Allison Coble, Author at Faith to Action

Houston Church Supports Families in Guatemala

Tags: Community Strengthening, Transitioning Guest post by Toni Steere, Director of Legacy 68:5 at Houston's First Baptist Church For Houston’s First Baptist Church, the journey to supporting family-based care for orphaned and vulnerable children began with a simple conversation. Legacy 68:5, the adoptive, foster, kinship and orphan care ministry of Houston’s First Baptist Church is committed to providing a supportive community and financial resources for local families pursuing adoption, foster care, or kinship care as well as entities serving the vulnerable globally. Over the last 15 years Legacy 68:5 has been on a wild learning [...]

Houston Church Supports Families in GuatemalaAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:58:14-05:00

Organizations Implore Prioritizing Family Care to Support Ukrainian Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, April 14, 2022 Contact: Heather Douglass SAN FRANCISCO, April 14, 2022 — The Faith to Action Initiative and members of its coalition today implored those working on the ground in and around Ukraine to prioritize providing family-strengthening-focused support to the children and families impacted by the current crisis. “The loss and trauma that the people of Ukraine are experiencing are unimaginable. As millions of children lose their homes and the lives they knew, there is an urgent need to provide support to keep them in families where they can be loved and find hope, said Karmen Friesen, [...]

Organizations Implore Prioritizing Family Care to Support Ukrainian ChildrenAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:59:39-05:00

Ukraine Response

During this challenging time in Ukraine, it is important to help families in crisis stay together and make sure children in residential care are provided for and safe. Below are a few organizations who are supporting vulnerable children and families in Ukraine. A Family for Every Orphan Catholic Relief Services Hope and Homes Lifesong for Orphans Lumos Orphan Outreach Orphans Promise Samaritans Purse Tearfund World Without Orphans World Vision For those working in or around Ukraine, please see the following guidance. Critical Considerations for Movement of Children During [...]

Ukraine ResponseAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:53:03-05:00

Christian Child-Focused Organizations Urge International Leaders to Invest In Family Strengthening In Response to New COVID Orphans Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, February 24, 2022 Contact: Heather Douglass Christian Child-Focused Organizations Urge International Leaders to Invest In Family Strengthening In Response to New COVID Orphans Report SAN FRANCISCO — The Faith to Action Initiative and members of its coalition today urged individuals, churches, and international leaders to support family and community strengthening efforts in response to the latest global child welfare report from The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, “More than 5.2 Million Children Affected by Global Surges in COVID-Associated Orphanhood and Caregiver Death.” The new report reveals that an estimated 5.2 million children worldwide have lost a primary or secondary caregiver due [...]

Christian Child-Focused Organizations Urge International Leaders to Invest In Family Strengthening In Response to New COVID Orphans ReportAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:00:16-05:00

Keeping Families Together During the Pandemic

Tags: Community Strengthening COVID-19 brought increased strain on poor families around the world as they struggled with the secondary impacts of closed schools, shut down businesses, and more. Families who were already vulnerable have plunged into desperation. Fortunately, there are organizations who are responding to the growing need and sharing hope in the process.Som is from a very poor tribe in Northern Thailand. When she was a young girl, only 13 years old, her parents sent her to the city to make money to support the family. But Som was tricked by her new employer, as [...]

Keeping Families Together During the PandemicAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:01:21-05:00

Christian International Child Welfare Organizations React to CDC Report on COVID Orphans

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, July 20, 2021 Contact: D.J. Jordan Christian International Child Welfare Organizations React to CDC Report on COVID Orphans Faith To Action Initiative Members Call on Christians To Invest In Efforts to Strengthen Families Around The World SEATTLE, WA - The Faith to Action Initiative and several of its coalition members today released statements on a new global child welfare report entitled, Children: The Hidden Pandemic 2021, which details the number of children worldwide who have lost a caregiver to COVID-19. The report shows that by the end of April 2021, 1.5 million children had lost a [...]

Christian International Child Welfare Organizations React to CDC Report on COVID OrphansAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:02:56-05:00

From Abandoned to Transformed: New Case Study on Residential Care vs. Family Care Outcomes

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care It was the dogs that alerted him, their barking incessant and irritating, drawing him toward the small bundle they encircled. What had gotten into them? He shooed them away, bending low to see why they were agitated. Shocked, he saw a newborn, tiny chest heaving with every breath, his body listless. The hospital said the baby suffered from sepsis, a severe infection, treatable with antibiotics. After a brief hospital stay, the infant was brought to a crisis nursery run by Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE) Zambia, where nurses, social [...]

From Abandoned to Transformed: New Case Study on Residential Care vs. Family Care OutcomesAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:06:41-05:00

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 MexicoAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:04:35-05:00

4 Keys to Building Up Family Care When it Seems Impossible

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening As the body of Christ, we are called to be advocates for orphans and vulnerable children. But what happens when we find ourselves living or working with those that don’t necessarily value the importance of family-based care? We asked HaTikva Families, a Messianic Jewish nonprofit that is pioneering the movement for family care in Israel, what advice they would give to others trying to engage communities in similarly complex environments. 1. Understand the context “We must have a solid foundation of understanding the current system we want [...]

4 Keys to Building Up Family Care When it Seems ImpossibleAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:03:55-05:00

Imagining a Different Story for Sofia and Marta

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment By Nicole Wilke Sofia* was just five years old when her mom left her home unsupervised for the first time. Her dad had left the family and had no contact. Her mom was forced to work long hours at a factory. Until recently, Sofia and her two-year-old sister, Marta*, had spent the hours away from their mom with an elderly neighbor. It wasn’t a perfect arrangement, but they were safe and she let them come for free. When their childcare provider passed away, there were no affordable childcare [...]

