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So far Allison Coble has created 169 blog entries.

CAFO Webinar on Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Launching & Leading an Orphan Care Ministry in Your Church

This Wednesday, August 31st, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will host a webinar entitled, "Three Principles to Consider & Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Launching and Leading an Orphan Care Ministry in Your Church." The goal of your ministry is sustainability, not speed. It's not necessarily to do many things as much as it's about doing the right things. The needs of vulnerable children and families are overwhelming and the opportunities to engage are endless. However, as a leader, how do we prioritize the key objectives of our ministry? How do we build in safeguards that keep us focused [...]

CAFO Webinar on Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Launching & Leading an Orphan Care Ministry in Your Church2024-01-17T17:05:43-05:00

Listening Hearts. Shifting Focus. Five Tips for Hurdling Over Alternative Orphan Care Conversation Starters

Watching the Olympics, I find myself mesmerized by the skill, timing, and rhythm of the hurdlers. With ease, they keep their momentum moving forward until the finish line is in sight. But what happens when their tempo is suddenly interrupted by an injury or when another athlete unexpectedly comes into their lane? They fall down—sometimes in pain or defeat. Have you ever felt like you are stumbling over a hurdle when talking to someone about a topic that is important to you? Even if you think you know the perfect conversation starter, awkward silence, unsure words, and feeling unprepared in [...]

Listening Hearts. Shifting Focus. Five Tips for Hurdling Over Alternative Orphan Care Conversation Starters2024-01-10T23:50:06-05:00

CAFO Webinar on Basic Principles of Monitoring and Evaluation

This Wednesday, August 10th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will continue their monthly webinar series, Knowledge + Practice. These webinars translate research into actionable information that OVC care practitioners can implement immediately to elevate the quality of the care they provide. This eighth webinar in the series is called “Basic Principles of Monitoring and Evaluation: Measuring Effectiveness” from 2-3pm Eastern. A child's wellbeing is significantly linked to the quality of care he or she receives.  But how do we know if care is quality?  How do we know whether the vision we have outlined is truly being accomplished in [...]

CAFO Webinar on Basic Principles of Monitoring and Evaluation2024-01-17T17:09:15-05:00

Heaven’s Family: A Story of Donor Transformation

Tags: Transitioning “I’d rather work in the fields of my village with my own family than live in an orphanage,” explained a Burmese girl to Philip Barker, Director of Heaven’s Family UK. She was the very first child Philip met in Myanmar (Burma) eight years ago when he visited orphanages as a child sponsor through the organization’s Orphan’s Tear Ministry. Her sentiment—along with the ever-expanding body of research on family-based care—is what compelled Heaven’s Family to radically change their approach to caring for vulnerable children. Heaven’s Family, a Christian missions organization with offices in the [...]

Heaven’s Family: A Story of Donor Transformation2024-01-17T17:09:05-05:00

Launch of New Report on Cash Transfers Promoting Social Protection Work for Children’s Care

Last week Family for Every Child, in partnership with the Centre for Social Protection at the Institute for Development Studies, launched a new report on the relationship between cash transfers and protection of children by families. The research, jointly produced by Family for Every Child’s member organizations Uyisenga Ni Imanzi (Rwanda), Challenging Heights (Ghana) and Children in Distress Network (South Africa), shows that effective high-quality governmental cash transfer programs can improve children’s well-being, protection and care by their families. It also shows that poorly designed cash transfer schemes can do more harm than good. In order for cash transfers [...]

Launch of New Report on Cash Transfers Promoting Social Protection Work for Children’s Care2024-01-17T17:10:12-05:00

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

CAFO Webinar on Caring for Caregivers

Tomorrow, Wednesday, July 20th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will continue their monthly webinar series, Knowledge + Practice. These webinars translate research into actionable information that OVC care practitioners can implement immediately to elevate the quality of the care they provide. This seventh webinar in the series is called “Caring for Caregivers: A Critical Component of Improving Child Wellbeing” from 2-3pm Eastern.  Research and common knowledge both suggest that the most influential relationship in a child's life is with his or her caregiver.  A strong caregiver relationship can limit the effects of trauma, increase a child's confidence and independence, [...]

