Mobilizing Your Community
As a representative of your church or other faith-based community, there are boundless opportunities for you to make a difference – it’s about finding the right role for you. Before you walk down this path, it’s helpful to identify a champion in your church who will own and shepherd this work forward. You never know who is willing to dedicate their time and energy to supporting this effort. Talk to your congregation and find the person with the capacity and dedication to be the champion who follows a path below to mobilize your community. Examine the pathways below and pray with your congregation about the best way forward.
Ways to mobilize your community
Foster Care Ministry
How do I start?
- Pray about where God is leading you to serve.
- Learn about your local foster care community. How many children are impacted? What are ongoing needs for children, birth families, and foster families? What organizations
are providing services? How are other churches in the area meeting needs? - Assess your connections, skills, and resources.
- Do any foster families attend your church? What are their needs?
- What are your church’s existing ministries? Can they meet foster care needs?
- Where are you connected? Do you have access to specific resources?
- What are your skills? ex: leading, organizing, working with children, etc. If you don’t believe you have a useful skill – you do!
- Connect with others in your church or community who are interested in serving. As you learn about needs, share them!
- Build your foster care ministry, whether that means adding to an existing ministry within your church, or establishing a new ministry.What can our foster care ministry do?
- Educate and Inspire
- Ask your pastor or other church leaders to share messages of inspiration and education
- Invite an expert speaker to your church
- Bring in a trauma-informed trainer to prepare your church for supporting foster families and children
- Recruit foster families in church and community
- Identify existing foster families
- Organize support for families, DCFS, and for organizations providing services
- Recruit other churches to start foster care ministries
- Connect with foster care ministries at other churches to discuss how you can better address the need together!
Inspiration and Education
Your congregation can have a lasting impact in this important work. There are several ways to inspire and educate your congregation. We invite you to consider which path is best for you and your fellow church leaders.
Inspire. Dedicate a church gathering to promote this ministry.
Inform. Invite DCFS to share about local foster care needs and opportunities for involvement.
Resource: dcfs.la/bethere
Educate. Bring in experts to provide training on trauma-informed care for your congregation to better support children and families.
Resource: https://partnersforfamilyhealth.org/aces/
Partnerships and Local Organizations
Louisiana has dozens of passionate and hard-working organizations who are dedicated to supporting children and families. The professionals at these organizations have put in countless hours building systems, networks, and relationships to best serve their communities. Connecting with and supporting these organizations is a great way for you and your congregation to make an impact!
Foster care needs and resources are different in each region of the state. DCFS has created an Online Interest Form to help you connect with your local DCFS team, who can help you understand where best to support in your region. Through the Online Interest Form, you can
● Request a speaker
● Connect with your local DCFS staff to learn more about needs
● Connect with a Foster Care Support Organization Ambassador. This Ambassador can provide more information about existing support organizations and how your church can be involved in supporting our children and youth.
Visit dcfs.la/bethere to get connected to the right organizations in your region!
Visit the Louisiana Fosters website to browse some of our community partners.
Impact Tip: Partnering with organizations focused on prevention is a great way to increase your reach in the community. Through prevention, we can help stop the cycles that bring our children into the child welfare system and create safer, more stable homes for all.
Supporting Families Directly
Identifying Families in Need
Foster families need support throughout their fostering journey. Peer support from other foster families and community support from their church is critical to long-term fostering success. When foster families are well-supported within a church, other families within the church may be inspired to consider fostering.
How do you identify the families to support?
● Out of respect for foster families’ privacy, DCFS cannot provide you a list of existing foster families in your church or your region. So, your first step to supporting foster families in your church or community is to create a safe and welcoming environment for foster families to self identify.
● Hold a meeting for all current foster families in your church. Include church members and staff who are interested in being involved in foster care ministry. Ask foster families to share their support needs and ideas.
● Encourage fellowship and connection among foster families within your church. Provide a space within the church for foster family fellowship and support meetings.
● Promote the need for foster families within your church! Display flyers and materials explaining the need for foster families within your community. Invite families to visit dcfs.la/bethere to learn more about the process of becoming a certified foster parent.
Ways to Support Families in Need
Give Funds or Goods
● Provide scholarships or sponsorships for church camp, sports, extracurricular activities
● Donate school materials or sports equipment to local schools and youth-centered organizations
● Contribute towards a family outing (movie tickets, aquarium tickets, etc.)
● Provide baby goods (e.g. diapers, wipes, formula, etc) for families with young children
● Provide meals or restaurant/grocery gift cards to local families
● Organize showers, birthday parties, or holiday events for foster families and/or local organizations that support them
○ Provide birthday, holiday, and/or baby shower gifts for a family