Imagining a Different Story for Sofia and MartaAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:39:10-05:00

How churches can learn from past viral crisis in responding to vulnerable children

This article originally appeared in The Christian Post. As coronavirus spreads across the world, many are warning of the potential catastrophic consequences in poor countries with little infrastructure and few resources. Recent media reports from India have highlighted the challenges for the nearly 1 billion adults and children living in overcrowded slums and more attention on developing countries are expected to increase in coming weeks. World Vision recently released a report showing, “Secondary impacts will threaten many more children’s lives than COVID-19 itself.” Major funders, such as the World Bank and U.S. government, are now providing billions to help developing countries. Children in [...]

How churches can learn from past viral crisis in responding to vulnerable childrenAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:11:47-05:00

Why Invest in a Strong Global Missions Partnership?

Tags: Community Strengthening Global mission partnerships can be challenging for both the U.S church and the local ministries. Recently Faith to Action was able to interview two partners who have journeyed together to strengthen families for three years to learn about their experience working together. Faith Lutheran Church is located in Appleton, Wisconsin and Puerto Abajo CarePoint supports families through medical care, counseling, after school programs, and much more in Guatemala. Tell us about your ministry before this partnership: Faith Lutheran Church: In the past, our congregation never had a single international mission focus. [...]

Why Invest in a Strong Global Missions Partnership?Allison Coble2024-01-10T13:09:57-05:00

YWAM Challenges Missions Goers to “Love Wisely”

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening Every year, around 1500 individuals from all over the world descend on Youth With a Mission’s biggest training base located in Kona, Hawaii. Youth With a Mission, or YWAM (pronounced “why wam”) as it is commonly called, is an international volunteer missions movement and one of the biggest short-term missions-sending organizations in the world. In 2017, a small group of YWAM volunteers came across ACCI’s KINNECTED resources regarding best practices in supporting vulnerable children during short-term missions. They learned research shows the majority of children in orphanages are not actually orphans, [...]

YWAM Challenges Missions Goers to “Love Wisely”Allison Coble2024-01-10T13:12:11-05:00

Christians are Shifting Support to Family Strengthening

*This article originally appeared in the Better Care Network November 2019 Newsletter The global church plays a vital role in care reform, as perhaps the largest group of direct providers of care to children and significant funders of residential care. Over decades Christians have unknowingly played a role in the unnecessary separation of children from families every time they built, visited or funded orphanages. However, since the development of the UN Guidelines on Alternative Care, there has been increased momentum to support quality family care for vulnerable children. We are seeing responsible reintegration of children and transitions of [...]

Christians are Shifting Support to Family StrengtheningAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:12:14-05:00

A Kenyan’s First Thanksgiving: Reflections on His Domestic Adoption

Tags: Adoption For the first time, I’m going to be in the United States during Thanksgiving. In my country Kenya, the only holiday that attracts the kind of excitement I have witnessed would be Christmas and to a lesser extent Easter holiday. In the midst of all the excitement, I have found myself reflecting about what I am thankful for. What is it that I am thankful to God at this point in my life? This is my first semester at the University of Toledo and of course I am thankful for the opportunity [...]

A Kenyan’s First Thanksgiving: Reflections on His Domestic AdoptionAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:11:17-05:00

For One Church, Orphan Ministry Isn’t an Orphanage!

Tags: Community Strengthening A banner hangs on the wall in Christ Our Shepherd Church that reads, “My House will be called a House of Prayer for all Nations” (Mark 11:17). This is a commitment that this 300-person congregation in Southeast Washington, DC takes very seriously. So when members of the congregation came to the church in 2009 and informed us about the needs in Mongolia and work of Light of the World Church, we could not help but pay attention. We began a relationship of support and prayer that has seen the some of [...]

For One Church, Orphan Ministry Isn’t an Orphanage!Allison Coble2024-01-10T14:10:27-05:00

From Orphanage Volunteer to Family Care Advocate!

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment I’m privileged to have recently joined Faith to Action as the Director of Engagement, eager to step into a critical role of equipping churches, organizations, and individuals with information about the importance of family-based care. As I reflect on all that has prepared me for this role, I’m honored to tell the story of how I began my journey of caring about vulnerable children. In 2006, fresh out of college, feeling called to “do more” and utilize my time and (limited) talent to care for vulnerable children, [...]

From Orphanage Volunteer to Family Care Advocate!Allison Coble2024-01-10T14:09:19-05:00

6 Ways Churches Can Use Short-Term Missions to Promote Family-Based Care

Tags: Community Strengthening Many churches are choosing to move toward a missions program that supports family-based care for orphans and vulnerable children. Grace Church, based in Noblesville, Indiana, is demonstrating this shift through their partnership with the Ethiopian nonprofit Berhan Yehun. Their partnership is a wonderful example of how a short-term missions program based on best practices can take a family-strengthening approach.Grace Church believes that the best place for a child is in the family. Caring for the vulnerable is a central tenet of their missions work, so when they learned about the ways poverty can [...]

6 Ways Churches Can Use Short-Term Missions to Promote Family-Based CareAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:06:12-05:00

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 PreservationAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:04:27-05:00

Trips that Create Advocates for Family Care

Tags: Community Strengthening Why read about family-based care when there is an opportunity to see and hear about it firsthand? Children in Families, a local Cambodian NGO, has created a program they call Rok Kern. Rok Kern is a Khmer phrase meaning “to come and see,” and that is exactly what they invite participants to do. Aligning with many of the principles discussed in Faith to Action’s Short Term Missions: Guidance to Support Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Rok Kern trips inspire participants to become family-based care advocates. Children in Families spent much of 2017 piloting [...]

Trips that Create Advocates for Family CareAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:04:08-05:00

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About Allison Coble