for them. When communities are strong and supportive, foster families may offer the best homes to children who need them the most, and kids can flourish to reach their entire potential or grants for foster parents.
Foster care grant
Here are just four Murdock Trust grants for foster parents doing life-changing work in the healthcare system.
Olive Crest
Olive Crest is dedicated to ensuring a strong family for every child by preventing child abuse, treating and educating at-risk kids and preserving the family. With locations in Bellevue and Tacoma, Washington, Olive Crest works with abused, neglected and at-risk children. It is the second most significant child placement agency in Washington, and its own Fostering Together program works to boost recruitment and retention of foster families to provide more secure and more loving homes to children in foster care grant.
The role of volunteers in organizations like Olive Crest is a significant one. Volunteers spend time together and provide support to biological parents and foster families, pick children up from school, supply essentials such as diapers and car seats, supply transport and recreational activities to children, and, most importantly, bring hope and encouragement to the lives they touch.
Kinship House
Nationally, 20 percent of all foster adoptions fail. Kinship House works with at-risk foster children in Oregon to deal with obstacles to placement in foster or adoptive families, especially focusing on mental health treatment. Kinship holds a special place in the children's mental health and foster care grant landscapes as it functions to transition youth to healthy, stable, permanent families through education and targeted treatment to the child, siblings, and the entire family. As a result, the disruption rate for children in Kinship's programs is only 1.5 percent.
Amara
Amara is committed to placing Seattle-area children in foster care with a loving and supportive family. Frequently, as a result of a dearth of tools to meet the requirements of a ballooning population of children needing foster care grant, children are taken to a police station, a caseworker's office or even a hotel room after only being removed from their own families. Amara recognized a dire need for youngsters to have a soft landing into foster care until they could locate the best long-term housing alternative and created its warm, safe, home-like atmosphere to welcome children. Amara extends a hand to children and doesn't let go until they are securely at a permanent residence.
Child Bridge
Child Bridge's assignment is unique in the country of Montana, focusing solely on recruitment, training, and supporting foster families for the nearly 3,500 children in the state in need of safe and loving homes. An important part of its programming is linking churches with foster families. Church members wrap their arms around foster households, providing child care, food, and other tangible support because when nurture families are well supported, they can offer a more secure and long-term atmosphere for kids or offer grants for foster parents.
The common thread that weaves through these nonprofits is your love and support offered to foster children and foster families, which is made possible by the powerful community surrounding them. The Murdock Trust invests in organizations working not just in foster care grant, but behavioral and mental health, home, afterschool educational programs, family services, youth development and also so many different arenas which work together to build strong communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. Find out more about the ways we spend in strengthening communities by checking out our grants for foster parents in Action series on the blog or browsing our Grants Awarded page.
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