Foster Families

The MA Department of Children and Families states as its mission that it "strives to protect children from abuse and neglect and, in partnership with families and communities, ensure that children are able to grow and thrive in a safe and nurturing environment. We believe all children have the right to grow up in a home, free from abuse and neglect, with access to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education." 2017 DCF Report

But without enough foster homes, children who have already been through the trauma of having been removed from their permanent homes must suffer additional hardships.

DCF struggling without enough foster homesVulnerable children in state custody are spending the day in state offices or being moved from place to place because the state's foster care system is overloaded, according to interviews and records obtained by 5 Investigates.

Apply to become a DCF foster parentFoster parents give children a temporary place for healing and an extended family to lean on until they can return to their own home. Learn how you can open your heart and home to a child in need.

There is more than one way to help.

Fostering Hope

This ministry's vision is that every child in foster care has a family to care for them. They call this Project ZERO because ZERO children should be waiting for a family. They believe it is socially irresponsible and morally unethical for a society to remove a child from his or her home because the home is deemed to be unsafe but then fail to have a safe, alternative family ready to receive them.

Volunteers do not have to become permanent foster families. Fostering Hope can connect volunteers with foster families in need of support, or with local DCF offices.

For more information, or to volunteer, contact Nam Hee Kim at namhee@citylifeboston.org.

Support A Foster Family at Citylife!

Foster families welcome and care for children who have been temporarily removed from their homes by the state for their safety. To love and care for a foster child will no doubt have its challenges. Will you consider being part of the team to support and wrap around a foster family at Citylife as they prepare to care for another little one?

Some ways to do this:

Sign up to donate or lend used or new baby items
Sign up to offer babysitting help (you must submit to a CORI check)
Placements can happen on very short notice, without time to prepare everything. Sign up to be part of an email list to which the foster family can post for help with more urgent needs as they arise.

Email namhee@citylifeboston.org for more info, or to get connected.

Watch this Zoom recording of a Foster Parent Q&A, where we heard from Citylife families committed to providing safe and loving foster homes.

Foster Parenting Q&A.mp4

Literature on volunteering from Fostering Hope:

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