Allison Coble, Author at Faith to Action

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 PartnershipAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:33:40-05:00

Better Care Network Launches a New Online Community of Practice for Eastern and Southern Africa

Better Care Network (BCN) recently launched its new online community of practice, Care To Practice: supporting children's care practitioners in Eastern and Southern Africa. This online collaborative is designed to support practitioners who are working on family-strengthening and children's alternative care in the Eastern and Southern Africa region. Since 2013, BCN has been collaborating with a number of regional and national organizations and bodies to support family-strengthening and improved alternative care for children in Eastern and Southern Africa through its Regional Initiative on Children without Appropriate Family Care. This online community of practice was developed in response to calls from [...]

Better Care Network Launches a New Online Community of Practice for Eastern and Southern AfricaAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:32:40-05:00

A Place to Call Home, A Person(s) to Call Family

Tags: Economic Empowerment Millions of children in Africa are growing up in orphanages, residential care centers, and children’s homes. Most of these institutions identify themselves as “homes” and “family” to these children. But are these residential care institutions really “home” or “family”? I grew up in an institution, and it didn’t feel like a family and I didn’t have the feeling that I was home. On the contrary, the place gave me a feeling of emptiness, uncertainty, and confusion. My two siblings (younger sister and older brother) were taken to a hospital, then to an [...]

A Place to Call Home, A Person(s) to Call FamilyAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:32:08-05:00

CAFO Webinar on Protecting Vulnerable Children with Wise & Honoring Media

Next Wednesday, March 16th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will launch the sixth in a 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 webinar is called “Protecting Vulnerable Children with Wise and Honoring Media" and will take place next Wednesday from 2-3pm Eastern. Films and photos are a critical part of advocacy. Oftentimes, it is through sharing stories and images of vulnerable children that we are able to inspire a heart for caring for the fatherless. However, despite [...]

CAFO Webinar on Protecting Vulnerable Children with Wise & Honoring MediaAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:30:01-05:00

Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of Care

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment It is perhaps human nature that we gravitate toward stories with inspiring plots and resolved endings. Those of us tirelessly advocating for vulnerable children love stories of children placed in families happily ever after. In reality, care for orphaned and vulnerable children is typically much more complex than a singular solution. As the Faith to Action Initiative explains in the document A Continuum of Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, “Preventing unnecessary separation, strengthening family care, and reducing placement in orphanages requires the existence of a ‘continuum’ of approaches [...]

Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of CareAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:29:36-05:00

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 ChurchAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:28:29-05:00

CAFO Webinar on Holistic Development for Babies and Young Children

Next Wednesday, February 10th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will launch the fifth in a 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 webinar is called “Empowering Caregivers: Holistic Development for Babies and Young Children" and will take place next Wednesday from 11am – 12pm Eastern. The early child period is considered to be the most important developmental phase throughout the lifespan. The environmental conditions to which children are exposed, especially the quality of relationships with caregivers [...]

CAFO Webinar on Holistic Development for Babies and Young ChildrenAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:27:30-05:00

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 HaitiAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:37:48-05:00

The Role of Parent Education and Support in Strengthening Families and Improving Child Well-Being

We all know that parents and other individuals responsible for the daily care of children (usually referred to as “caregivers”) need good parenting and caregiving skills to support their children’s healthy development and well-being. Most parents and caregivers do fairly well raising their children without receiving any parenting education or external support. However, some do need it. This is particularly important for parents and caregivers with little education, who don’t have access to health and social services, and who are dealing with different stressful situations in their family, such as poverty, disability, substance abuse, domestic violence, illness and death, [...]

The Role of Parent Education and Support in Strengthening Families and Improving Child Well-BeingAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:26:19-05:00

CAFO Webinar on Empowering Caregivers

This Wednesday, January 13th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will launch the fourth in a 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 webinar is called “Empowering Caregivers: Practical Parenting Training (Adolescent Edition)" and will take place on Wednesday from 11am – 12pm 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 [...]

CAFO Webinar on Empowering CaregiversAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:25:33-05:00

One Step at a Time Toward a World Without Orphans

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Economic Empowerment A World Without Orphans—it’s a huge dream that lives in the hearts of thousands of people who believe that every orphan should live in a loving family and work toward this great goal daily. I sincerely believe in it too. And I know that the church is capable of solving this problem through welcoming the fatherless and motherless into their homes and working with crisis families. Although the idea of a church caring for every orphan (we like to call it one church, one child) is simple [...]

