The Foster Care Puzzle

The

Foster Care Puzzle The pieces your community needs to get to more than enough

MORE THAN ENOUGH | facilitated by the

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The Foster Care Puzzle

The pieces your community needs to get to more than enough Foster care can feel like a puzzle.

And like any puzzle, it’s impossible to put together without all the pieces.

These nine core foster care puzzle pieces represent key programmatic areas that will need to have a strong presence in your community in order to provide more than enough for children and families in these four ways: • More than enough foster and kinship families for every child to have an ideal placement.

• More than enough adoptive families for every child waiting for adoption.

• More than enough help for biological families trying to stabilize and reunify.

• More than enough wrap-around support from the church for all of these families.

Essential Elements

There are essential elements that should be present in all nine pieces:

On-Ramps and Tools for Church Communities to create and implement the essential functions of serving children and families.

Accessible Education and Training resources to equip others well.

Trauma-Informed Care as a key ingredient of practice, programs, and products.

Evidence-Based or Experience-Based Practice to inform programming decisions.

Operational Infrastructure in the areas of church engagement, communications, data and technology, fundraising, and network health to support long-term growth.

Wrap-around Support

Biological Family Services

Youth Support

Mobilize churches to equip wrap-around support teams for foster, kinship, adoptive, and biological families

Provide families with the help they need to stay together or reunify

Ensure that youth in foster care are well-supported during their time in care and as they transition into adulthood

Examples: • Respite care • Child care • Visitation support • Continuing education • Tangible needs

The Foster Care Puzzle

Examples: • Mentorship • Child development training • Addiction intervention and recovery • Tangible needs

Examples: • Mentorship • Camps and youth sports leagues • Career, college, and financial coaching • Life skills training

Kinship Family Finding & Growth

Professional Services

Foster Family Finding & Growth

Identify, prepare, and develop kinship connections both for temporary care and permanent placement

Ensure that high-quality professional services are accessible and affordable for children and families

Identify, prepare, and develop foster families for children and teens with a variety of care needs

Examples: • Medical care that accepts Medicaid • Physical and occupational

Examples: • Exploratory classes for those considering foster care • Recruitment events

Examples: • Online kinship connection search tools • Trauma training • Support groups

The Foster Care Puzzle

therapy • Legal services • Trauma-informed counseling

• Foster parent training • Support groups

Child Welfare System Support

Adoptive Family Finding & Growth

Care Sharing

Build supportive relationships with caseworkers, administrators, lawyers, and judges to reduce turnover and improve outcomes

Identify, prepare, and develop families for children and teens waiting to be adopted

Connect those who have tangible needs with those who have tangible resources to give

Examples: • Child-specific recruitment • Trauma training • Exploratory classes for those

Examples: • Online care-sharing platform • Foster closets • Engaging local businesses

Examples: • Church-based social worker partnership programs • Appreciation events • Family Court partnerships • Legal advocacy

The Foster Care Puzzle

considering adoption

to meet tangible needs

For more resources to help your community work together to provide more than enough for children and families, visit MoreThanEnoughTogether.org

MORE THAN ENOUGH | facilitated by the ©2025 Christian Alliance for Orphans

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