Americas

How Faith and Perseverance Led to Foster Care in Mexico

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning Lola* was just five months old when she first came to the orphanage in Chihuahua City, Mexico. At a time when most babies are cooing and giggling from affectionate games of peek-a-boo, Lola was already emotionally and psychologically scarred, struggling from the effects of extreme neglect. Over the next three years, there was little change for Lola, as the stable relationships she needed for healthy development were not met in an institutional setting. Simply put, Lola was suffering from the lack of a family. At 4 years old, Lola was finally [...]

How Faith and Perseverance Led to Foster Care in Mexico2024-01-10T13:04:35-05:00

Asking Why: One Important Question for Family Preservation

Tags: Community Strengthening A central question that those who care for vulnerable children must ask is “Why are children separated from their families?” Answering this fundamental question clarifies what interventions could be implemented or accessed to preserve and strengthen families, potentially preventing unnecessary separation of children from their parents in the first place. Children of the Promise’s (COTP) exploration of this question led them to develop unique programs that address the specific challenges facing families in a Northern Haiti community. In 1999, two Americans, Jan and Bud Bonnema, went on a short-term mission trip to [...]

Asking Why: One Important Question for Family Preservation2024-01-10T14:04:27-05:00

Students Connecting Theory to Practice in Costa Rica

Tags: Community Strengthening In April 2017, eight students accompanied Dr. Greg Burch, a professor at Multnomah University, to Costa Rica for a unique 12-day course. Students met with child welfare practitioners from a variety of local organizations, including Casa Viva and Roblealto Child Care Association, who represent best practice models along the continuum of care for children. Each day combined lectures, visits to organizations, and cultural activities. Dr. Burch describes the class as an “opportunity to connect theory to practice.” This year marked the third cohort of students from the undergraduate Global Studies program and [...]

Students Connecting Theory to Practice in Costa Rica2024-01-10T13:56:14-05:00

The Bond That Forms: Empowering Women with Lifesaving Maternal Care

Tags: Community Strengthening A weekly visit, a nutritious meal and the deepening of relationships. Over nine months, trust builds and a bond forms—a bond with the women who stand by her side, who hold her hand, who breathe with her, and help her bring her baby into this world safely. After the calamity and torrent of giving birth, then there is the peace—the peace of time, the peace of space, the peace of bonding and nurturing this new life. These are all luxuries afforded pregnant women and new mothers in many parts of the world, but [...]

The Bond That Forms: Empowering Women with Lifesaving Maternal Care2024-01-10T13:55:03-05:00

Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children

Tags: Adoption | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Best practice in caring for orphaned and vulnerable children indicates the need for a continuum of care options for children currently living in—or at risk of being sent to—institutions. While a growing number of ministry leaders, practitioners, and researchers agree that children are best cared for within families, the question of what type of family placement setting looms large. One child may have living parents with whom they can reunite, while another may have no trace of a family. It is God’s inherent love for every child that [...]

Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children2024-01-10T14:21:42-05:00

The Threshold Is a Sacred Space: The Casa Viva Story

The story of Casa Viva is a story of children, family, and the local church. As the founders, we can see that it stretches from our childhood summers visiting grandparents in Nebraska to our present work in Costa Rica caring for children through local families and the local church. We are well aware that our parents created homes that were safe and delightful. Our memory of family when we were children is deep and rich. Our motivation to get involved with the issues facing children and families around the world is embedded in the collective past of our strong [...]

The Threshold Is a Sacred Space: The Casa Viva Story2024-01-10T23:42:12-05:00

Casa Viva: Family as Sacred Space

Tags: Economic Empowerment For a child, there is no substitute for the lively discussion, the eye contact, the emotional support, and the affection that take place within families. Jill Aspegren, Co-Executive Director of Casa Viva, offers a compelling appeal to care for children who have been separated from their families: “The time has come for the local church to learn again the ancient art of hospitality—to welcome the guest in the name of Christ. Children know when they have entered the home of a real family—the threshold is a sacred space.” Prior to Casa Viva, Jill and [...]

Casa Viva: Family as Sacred Space2024-01-10T23:45:52-05:00

Foster Care in Panama: Our Journey

Tags: Foster Care Growing up in the U.S. I dreamed of moving to Africa to start an orphanage. But I met and married my husband at a young age, and in 2008 we moved to Panama City, Panama, with our then three-year-old daughter. Our new Panamanian church had a volunteer program that involved holding babies and playing with children in local orphanages. When I signed up I didn’t know anything about institutionalization (what a mouthful), attachment disorder, or alternative care. It didn’t take more than a few visits to see the children were not thriving. [...]

Foster Care in Panama: Our Journey2024-01-17T17:20:15-05:00

Potter’s House: Transformation Through Livelihood Strengthening

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment In the garbage dumps of Guatemala, children are born and raised in an environment that can impede human flourishing. They grow up in the middle of society’s waste, which makes it difficult to see a future beyond the desolation. In this community, family culture encourages partnering and starting a family of their own when they reach adolescence, with many children leaving formal education behind by age 12. It is not uncommon for 14-year-olds to begin living with a girlfriend or boyfriend; marriage rituals are rarely celebrated and it is the general [...]

