Recently, my 12-month-old niece said her first word and our entire family lost their minds — heaping on praise, applauding her, showering her with compliments and even labeling her a “genius baby.”

It made me think about the young adults in our Don’t Go Alone mentoring program who did not have someone to make them feel special or celebrated when they accomplished things.

Church is a place you behave! At least that’s what I grew up understanding. Acting out was not optional. Misbehaving was inappropriate…Without realizing it, I carried some of these understandings with me into young adulthood. I was an experienced but overly-confident young children’s pastor, doing things the way they had always been done. I valued outreach but was unaware that caring for the lost would require me to approach children’s ministry differently.

Creating a healthy community is vital while you're fostering or planning to adopt. Sometimes as a foster or adoptive parent, it is hard to ask people to step in. Perhaps, you aren’t sure what help to ask for, or the thought of coordinating that help can be totally overwhelming.

This is the most common—and understandable—question I’m asked. Parents want me to tell them that their children won’t be hurt by foster care. They want to know that something that they choose for their kids won’t be something that affects their kids.

But, well, it will.

As you support foster and adoptive families around you, you might begin to pick up on parenting differences. Maybe they are handling challenging situations in unfamiliar ways… Children who have experienced hard circumstances, like being separated from their families and removed from their homes for whatever reason, must be parented differently.

At Project Belong, we want to inspire and equip the Church in Virginia to enter into loving one of the most vulnerable groups — children in need of foster and adoptive families and homes. One of the most impactful ways we can do that is by caring well for child welfare workers, who are on the front lines of seeking permanency and safety for vulnerable families, children, and communities.

As parents of children with reactive attachment disorder – a developmental trauma disorder – we hear a lot of advice and opinions from our friends, family, professionals, and the general public.

We live in a world that magnifies false dichotomies. We are made to think we must make a choice between supporting the mother or supporting the child. Those in the foster care space might feel like they must choose a side in supporting either the biological or the foster/adoptive family. As Christians, we’re called to be known for our love & service to both parties.

I first heard the term “aging out” six years ago inside an orphanage in Ethiopia. I was talking with a young man at the orphanage who was 18. I asked him what his goals were for the future, and he told me that he didn’t have any because he was about to age out.

A week later, talking to a group of 18 year old’s from that same orphanage, I learned what aging out means.

In 2018, Seaton and a local adoptive mom started Project Belong Virginia to help churches in northern Virginia support adoptive and fostering families.

One initiative that they encourage churches to consider is “care communities,” in which a small group of designated people wrap around a family to offer whatever support they might need. Seaton says families who have this kind of support often keep fostering longer, and are less likely to burn out.

Self-care is a word we hear a lot these days that doesn’t come with a clear definition or instructions on how to practice it. When I started practicing what I thought was self-care, I only became more frustrated because having a “mom’s night out” periodically wasn’t working the magic I had hoped it would.

Project Belong sat down with Heidi Ivey, a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Winchester, Virginia to talk about what it means to be “trauma-informed.”

Heidi has ten years of experience providing mental health services and six of counseling children and families who have experienced trauma, including foster and adoptive children.

Project Belong sat down to talk with a Christian child welfare social worker in the Northern Virginia region. These are ten takeaways that she would like to share with you!

“I find that the general population has no idea what social work is or what social workers do. Social work is not something often depicted in Hollywood TV shows or movies (when it is depicted, it is usually inaccurate), and frankly, the tasks of social work are so varied that the work can be hard to categorize.”

When he had to walk through challenging times, Chandler had a stabilizing foundation through his grandmothers. Now Chandler's aim in life is to make sure vulnerable young people find that same stabilizing force in their lives.

Before volunteering with this family, I had no proximity to the American foster care system. When I was given an opportunity to provide a small amount of help, little did I know a simple “yes” would become a life-changing and empowering experience. 

Jason Johnson, an author and adoptive father suggests,

“Christmas is the story of a good Father going to extravagant lengths to adopt those who were once separated from Him. It is the celebration of God seeing the plight of His people and responding with the greatest gift of love this world has ever known - Jesus.”

Do you want to learn more about adoption and the foster care system? Are you on the fence about fostering or adopting?

Hear from Amber Cooper, Winchester County foster and adoptive mom. Amber tells the story of what led her to adoption and foster care and shares words of encouragement for those who may be thinking about it themselves.

As the Church, we should be stirred by God’s heart for adoption. Let’s not forget that we ourselves are an adopted family of brothers and sisters! We were once estranged, but now we are adopted into God’s family. This should have pretty big implications on how we view earthly adoption. We believe each member of God’s family is called to participate. And yes, there are ways you can participate that don’t involve adopting.

Many families impacted by disability are not able to control the extra sounds and movements that their loved ones with disabilities make or need. To many in your congregation, this may be distracting.

To those with disabilities, the extra noise and movements are means of communication and ways of coping with the environment.