One Step at a Time Toward a World Without OrphansAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:25:05-05:00

New Better Care Network Working Paper on Gatekeeping

Published jointly with UNICEF, Better Care Network has recently released a new working paper focused on the role of gatekeeping in strengthening family-based care and reforming alternative care systems. Gatekeeping refers to systematic procedures aimed at ensuring that alternative care for children is used only when necessary, and that the type of care provided is suitable to the individual child. This Working Paper reviews different approaches to gatekeeping in five countries: Brazil, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Moldova, and Rwanda. In each context, the working paper explores what has and has not worked, analyzes lessons learned from practice, and reflects on the implications for improving policy [...]

New Better Care Network Working Paper on GatekeepingAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:24:17-05:00

Displacement and Family Separation for Syrian Refugee Children

Tags: Community Strengthening According to the United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since WWII, having surpassed 50 million people who have been forced to leave their homes as refugees, as asylum seekers, or as internally displaced persons (IDPs) within their home countries. This massive increase is driven largely by the civil war in Syria, which will reach the five-year mark in a few months. According to World Vision, “The crisis in Syria affects more than 12 million people—more than those affected by Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti [...]

Displacement and Family Separation for Syrian Refugee ChildrenAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:23:26-05:00

Lectio Divina: Listening to God’s Heart for Children

The Faith to Action Initiative works to educate and mobilize Christians to respond to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children, upholding the vital importance of family and community. In doing so, we engage with a variety of different Christian traditions with the goal of working together to care for children and families in collaboration and unity. Evidence-based research, case studies, and learning from fellow orphan care practitioners are vital to growth in this field. As Christians, we have the additional dimension of being guided by a faith that leads us to action. We believe that it is of [...]

Lectio Divina: Listening to God’s Heart for ChildrenAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:22:21-05:00

CAFO Webinar on Family Reintegration

This Wednesday, December 9th, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will launch the third in a 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 webinar is called “Family Reintegration: Achieving Balance Between Empowering Families and Safeguarding Children” and will take place on Wednesday from 2 PM – 3 PM Eastern. Kate Riordan, Senior Advocacy Advisor at Family for Every Child will explore how to keep families intact and reunite separated families with proper safe-guarding; how to prevent the factors that [...]

CAFO Webinar on Family ReintegrationAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:21:31-05:00

The Image of God and the Abilities of All

Tags: Community Strengthening The United Nations declared today, December 3rd, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Around the world on this day, the abilities of all people are to be celebrated, even (and especially) those of vulnerable children. Followers of Christ believe that all human beings are created in the image of God (Imago Dei), and therefore have the capacity and the right to thrive in relationship with one another. Yet while God’s image is within all people, in many parts of the world children with disabilities continue to be relegated to the uttermost [...]

The Image of God and the Abilities of AllAllison Coble2024-01-17T18:07:45-05:00

Putting the Lonely in Families: The Journey of SFAC

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment The transformation of a child who is reintegrated into a family is always worthy of praise and thanksgiving. Yet few things are as noteworthy as the hundreds of children’s lives impacted by an adult or adults who decisively recognize that God puts the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6). Meet Mick Pease. Mick is the Director of SFAC (Substitute Families for Abandoned Children), a UK-based Christian organization that advocates for improved services for orphaned and abandoned children, with an emphasis on alternative options to residential care. SFAC provides training for [...]

Putting the Lonely in Families: The Journey of SFACAllison Coble2024-01-17T18:06:59-05:00

CAFO Webinar on How to Be a Welcoming Church for Special Needs Foster & Adoptive Families

Today, November 18th from 2-3pm EST, Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) will host a webinar on helping welcome and support special needs foster and adoptive families. As special needs and older child programs are on the rise, this means churches need to be prepared to accommodate families affected by disability or complex trauma. Shannon Dingle will share five ways your church can be a safe place for these children and teens, drawing from experience as a special educator, a disability ministry leader, and a mom to six by birth and adoption. You can register for this webinar here. [...]

CAFO Webinar on How to Be a Welcoming Church for Special Needs Foster & Adoptive FamiliesAllison Coble2024-01-17T18:06:15-05:00

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 CareAllison Coble2024-01-17T18:05:32-05:00

New Journeys of Faith Study Series Materials Now Available!

Sunday, November 8th is Orphan Sunday, an opportunity for Christians around the world to collectively impel and activate church, community and friends to God’s call to care for the orphan. In celebration of Orphan Sunday, Faith to Action is pleased to announce the launch of our new Journeys of Faith Study Series! This series, Caring for Orphans and Vulnerable Children: A Study Guide for Journeys of Faith, provides an introduction and overview on topics related to family-based care for orphans and vulnerable children. The series was developed in response to the Journeys of Faith pilot study completed last year. [...]

New Journeys of Faith Study Series Materials Now Available!Allison Coble2024-03-11T11:37:40-04:00

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About Allison Coble