Christians raising children through Foster care programme
Since its launch in 2019, the For the Child Foster Care Programme has placed children with 34 parents who have been provided with the requisite resources to assist them in this role.
The initiative is executed by the Family Life Ministries (FLM) in partnership with Child Protection and Family Services Agency and Nairn Family Homes in Canada. Among the 34 parents are single women who are helping to give back to society by nurturing these children and providing them with love and guidance.
The privately run foster care programme was inspired by the need to provide loving families for children in state care. Director of the programme, Karen Fraser Williams, has witnessed not just the children, but the parents transform positively as they adopt to their roles.
“It is really a very full-filling experience. I am guided by the fact that God sets the lonely in families,” she said.
The programme allows single Christian women who want to experience the joys of child rearing to do so. They do not have to do it alone, as the FLM provides them with training and there is also a support group where they can seek guidance. Fraser Williams said every effort is made to help them adjust and be the best foster parent possible.
“So be it counselling, be it psychological assessment, if they need a little extra help with learning, we assist them in all those areas and we have seen big improvements where the children are concerned,” she said.
Fraser Williams noted that there are children in the programme who have lived with their foster parents for several years and are now 18-years-old. The programme continues to recruit persons to come on board and foster a child or provide financial support.
“When you are able to give to that child, you are really helping them with identity. You are really helping them to find someone that they can identify with,” she said.