CAFO Webinar on Caring for Caregivers2024-01-17T17:19:20-05:00

Gatekeeping in Thailand: Reinforcing God’s Design for Family and Protecting Children

Tags: Economic Empowerment Along the Thai-Burma border are communities fraught with poverty and filled with families struggling to survive. The communities mostly comprise people who fled Burma due to decades of violence and oppression. Their children, stateless and without citizenship or official identity, are at high risk of exploitation, chronic poverty, abuse, and human trafficking. Yet, in the midst of this brokenness is a group of people who, choosing to follow Christ’s example, enter into their neighbors’ suffering and work to bring about restoration and hope. This group is the community outreach team of Global [...]

Gatekeeping in Thailand: Reinforcing God’s Design for Family and Protecting Children2024-01-17T17:18:48-05:00

Webinar on New Tools for Orphan Sunday!

Next Wednesday, July 13th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will host a webinar highlighting new resources and tools that are available to help with your Orphan Sunday planning for 2016! Whether you are planning an event for the first time or a coordinator veteran, you don't want to miss this important information! You will hear from several amazing speakers, including Faith to Action sharing more about the Journeys of Faith study series. This webinar will be packed with great new programs, ideas and what's happening around the world and right next door. The webinar will take place from 2-3pm EDT. [...]

Webinar on New Tools for Orphan Sunday!2024-01-17T17:17:45-05:00

From Vulnerability to Resilience: Promoting Graduation in OVC Programs

Sponsored by the OVC Task Force and AVSI, an event titled "From Vulnerability to Resilience: Promoting Graduation in OVC Programs" will bring together policy makers, researchers and OVC practitioners to discuss key concepts and principles related to graduation models applied to OVC programs. The two programs to be presented include the SCORE project, implemented by AVSI in Uganda, and the FXB Village Model from Rwanda. Learning about these two programs will illustrate the graduation concept, how it is being used, and generate an agenda for action and further research. This event will be a first-of-its kind occasion to discuss graduation [...]

From Vulnerability to Resilience: Promoting Graduation in OVC Programs2024-01-17T17:17:20-05:00

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

No Ordinary Love Ministries: Reuniting Children and Families in Ethiopia

Tags: Economic Empowerment In 2015, 158 children were reunited with their families through the work of No Ordinary Love Ministries (NOLM). The mission of NOLM is “to bless and serve people living in extreme poverty in Ethiopia, and beyond,” and one of the ways they live this out is through reuniting separated children with their families. One such family is that of a young girl named Tesfanesh. Wanting to help support her parents, she agreed to travel from her village to the capital to find employment. After only a week in Addis Ababa, Tesfanesh ran away, unable [...]

No Ordinary Love Ministries: Reuniting Children and Families in Ethiopia2024-01-17T17:16:43-05:00

Supporting the Church Body to Keep Families Together

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Working in partnership with local initiatives is an effective response to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. Preventing family separation, and children being welcomed into new loving, safe, and stable families is what success looks like in this type of work. In communities all around the world, church partnerships play a vital role in upholding the importance of family and supporting care of orphans and vulnerable children. An organization doing such critical work is World Orphans. The US-based nonprofit works to empower the church to care for orphans by partnering [...]

Supporting the Church Body to Keep Families Together2024-01-17T17:14:56-05:00

Global Social Service Workforce Alliance Symposium: Strengthening the Continuum of Care for Vulnerable Children and Families

The 3rd Annual Global Social Service Workforce Alliance Symposium is less than 2 weeks away! The Symposium will provide a forum to discuss efforts to strengthen the social service workforce and advance systems and services for children and families. Presentations will focus on ways in which planning, developing and supporting the social service workforce have changed over the past five years and have led to more effective services to children and families and a stronger continuum of care. The event will be held in Washington, DC on June 2nd from 9am to 12pm EDT, but will also be available via [...]

