FaithBridge Foster Care Seeks Foster Parents

ALPHARETTA – May is National Foster Care Month, and FaithBridge Foster Care says there is a great need this year for foster parents who can host siblings now in state custody or children with special needs also placed in foster care.

As part of National Foster Care Month, FaithBridge is working with churches and other organizations to seek foster parents to love and care for these children who need placement in homes where a parent or guardian can love or nurture them. FaithBridge is the largest child welfare and faith-based agency in the state seeking to place children in foster homes.

More than 11,000 children are in the state’s foster care system at this time. In the past 12 months, 43 percent of all children referred to FaithBridge were in sibling groups and 50 percent were classified as having special needs – children with significant medical or behavioral issues.

Kerri Suiter of Locust Grove and her husband Josh are one such couple who have recently fostered a little girl and then her infant brother with special needs. Eventually they adopted both of them and now Charlotte – age 5 and her two and a half-year-old brother Dax, are thriving.

The Suiters have older twins – age nine – who love on Charlotte who is now in pre-K. And the family has worked together to serve the needs of Dax who is in a wheelchair but is getting the treatments and therapies he needs. “I couldn’t imagine getting Charlotte and not getting her brother,” Mrs. Suiter said. “This has taught our children to see the world in a whole new light and to love in a way they never dreamed of.”

Officials with FaithBridge said they are so blessed to find families like the Suiters and pray that there are others who will come forth especially during National Foster Care Month to serve siblings or children with special needs.

“Being a foster parent takes a big heart and a willingness to serve children in ways you never imagined,” said Bob Bruder-Mattson, President and CEO of FaithBridge Foster Care. “Through no fault of their own too many of these children are in the state system and just need a stable home with a family who will love them unconditionally no matter what their struggles.”

FaithBridge Foster Care works with more than 50 churches in 15 North Georgia counties to recruit potential foster parents to serve children. It also reaches out to birth parents to mentor them and try to heal their family situation so that children eventually may be reunited with their families.

Of the roughly 11,000 children in the state’s foster care system, more than 200 of them are placed in FaithBridge-sponsored foster homes.

During National Foster Care Month, FaithBridge Foster Care will conduct additional outreach to its church partners seeking additional foster parents.

If you belong to a church or just want to learn more how to become a foster parent with FaithBridge, go to faithbridgefostercare.org.

About FaithBridge Foster Care - FaithBridge Foster Care is the largest Georgia-based and Christ-centered child placing agency in the state. They recruit, train, and support foster and adoptive families in local churches and license them to provide community-based, short- and long-term traditional and therapeutic care and adoptive homes for foster children in Georgia. They are licensed with the state of Georgia to provide Child Life Histories for children who are eligible for adoption, ensuring they have all of their required documents to be adopted.

FaithBridge Foster Care’s vision is for every foster child to experience the hope, healing, and unconditional love of Jesus Christ and their mission is to mobilize, organize, and equip local churches to solve their community’s foster care crisis.

They developed “SeetheNeed.org,” a website intended to help create more homes for foster children. It calculates the number of foster families needed in any specific area within Georgia and they plan to add more states in the future. They pioneered the Community of Care® model which is designed to surround every foster family with a network of trained volunteers and professionals providing the support they need to provide safe and stable homes for foster children. Since 2007, FaithBridge has served more than 2,000 children in foster care through partnering with 97 churches.

For more information, please visit www.faithbridgefostercare.org.