FAITH-BASED ADOPTIVE/FOSTER SERVICES:
FAITH COMMUNITIES’ ROLES IN CHILD WELFARE
Prepared for the Annie E. Casey Foundation
by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture,
University of Southern California
John B. Orr, Senior Research Associate
Grace Roberts Dyrness, Director of Community Research and Development
Peter W. Spoto, Researcher, USC School of Religion
“The nation’s Abrahamic faith communities—Christianity, Judaism, Islam—share a prophetic
tradition that promotes social justice advocacy, community organizing, and, also, the
delivery of human services for isolated, vulnerable, and politically weak populations.
Some expressions of this prophetic tradition, ironically, appear to be almost conservative—
i.e., when they supplement and extend a social welfare system that is already in place and
that is admittedly flawed. Their services often aim to make this system “work better”—in
supplementing the services that can be offered by public agencies; in humanizing the
interaction between participants and public agencies; in recruiting participants; and in
providing day-to-day support services for these participants.
Just as often—hopefully—faith-based spokespersons for the nation’s prophetic tradition
point out that even well-intended publicly-sponsored welfare services produce injustice.
They formulate and advocate needed changes in the laws and administrative policies that
guide public social programs. They pressure public agency officials to revise their missions
and/or to reshape their service strategies. They experiment with alternative service delivery
models.
In relation to public agencies that serve foster/adoptive children and families, faith
communities typically perform the following “value-added” roles.
· They recruit foster/adoptive parent candidates. In Los Angeles, for example,
ChildShare, a faith-based foster/adoptive parenting organization, actively recruits
foster/adoptive parents in congregations, often by issuing “biblically-based
invitations” during worship services. It uses staff members and volunteers to recruit
in Latino, African-American, and Asian-American congregations. Recently its reach
has extended to hearing-impaired congregations. It attempts to locate
foster/adoptive parents who adhere to a child’s own faith tradition. It tries to locate
foster/adoptive parents in a child’s own community.
Nationally, faith communities have established networks of organizations that recruit
foster/adoptive parents and then connect these recruits with public agencies to
assure that legal requirements are met. Examples: Catholic Adoptive Services,
Presbyterian Children’s Homes, Christian Child and Family Services Association
(Churches of Christ), the Salvation Army, Jewish Family Services, Lydia Home
Association (Evangelical Free Church of America), and an extensive system of
Southern Baptist state-based foster/adoptive organizations.
· They provide support services for foster/adoptive families in their own and other
congregations. Encouraged by ChildShare, FosterHope, Catholic Family Services,
Jewish Family Services and other similar faith-based organizations, congregations
offer support groups for foster/adoptive parents, respite child care services, food and
clothing, transportation, and sometimes even financial assistance. Fellow 2
congregation members send cards and flowers to celebrate the contributions of
foster/adoptive parents. They offer prayer support.
· They offer mentoring relationships for families, youth, and children who are at-risk.
Faith communities have a long history of mentoring services through organizations
such as Catholic Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Jewish Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Now
with the cooperation of these organizations, they are expanding mentoring
relationships to the children of prisoners and to children who are in danger of being
removed into the foster care system.
· They provide specialized family support service agencies for at-risk families and
children. Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic communities have constructed an
extensive network of shelters, multi-service agencies, specialized human service
agencies, clinics, and community centers that collaborate with public agencies.
While many of these are subsidized by public grants, they depend heavily on
monetary gifts, in-kind contributions, and volunteer hours from members of faith
communities. These organizations significantly expand the pool of crisis intervention
services that are available in urban low-income neighborhoods. They are often
perceived by residents as “neighborhood-based”—a perception, according to many
national and local studies, that reduces the fears of residents who are often wary of
public institutions.
· They participate in regional/city/neighborhood coalitions that try to assure a
continuum of care for at-risk families and children. Faith-service organizations
cooperate with other private sector welfare agencies, public welfare agencies,
universities, and congregations in informal and incorporated coalitions that expand
and reinforce each other’s contributions. For example, Project Hope in Los Angeles
has created a coalition that tries to assure that at-risk families have access to
needed family support services. The San Fernando Interfaith Council cooperates
with a large number of public and private agencies in their services for at-risk
families. Now that Council is making plans to participate contractually in a publiclyoperated
mall of family services that will be built in Los Angeles’ San Fernando
Valley.
· They put pressure on public agencies and legislative bodies to humanize
foster/adoptive strategies that are experienced as unjust. In California, for example,
the faith-based Faith Communities for Families and Children, which is associated
with the California Youth Law Center, actively opposes current public policy that
provides financial incentives for at-risk children to be placed in the foster care. Public
policy, they argue, is shaped by the fact that child welfare systems rely heavily on
federal funds that are directed toward children who are removed from their unstable
homes. The organization dramatizes abuses in Los Angeles County’s foster care
system, and calls for broad-scale reform—at least for the formulation of a
demonstration project, which, over a five year period of time, would test family
preservation theory.”
To read the full research study visit: http://www.fostercaremonth.org/GetInvolved/Toolkit/Support/Documents/Faith-based_Report.pdf