Potter’s House: Transformation Through Livelihood Strengthening2024-01-17T17:16:37-05:00

Bright Hope: Providing Family Support through Church Partnership

Tags:  Community Strengthening Children grow best in families. This is true whether a child is born into great wealth or extreme poverty. However, in far too many communities around the world, it is poverty that is preventing children from growing up in the care of a family. Poverty is a driving force that pushes children into orphanages or thrusts them out into a life on the streets, creating social orphans and vulnerable children. Fortunately, local churches and faith-based NGOs around the world are partnering together and responding to the needs of these children in the [...]

Bright Hope: Providing Family Support through Church Partnership2024-01-17T17:33:40-05:00

Family First: A Global Partnership Between Roblealto and Bethany Community Church

Tags:  Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Roblealto Child Care Association puts families at the forefront of its work with vulnerable children in San Jose, Costa Rica. Roblealto supports a holistic approach to restore at-risk children to loving and supportive relationships with their parents and provides resources for parents to achieve self-sufficiency for their families. Roblealto’s programs include four child care centers throughout San Jose, group homes, and a youth alumni group to support and empower youth leaving their programs. Child care centers seek to prevent separation of children from their families and strengthen family support [...]

Family First: A Global Partnership Between Roblealto and Bethany Community Church2024-01-17T17:28:29-05:00

Bethany Christian Services Announces New Program in Haiti

Bethany Global, a division of Bethany Christian Services (BCS), announced the launch of social services in Haiti that will serve and support foster care. Partnering with a local church in Port-Au-Prince, Bethany is currently recruiting families to undergo its rigorous foster care training program, and anticipates serving 60 children by summer 2016. In spring 2014, Bethany launched a small project in Haiti called Operation Exodus, working with vulnerable families living in the tent cities around Port-Au-Prince. This project serves to strengthen families through economic and psychosocial support. Relocation to safe housing is a priority, but so is financial sustainability, [...]

Bethany Christian Services Announces New Program in Haiti2024-01-17T19:37:48-05:00

La Providencia: A Lifelong Commitment to Care

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Economic Empowerment Anthony’s* feet swung from the chair, hardly touching the floor. He was eager to talk and happily answered the government-appointed psychiatrist’s questions, unmindful that he was being evaluated. She asked him to draw a picture of where he lived and who lived with him. He drew a picture of his house with a mom and a dad and himself along with six children. The fact that the government considered him an “orphan” wasn’t apparent to him. In his mind, he had a family that loved him and his [...]

La Providencia: A Lifelong Commitment to Care2024-01-17T18:05:32-05:00

Fostering Hope in Guatemala

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment In Guatemala, when a child becomes an orphan, is a victim of abuse or exploitation, or is separated from family-based care, the primary response, historically, has been to place that child in a residential care facility. In 2013, UNICEF reported that 5,800 Guatemalan children were living in orphanages with large disparities of caregivers and children. Unfortunately, research shows that there are long-term, and sometimes permanent, negative effects institutional care can have on a child physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Buckner International, a Christian organization working [...]

Fostering Hope in Guatemala2024-01-17T17:56:19-05:00

Project RED: Empowering Families for Abundant Lives

Tags: Community Strengthening El Salvador is the most densely populated country in Latin America and has the unfortunate standing as one of the world’s most violent countries. With this reality comes widespread poverty and a breakdown of the family structure across society. Publicly funded programs and an adequate protection system to ensure the wellbeing of children simply do not exist. In 2009, upheaval once again become a reality for orphans living in institutions, with the introduction of a new law called Law for Integral Child and Adolescent Protection (LEPINA), which is drawn from the UN Convention of [...]

Project RED: Empowering Families for Abundant Lives2024-01-17T17:43:46-05:00

The GO Exchange: Creating Jobs, Giving Hope, Strengthening Families

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Makilene was an unemployed mother of six and living in extreme poverty in Haiti. She realized over time that she could no longer care for all her children, so she faced the heartbreaking decision to give up her youngest child and took her child and traveled to Port-Au-Prince. She had heard about a woman named Shelley Clay who helps children. Makilene thought she was knocking on the door of an orphanage for her infant daughter when she arrived in Port-Au-Prince, but a very different opportunity awaited her — one with hope [...]

The GO Exchange: Creating Jobs, Giving Hope, Strengthening Families2024-01-17T19:12:59-05:00

Pioneering Foster Care in Peru

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment In May 2007, Buckner Peru and Peru's National Comprehensive Family Welfare Program (INABIF) signed an agreement to develop a foster care program. On March 10, 2008, Buckner Peru made history when officials from the Ministry of Women and Social Development and Buckner placed eight Peruvian children into the country’s first foster families. Prior to this significant event, there was no foster care in Peru. Nearly seven years later, children are thriving in families in ways that would have been unknown to them without the foster care option. Their foster [...]

Pioneering Foster Care in Peru2024-01-17T19:06:30-05:00
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