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Welcome to our Blog! We post weekly articles written on a variety of topics from a variety of people, including our staff, volunteers, community members, and our parents and youth. The Voices of our Blog are opinion pieces, reflecting the diverse experiences and viewpoints of our community. These articles are not meant to represent the views of everyone at FCNI, our Board of Directors and staff, or present a definitive policy statement, but are designed to be informative and thought-provoking.
I’m Jonathan, a Lead Rehabilitation Specialist with the Family Care Network and a Wraparound Program Coordinator. In my job, I have the privilege of working with amazing youth and families every day. Every one of them has a story of challenges and courage. But there was one family in particular who really stood out to me as having outstanding resilience and experienced incredible growth. The foster family I am speaking about was served in our Wraparound program.
Gathering with others dedicated to serving children, youth and families from around the nation is always inspiring, and this year’s Family Focused Treatment Association’s (FFTA) yearly conference was no exception. In attendance were policymakers, foster care agencies, healthcare providers and foster parents, all gathered together to encourage one another and to become better equipped in the work we do to serve our nation’s most vulnerable population: foster youth.
When I incorporated the Family Care Network almost 31 years ago, I had a very clear vision of how I wanted the organization to integrate with the community, and for how the community to integrate with the organization. In fact, we embedded this precept within our mission statement: “to enhance the wellbeing of children and families, in partnership with our community!” Legally, we are a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit Public Benefit Corporation, but for all intents and purposes – we are a Community-Based Organization! Let me explain the difference.
Every day it seems, the clinical staff at the Family Care Network are exercising their most imaginative and creative thinking in an effort to figure out what to do with youth referred for placement whose behaviors are so extreme that no one wants them. How would you like to take into your home a young lady who was removed from the “highest level of care and treatment” group home for assaulting staff and other foster youth? Or a youth addicted to heroin and other substances, who refuses help, and who can become assaultive and continually runs away to get high?
Hi, my name is Natalie Watson, and I’m obsessed with foster care! I can’t wait to one day be a foster parent, and here’s why….
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