Global Social Service Workforce Alliance Symposium: Strengthening the Continuum of Care for Vulnerable Children and Families2024-01-17T19:37:33-05:00

Two Stories of Transforming Good Intentions into Best Practices

"Be brave, be fierce, be visionary. Mend the parts of the world that are within your reach. To live this way is the most dramatic gift you can ever give to the world. Consider yourselves assigned.” - Your Assignment by Clarissa Pinkola Estes Even without reading her words, many impassioned young people have taken the poet’s assignment to heart. When these individuals are confronted with the brokenness of the world, seldom are they content to ignore it. There comes a deep desire to restore what is broken. For many, Christians in particular, this desire is manifested in a calling to [...]

Two Stories of Transforming Good Intentions into Best Practices2024-01-17T17:13:18-05:00

Short-Term Missions Guidance Manual and Toolkit from ACCI

Our partner ACCI International Missions & Relief recently released the publication of their Protecting Children in Short-Term Missions: A Guidance Manual and Toolkit for Churches and Christian Organisations, designed for those who are passionate about missions and engaging people through short-term mission (STM) teams, and who committed to pursuing God’s heart for children and vulnerable members of society in the context of global missions. Developed in collaboration with Better Volunteering Better Care, an initiative co-chaired by the Better Care Network and Save the Children UK, the principles explored in the manual are drawn from the Bible, best practice concepts, [...]

Short-Term Missions Guidance Manual and Toolkit from ACCI2024-01-17T17:11:55-05:00

Challenging Heights: Platforms for Children’s Voices to Be Heard

Tags: Community Strengthening Jesus was quick to say, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14). His words were countercultural in a time and place when children’s voices were rarely heard; His words continue to provoke our thoughts and actions as we engage with children, especially those most marginalized. The Faith to Action Initiative recognizes the need to create platforms for children’s voices to be heard as one of its core guiding principles: “It is important to listen to the voices of children and families, respond to their concerns, and [...]

Challenging Heights: Platforms for Children’s Voices to Be Heard2024-01-17T17:39:42-05:00

CAFO Summit May 5-6th!

The CAFO Summit has become the national hub for what Christianity Today called, “the burgeoning Christian orphan care movement.” Last year’s conference drew 2,500 foster and adoptive parents, orphan advocates, pastors and leaders from 30 countries. Faith to Action was honored to attend. Together, we explored effective foster care, adoption, family preservation and global orphan ministry. CAFO 2016 will include unforgettable plenary sessions with top national and global speakers, stirring music, workshops, and an array of one-of-a-kind experiences you won’t find anywhere else. This year, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), in partnership with the Faith to Action Initiative, is [...]

CAFO Summit May 5-6th!2024-01-17T17:39:59-05:00

World Without Orphans Global Forum Resources

The World Without Orphans Global Forum was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand in February. The forum brought together 450 orphan care leaders from over 60 countries for this first-ever Global Forum. Weren't able to attend in person? Not to worry! Here are some wonderful resources from the forum: Videos: Global Forum 2016 Keynote Presentations Videos: Key Steps for the Church towards a World Without Orphans Booklet: Vision for a World Without Orphans. This short booklet captures the vision, cornerstones and global strategies of the movement towards a world without orphans. Booklet: Roles for Churches. The purpose of this short [...]

World Without Orphans Global Forum Resources2024-01-17T17:36:00-05:00

Pivoting Methods to Create Sustainable Impact: One Woman’s Story of Transition to Family-Based Care

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment In the local Ugandan dialect, Akola means simply “she works.” Yet, for many Ugandan women and their families, it represents much more. Akola Project began in 2007 with the mission to empower women in poverty to transform the well-being of their families and communities through economic development. Since its start, Akola has helped create economic stability for 400 women and over 3,000 dependents in their care. This impact is possible because of a young woman’s willingness to pivot her method of achieving her calling. In 2004, Brittany Merrill Underwood, [...]

Pivoting Methods to Create Sustainable Impact: One Woman’s Story of Transition to Family-Based Care2024-03-11T11:37:59-04:00

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