Teen with Lack of Faith in Families Finds a Connection
KENTUCKY/OHIO: Fifteen-year-old Starr* was pretty much done with family when Connect Our Kids came into her life.
When Amber Gets Married Someday, She Will Have Relatives on Her Side of the Aisle
OREGON: “I don’t know, I just never expected to be able to meet another family member that I had out there… but now having the family members that I do have, it definitely has helped [me] out in so many ways now knowing that I have them.” —Amber
Siblings and Grandmother Found
MINNESOTA: Cedric* is a teenage boy who has spent the last few years in the foster care system. Fortunately, an attentive caseworker paid attention to a casual comment about an adult half brother named Michael, a brother Cedric barely knew.
Teen in Foster Care Now Has Five Potential Homes
FLORIDA: Marcus* is a teenager who has been in and out of foster care since he was two-years-old. His caseworker was deeply concerned because she didn’t want Marcus to face homelessness like the 20,000 children who age-out of the foster care system every year without a permanent family.
September’s Promise of All Things Community
September has always been one of my favorite months. When I was younger, I loved the excitement of a fresh start to the school year — picking out new pencils, jumping back into my scout troop and school clubs, and the delightful anticipation of being reunited with friends. Now that I have my own children, as a family we celebrate the season with a special first-day-of-school breakfast and embrace the change to cooler weather with evenings spent around the fire, roasting marshmallows for s’mores with the neighbors.
Reuniting Siblings
The American foster care system is complex. All too often, siblings pulled into the foster care system are separated from one another, causing unnecessary loss and trauma. Sibling relationships provide continuity and are among the longest relationships that people experience, and as such, they are incredibly valuable.
Our Story – Today.
Many people associate foster care as a temporary solution and adoption as a permanent solution. Sadly, those who work in the foster care industry know that foster care is not always temporary for some kids.
The United States has 400,000 children in the foster care system and, each year, more than 20,000 kids age out of foster care, never having been adopted or reunited with family.
Re-imagining Foster Care
We at Connect Our Kids see the practice of social work as one of the most impactful — and at the same time challenging — careers. Connect Our Kids salutes every child welfare professional—especially social workers, CASA volunteers, and family recruiters who work directly with foster children. We are deploying modern technology that will empower these professionals to quickly identify permanent families and mentors for children in their care.
The Child Welfare Legal Community Taps Into the Power of Connect Our Kids
Because of our generous donors, Connect Our Kids is able to expand our work into the legal community. We are proud to have been identified by the National Association of Counsel for Children (NACC) as a valuable legal resource for children, parents, and agencies across the country.
yWorks And Connect Our Kids Power A Revolution For Kids In Foster Care
yWorks, the market leader in graph visualization software solutions, has partnered with Connect Our Kids, a technology non-profit producing child welfare solutions, to power a revolution in the practice of finding permanent loving homes for children in foster care. Through the generous license donation and direct support of the yWorks team, the complete yFiles for HTML product now powers the family tree builder in Family Connections. Social Workers, family recruiters, and CASA Volunteers will now have free access to the same level of visual graphing techniques available to the most advanced systems used in commercial and public sector applications.