Why The Church Must Support Foster and Adoptive Families

If you are a parent to a foster or adopted child you are no doubt aware of the effects of trauma on our children. Trauma effects the way their brain functions, it effects how they view and respond to the world around them. Trauma is not something a child will just get over or something you can will them to recover from.

Parenting a child with a trauma background takes a continual intentionality to parent differently – to parent therapeutically. It is constant, challenging, exhausting and rewarding.

We recently hit a place with our daughter where things were working, they were clicking and we saw healing happen. She was for the first time in a long time functioning like a typical little girl and it was so beautiful, so rewarding to see. During that time I allowed myself to think we had made it over this vast hurdle of trauma, that we had made it to the other side – for good.

Maybe it was wishful or magical thinking. Maybe I was just weary of the fight and needed to believe we had made it to a place of complete healing. Still allowing myself to think that we had made it to ”the other side of trauma” made it so much more difficult when that inevitable trigger came along and our girl entered into another season of struggle.

My heart behind this post is two fold. I believe we as foster and adoptive parents of kids who have faced trauma need to bring awareness. We need to change the stigma that our kids can be disciplined into doing better. We need to change the stigma that our kids will just get over the effects of trauma. We need to educate those around us of what trauma really is, what is looks like, and the longevity of its effects.

Secondly my heart behind this post is to highlight the need for support. Parents who are striving to have their every interaction with their children bring healing are exhausted. Parenting is hard; parenting a child who comes from trauma is 100% more so.

If we as The Church are highlighting the spiritual mandate such as we see in James 1:27 to care for the orphans then we as The Church can not leave our foster and adoptive families out on their own without support.

Statistically around 50% of foster parents will not be fostering a year later. The reason so many do not continue on the journey is simply because it is hard – and it certainly is that, but parents don’t have to carry that load alone. I am convinced that support from our church communities will make the difference!

Of the most heartbreaking adoption statistics is those on “rehoming”. Studies have shown that as high as 10% of children adopted will be “rehomed” by their adoptive families. These are kids who have already experienced the heartbreak and trauma of loosing their biological families and now are thrown into the secondary trauma of looking their adoptive family – the family who vowed to help them heal and keep them safe. No parents go into adoption thinking, “this may not work but we will give it a try”. We jump in, ready to give a child our family, our hearts, our resources, and our love forever. – But it is hard and for these families who seemingly give up on their children too hard to do it on their own.

These statistics need to change and can change. The key is support. Our churches need to come along side foster and adoptive parents and wrap around them with a team of support. A meal when they have hard a particularly long day or week, help with yard work or home repairs. Volunteers are needed to provide respite care or babysitting for that much needed break, and individuals to pray and support and continue to show us that we are not forgotten, our kids and their struggles are not forgotten, and that you are still with us.

OneHope27 would like to come along side your church as you build this culture of foster care and adoption. We will serve and support you and help you create ministries that wrap around foster and adoptive families. After all, we have all been given a mandate to care for the orphans and we are not fully caring for those orphans unless we are also caring for and supporting their family.