Family Connection: Program Idea for Supporting Families impacted by the Foster Care System

By Holly Madden

Family Connection is a program that we built that created a safe space and supervision during parent-child visits for families who are working towards reunification in the foster care system. The majority of families inside the system are there for poverty -related stressors, with their greatest needs being access to resources and healthy support systems. This program idea uses the safe spaces inside of churches, non-profits, and house-like buildings run by these organizations to meet the gap of safe, comfortable, and private visits spaces, and trains community volunteers to provide not only supervision, but also relational support.

The foundation of this program is the belief that the church has always had a critical role supporting and loving on families experiencing crisis and it’s time that local churches are part of the solution of system reform across our nation.

This resource provides a training on how we built this program, worked with the child welfare system in our community, and sustained the program. Today, several churches and organizations have created similar programs to meet the needs inside their community!

We hope this resource provides tools and insights you can use to build a program to support families in your community and make it your own!