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AGENCY WORKERS • FOSTER PARENTS • VULNERABLE ADULTS • CHILDREN

The Forgotten

Every member of the foster care community matters.

1. AGENCY WORKERS

The role of agency workers can be challenging as they juggle the demands of heavy caseloads and long hours. Workers often feel the physical and emotional strain that comes from caring deeply for the people they serve. Seeing trauma and navigating hard decisions daily takes its toll—a toll that isn’t meant to be carried alone.

2. FOSTER PARENTS

Life changes very quickly for foster parents with new children to care for, trauma to understand, and a system to navigate. Too often, they feel alone or isolated, even sometimes from their church who might be unaware or unprepared to step in and help. Foster parents feel the heartache that comes from holding loosely but loving deeply, as they attach to the children in their care while at the same time pray for restoration, redemption, and reunification of the family.

3. VULNERABLE ADULTS

Biological Parents

Many biological parents grew up in and out of foster care and are caught in the hopeless cycle of substance abuse, addiction, and mental illness. They have few positive role models or safe people to call in times of crisis. Therefore, they are unequipped to care for their children, even though they love them. In times of stress, they often default to what they have experienced in the past and sadly, this can result in abuse or neglect of their children.

Young Adults

Reunification or adoption does not happen for all children who enter foster care. Instead, some leave the system as young adults with no safety net to fall back on. We all crave relationship—we were made for it—and without a family to lean on for support, these young adults face life and all its circumstances on their own. Sadly, for many, their future includes homelessness, addiction, incarceration, or even becoming victims of sex trafficking as they fall prey to those offering relationship.

4. CHILDREN

Children enter foster care because they have been abused or neglected by the very ones meant to keep them safe. This trauma impacts their bodies and their brains in significant ways, which affects their development, attachment, physical health, emotional responses, and behaviors. Once in foster care, a plan is created to bring safety and permanency to the child, whether through reunification with their parents or through adoption or legal guardianship.

400,000

Children in Foster Care in the U.S.

100,000

of those waiting to be adopted

20,000

Aging out of Foster Care Each Year

The Biblical call to care for the forgotten.

Feed the hungry,
and help those in trouble.

Then your light will shine out from the darkness,
and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.

The Lord will guide you continually,
giving you water when you are dry
and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,
like an ever-flowing spring.

Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.
Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls
and a restorer of homes.

Isaiah 58:10-12

TFI is truly doing what it has set out to do…mobilize the body of Christ! It has been such a blessing to help meet needs of those in our community!

KaraProject Volunteer

Thank you so much for The Forgotten Initiative’s gift of diapers, wipes and Journey Bags. Donations like yours help us offset programmatic costs so that we can reach more children and families each year.

Sara IrmenVice President of Development, Children's Home & Aid

Working with TFI was a great experience! It is awesome to see so many people in the community come together and make the world brighter for some very special kids.

FawnProject Sunshine Volunteer

"You guys!! Tony had to head out of state for a family funeral, and he is staying very close to where our first foster child, Adam, who is living with his grandparents and his mom. They invited him over, and we are FaceTiming. It’s been two years since we’ve seen him. He’s amazing and his mom is doing wonderfully! Best news: he still reads the Bible we gave him all the time. To God be the Glory!!!

SelenaFoster Mom + Advocate