Re: New Haiti Adoptions post below

swell427

I figured I was a little late to add on to the post below but thought I would give you some information I received.  A friend of mine is involved in the Safe Families program and her case coach came out for a visit today.  Her case coach told her that Safe Families would be receiving groups of 50 children at a time in the U.S.  These children will be placed with different Safe Families, the older children will be placed in pairs or with siblings and infants will be available as well.  The children will be with these Families long term until their adoptions are finalized.  She wasn?t sure if all of the children already had adoptions in progress or not but will be calling her case worker later today to get more information.  If I hear anything else I'll update.

MayDayGirl

Where in the US are these safe families?

swell427

Here is a little information about the safe families program: Safe Families for Children is a network of host families, volunteers, non-profit agencies, and churches that extends the community safety net by providing parents in need support to help them care for their children. The Safe Families movement is a perspective/concept that the safety and health of children in our communities is all of our responsibilities, and that the birth parents are the key to providing that safety for their children. So...Safe Families is about strengthening and supporting parents so they can be Safe Families for their children.

In short safe families provides temporary homes with approved families who have had background checks, homestudy and screening done.  In many cases the parents or parent is having financial difficulty, illness or may be facing homelessness and need a place for their child to go for a short period of time.  The goal is to reunify these families.  I am located in a suburb of chicago but I know they have locations throughout the United States.

 

swell427

here is a link....  https://www.safe-families.org/

K8-B

I can't find anything "official" that states that Haitian orphans will be coming to the US.

 I did find this video though on the state department's website. If you go to 5:15, she starts talking specifically about adoptions.

MayDayGirl

Oh interesting, we work with safe families, but I didn't see where you were from (it doesn't say under your name) so I wondered if maybe you lived somewhere else, but I know safe families isn't in very many places (yet).

 

That is the program we had our foster son through for 4.5 months.

swell427

Are you also from Illinois MayDayGirl?  I know we have a lot of safe families in our church, in fact one of our youth pastors sent out an email this afternoon that he and his wife would be taking in two Haitian children with the safe families program.  I still have not been able to find very much official information about the children coming into the states and what the process will be.

KatiesCats

Just an FYI for anyone considering getting involved with Safe Families: they are a faith-based organization and if you want to volunteer to host a child, you must be a part of a "faith community."

I thought I was interested and did a lot of reading about it til I read that part.  Oh well.  Apparently I'm not fit to foster for this group.

MayDayGirl

swell427:

Are you also from Illinois MayDayGirl?  I know we have a lot of safe families in our church, in fact one of our youth pastors sent out an email this afternoon that he and his wife would be taking in two Haitian children with the safe families program.  I still have not been able to find very much official information about the children coming into the states and what the process will be.

yes! we go to Harvest, are you familiar with it?

swell427

Wow, small world!  We went to Harvest a couple of times when looking for a church.  We now are members at Willow Creek.