Christian Family Care started in foster care and adoption, but we’ve learned that we must do more to provide a thriving future for the next generation of children. The future of our children, and society, depends on how we help them today.
Since our founding forty years ago, Christian Family Care has changed. We do so much more for children, and we must, to reach our vision of every child loved and nurtured in a Christ-centered family. We have established four pillars: prevention, preparedness, restoration, and preservation to help guide our work to fulfill our mission of strengthening families and serving at-risk kids in the name of Jesus Christ.
We will go more in-depth on each of the four pillars, what we are doing what we hope to accomplish, and how you can help engage with us as champions to fulfill our mission for every
child.
Christian Family Care is so much more than foster care and adoption. We trust you will be encouraged
to learn what God is doing, and how your financial stewardship in the services of Christian Family
Care are impacting communities throughout Arizona through the four pillars of prevention, restoration,
preparedness, and preservation.
Prevention
At Christian Family Care, our mission to strengthen families leans on the first pillar of prevention to keep kids from disrupting homes, to empower, rather than to deprive kids and parents, of flourishing in life. “Every child loved”… is the end result we work toward every day. You can search online and find study after study that gives evidence to the importance of both faith and family as the key to human flourishing.
Read more about how you can help engage with us in our prevention efforts.
Our Programs that Support “Prevention” are:
- Mentors to young adults exiting foster care. These mentors help get them on the right footing as they start their independent lives—ideally preventing drug addiction, homelessness, and incarnation. This also looks like women facing unplanned pregnancies choosing life for their child through either parenting or adoption, and young parents learning what the Bible has to say about parenting so that they can model for their children.
- Family coaching, parenting training, and personalized coaching to address childhood experiences that inhibit an individual’s ability to flourish as adults.
- Counseling services are performed by licensed clinical counselors for adults and children with the overall intent of strengthening families.
- Specialized counseling for individuals who need assistance navigating the effects of grief, loss, and childhood trauma.
- Access to webinars and trainings on child development, and overcoming trauma.
- Podcast where we discuss topics such as “The effects of trauma on children” and “How to navigate difficult times in foster care.
- Access to Complex Trauma Resources, a book written by Dr. Chuck Geddes – a training program for educators, pastors, and community organizations working with children.
- An Early Childhood Educational programming for kids six weeks old to pre-kindergarten, trauma-informed and linked to Family Empowerment Services to support the development of both children and their parents – equipping them for success.
Preparedness
The term ‘preparedness’ refers to a state of readiness a parent or caregiver must have to help a child that
has experienced trauma, abuse, and neglect flourish. It is also the ability of parents, caregivers, educators,
church leaders, government, professional and charitable organizations working with children and families
to anticipate and respond effectively to the impact of trauma, social policies, events, or conditions on the
wellbeing of children.
The pillar of preparedness is focused on understanding the effects of trauma on children and the day-to-day stressors that lead to behaviors that cause children to fail to thrive. We provide knowledge and training to address the root of the problems, not just the symptom, to activate the restorative healing that helps them thrive.
Read more about how you can help engage with us in our preparedness efforts.
Our Programs that Support “Preparedness” are:
Hand in Hand Pregnancy Counseling
- Our team attends medical appointments, helps put together a parenting plan, and provides life skills training to pregnant mothers.
- Our early childhood learning center serves children from six-weeks old to pre-kindergarten. Every teacher is trained in the principles of TBRI (Trust-Based Relational Intervention) an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children.
- We provide licensed specialists in childhood trauma and attachment therapy. As specialists in trauma and attachment therapy, our counselors offer different methods to best help children heal from adverse childhood trauma. Counselors help with assessment, behavior management, emotional healing, and parenting strategies.
- Christian Family Care provides a growing library of courses, counseling, and coaching needed to help ensure foster and adoptive families enjoy stable placements and connections with the children in their care. Family Care Learning strengthens families and equips parents, guardians, and community members to interact authentically and effectively with at-risk children in their care.
- Complex Trauma Resource – Chuck Geddes, Ph.D. founded Complex Trauma Resources in 2012, is now an affiliate of Christian Family Care. His Complex Trauma Resources can be found through our Family Care Learning service and they provide education and support to parents, caregivers, foster and adoptive parents, care teams, educators, clinicians, and professional agencies who care for traumatized children. This model has proven to have lasting results with anyone working with maltreated children and youth.
Restoration
Our mission to restore families is to provide a safe, secure, stable, and consistent environment where every child, whether an infant, a child in foster care, or a young adult aging out of foster care can flourish.
We achieve our goals of restoration by increasing the percentage of kids in our communities being raised in healthy two-parent families; increasing the percentage of foster children reunited with their biological parents; decreasing the percentage of children aging out of foster care without a permanent family; and connecting families to healthy relationships and evidence-based services in the community, and providing parent education where parents can learn to create safe, secure, and stable environments.
Read more about how you can help engage with us in our restoration efforts.
Our Programs that Support “Restoration” are:
- Of the 13,000+ kids in foster care in Arizona (as of March 2022), 30%, or approximately 4,000+ kids, are cared for by foster parents, 14% (1,900+ in congregate care/group homes), and 45% (6,000+) by kinship families. On any month there are 1,100+ kids 18-21 years old that reside in extended foster care. CFC recruits, trains, coaches, and provides monitoring and clinical support to foster families that open their hearts and home to serve kids in their homes.
- Restoration requires forgiveness, grace, and change. Parents, children, foster and adoptive parents, educators, and caregivers need support, education, and resources to often overcome years of adverse experiences that led to disruption and destabilization. CFC provides a growing library of courses, counseling, and coaching needed to help restore healthy connections and permanency.
Arizona Family Counseling & Family Empowerment Services
- Keeping children safely together with their families is a top priority. At CFC, we work with families through early intervention and family support services. As specialists in trauma and attachment therapy, our counselors offer different methods of therapy to best help children heal from adverse childhood trauma. Counselors help with assessment, behavior management, emotional healing, and parenting strategies.
Preservation
The term ‘preservation’ refers to keeping families intact. It means keeping children safe from abuse and neglect. It means keeping God’s unique design of the family, modeling Christ’s relationship with us and his children from being destroyed.
Read more about how you can help engage with us in our preservation efforts.
How our programs at CFC are supporting the “Preservation” pillar:
Family Empowerment Services
- When a community family is in crisis, we provide wrap-around services through our Strong Families for Children program providing temporary respite care for children, counseling, family coaching, and support for parents to stabilize a home and keep a family intact.
- When an unplanned pregnancy occurs, we help parents choose life for their child, and help the parents develop a life plan to parent their child through our service, Hand in Hand. When adoption becomes an alternative to parents, our open adoption process helps to keep that relationship between the birth mother and her child intact throughout the child’s life.
- Trauma, anxiety, and depression are all disrupters of individual and family health. Our professional counseling team, Arizona Family Counseling help to restore health and keep families intact.
Advocating for children to be raised by a mother and father
- When we place a child in a home for adoption or foster care, we intentionally look for two-parent families to help preserve the natural family structure.
- When a child is in a single-parent family, we intentionally wrap support around that single parent so that the child and single parent both have the support of a male and female figure.
- When serving community families, we engage them with other families to help mentor and show them a picture of an intact married family.
- As we engage in government policies, we emphasize the importance of two-parent families for the welfare of children and society.
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