Safer Kids, Stronger Families, Real Community | Sacramento Parent Magazine

[More information about the Safe Families program]

When a crisis strikes, the support of family can make all the difference in the lives of parents—and their children. “Yet many families don't have a support system, don't have family,” says Laura Richardson of Koinonia Family Services, a foster and adoption agency with four locations in Northern California, including Sacramento. “Without a support system, things are more likely to go downhill quickly.”

A Safe New Solution

Established in Chicago in 2003, SFFC has served over 3,000 children and their families, in 16 states. This successful, quickly-growing program calls on local churches to oversee “safe families” which provide temporary care to children in need, referred through the program. At the same time, the program provides services to the parents, so that they can become safe families for their own children.

...

Currently, 10 local churches, within 10 Northern California counties, are expressing interest in SFFC—and that number continues to grow. Government agencies, educational institutions, and foster related services, like CASA, are expressing their support and excitement, too. For Richardson, the enthusiasm behind SFFC is quite simple: “People just think it makes sense. It’s the way we are supposed to be as a community.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Churches offer alternative to welfare system | The Orange County Register

by Sean Emery

[This is an excellent way to care for children whose families are in crisis, making them effectively "orphans" for a short period of time. It also is a way to extend mercy and grace to a parent in great need as a testimony of Christian faith and love.]

As economic woes put pressure on Orange County families, local churches are stepping up to stop kids from falling through the cracks of the state welfare system by taking in youngsters while their parents get their life in order.

First introduced to Southern California by Santa Ana-based Olive Crest, the Safe Families program has been taken up by some of Orange County's largest church's, where families are volunteering to temporarily take in at-risk youth, while at the same time coaching their parents through tough times.
Unlike kids caught in the welfare system, Safe Families allows the biological parents to maintain full custody, keeps the children within the community, and works to reunite families as soon as possible.
...
Olive Crest is there to provide support and training to church leaders and volunteers, taking care of required background checks and making sure families are ready for the reality of being responsible for taking care of a child. But the program's success also relies heavily on the churches to provide the volunteer families, and to use their existing support network to provide the parents counseling, job assistance or whatever else they require.

Read the rest here.