Develop a Trauma-Informed Ministry
The Church has always been a powerful influence in families and relationships.
But is your church actively engaged in some of the most broken of families and relationships, where the love of Christ is most desperately needed?
The foster and adoptive community desperately needs the church community. And they need the church community to understand children from hard places and the unique joys and challenges when parenting them.
Beyond influencing, encouraging and supporting our own church members, we have an incredible opportunity to partner and influence outside our churches. Child Protective Services and other community organizations are eager to work with churches to solve the foster care crisis.
There are trauma-informed and sustainable practices for foster and adoption ministries, and we can help get yours started on the right foot.
What are the Benefits of Being a Partner Church of FHA?
- Trauma-informed training based on the TBRI strategies from Drs. Karyn Purvis and David Cross from the TCU Institute of Child Development for ministry leaders and families.
- Library of resources, references, and consultations for your families and your ministry
- Involvement with AFAH Conference and other community-wide events
- Representation at the State level of discussion for issues facing foster kids
- Shared events, activities and promotions with other churches
- Unify with others to magnify your church’s impact on the foster care system
Resources for Your Church
Ministry Development Worksheet
Use this guide to set a game plan for your ministry for the year ahead.
5 Areas of Need in Foster Care
Where can your church help? Read about the 5 needs.
Partnering with Fostering Hope Austin
Learn how we can work together to achieve better outcomes for our kids in care.
Foster Family Roster
Give this pdf to foster/adoptive families at your church so you can match them with support teams.
FAQs
Because churches are a place of hope and healing and our children and families desperately need this. However, traditional approaches can actually further harm a child. We want our foster families to feel included in our church, not excluded nor judged because of their parenting strategies. Many trauma-informed parenting strategies and the latest brain science supports a church’s desire to build trusting relationships and increase compassion and grace. You may even find that trauma-education supports all areas of ministry!
We want to be respectful of church authority, so it’s important to have a conversation with your pastor understanding what obstacles are standing in the way. We would be happy to help you address any concerns. But even if your leadership is not fully on board, you don’t have to have a formal foster and adoption ministry to be ministering effectively to the foster and adoptive families in your church. Just gather a few people who are interested in supporting those families more intentionally. Present opportunities to your church’s leadership team as they become available. Sometimes seeing what is happening in other churches can help stoke the fires of your home church.
One way to do this is through studying compassion. FHA has Compassion presentations we would love to share with you so you can take it back to your church. As Jesus had compassion on us and stepped into our broken story, so that our eternal destiny would change, so we can have compassion on others and step into their broken story, too.
We need financial support, but because we work with a variety of church sizes and locations, we leave it up to the church to determine what they can give. We present opportunities throughout the year: whether it is a request for drinks for AFAH Conference, or babysitting costs for an evening training, or the funding of an entire program. There is a wide variety of opportunities to support FHA.
Respite care (babysitting), assistance to transport kids to bio family visits, and grace, grace, grace from their communities.
Hear From Current Ministry Coordinators
“FHA's mission to educate, equip and empower churches to serve foster families and the children under their care has made a huge difference in the work we do with the Starry emergency shelter. We could not do what we do without the support FHA provides.”
“I knew our church needed a foster ministry but I did not know where to start. FHA’s leaders took me under their wings and encouraged and supported me. Our church just launched our new Foster Care ministry with 5 families starting training.”
“We were asked to facilitate an overhaul of the DFPS monthly Foster/Adopt Information Sessions, we immediately contacted Fostering Hope Austin. We utilized their expertise to transform the multiple documents, emails, slides and videos into a presentation that would inspire prospective families to take the next step.”
Schedule a Free Phone Consultation
Want your church to partner with FHA? Contact us and we can get you started!