Safe Families Volunteer Training in the Chicagoland Area

Prospective Safe Families, you're invited to a live, accelerated Comprehensive Training Session. 

Offered as an alternative to online training, this event is designed to equip you to welcome a child into your home (Host Family) or support a host or placing parent (Family Friend) and move you through the training process efficiently. The live Comprehensive Training Session includes everything you need to become a certified Safe Family Volunteer—all in one place. 

• Start or submit your application
• Get fingerprints taken for the background check
• Complete your training hours
• Meet like-minded families who will support you

The training will be in two parts.  The first two hours will be for all volunteers.  The second two hours will be for Host Families.  So, anyone interested in being a Family Friend only needs to stay for the first two hours.  Host Families need to stay for the whole training.

If you have further questions please contact Sarah Mohr, 773-653-2222, or smohr@safefamilies.net




October 24th Life Bridge Church, Wauconda https://sftraininglifebridge.eventbrite.com

November 7th - College Church, Wheaton https://sftrainingcollegechurch.eventbrite.com

November 21st - Willow Creek North Shore http://sftrainingwcnsnovember.eventbrite.com

 

From an Adoptee's Heart to Yours Webinar

From an Adoptee's Heart to Yours: We Need One Another Some questions, some responses, some conversation. What does it look like to really listen to the deep heart of an adopted person? How does that relate to the human heart in all of us? Join CAFO President Jedd Medefind and Speaker, Therapist & Adoptee Carissa Woodwyk as they discuss what it means to both listen AND respond to one another, so that we are able to keep moving forward, together.   Whether you are an adoptive parent, adoptee, church or small group leader, or advocate with your own desire to listen better... this is a conversation you won't want to miss!  Presenters:  Jedd Medefind, CAFO President  Carissa Woodwyk, Speaker, Therapist & Adoptee Wednesday, September 30 1pm (Central Time)   Join the Webinar!

Post-Adoption Parenting Conference

 November 6-7, 2015

The West Campus Ministry Center, Austin, TX

Rooted ATX is presented by Hope for Orphans in partnership with the For the City Network and hosted by Austin Stone Community Church. The conference will be held in Austin, Texas at the Austin Stone Community Church West Campus Ministry Center located in Westlake Hills.

Adoptive and foster families across America are struggling with children who are dealing with PTSD, neglect, hurt and rejection in their past. Many of these families are in full crisis and their church or orphan ministry is not positioned to help.

At Rooted, we believe that families in crisis, both parents and children, will have the best outcomes only through the understanding of, and obedience to, the transformational power of the gospel. The gospel-centric parenting skills you learn at Rooted are likewise built on complementary developmental clinical research that will address the unique challenges you are facing. This event is for those who need help in understanding the biblical view of the dynamics in your home that are critical to raising at-risk children.

Through its gospel-centered parenting model, Rooted focuses on a foundational understanding of our identity and nature, God’s design in the roles of men and women, understanding spiritual warfare and the role of the body of Christ within the local church for parents who are struggling.

Rooted is based on the presupposition that we can learn much from God’s design for family and how He parents those who belong to Him. We believe that the greatest need of all children is not to become attached to parents, but to their perfect, saving Heavenly Father through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 REGISTER HERE

Lydia Benefit Dinner

In 1916 LYDIA Home Association opened an orphanage, responding to the desperate plight of children who had no home and no one to care for them. 99 years later, LYDIA is still responding to the needs of troubled children and is doing so on a global scale through the Safe Families for Children movement.

On Thursday, October 29, we invite you to join us for a complimentary Benefit Dinner to hear stories of how LYDIA Home Association & Safe Families for Children are serving thousands of children around the world through faith-based approaches and to celebrate what God is doing.

October 29, 2015

Doors open 6:00 PM

Dinner & program 6:30 PM

Hyatt Regency O'Hare (new location)

9300 Bryn Mawr Ave.

Rosemont, IL 60018

Please RSVP by October 15th.
Questions? Contact Becki Allen by email or call 773-896-3234.

Gifts to LYDIA & Safe Families are used to meet the needs of the children we care for and the families we serve. As a non-profit organization and ministry, we rely on the generosity of those who share our heart and vision. We look forward to seeing you at the Benefit Dinner!

Help Send Chinese Orphans to School

September, 2015  It's back to school time. Can you help?     Our education program serves 65 children from various orphanages in Jiangxi province in China. We have some very bright young adults whom we've helped get through college or vocational training programs, and are now launched successfully into the work force, and we're very proud of them.  What a change this is from years past when they would just languish in the Welfare Institute as adults.  And we have some more orphans now ready for the same advanced training and education. We also support many disabled children who really need the stimulation, patient teaching, and steady rehab training only a special education facility offers. Those facilities are few and far between in China; it's very exciting that we've located some for children that didn't previously have access to one, especially in Shangrao and Yichun. Naturally, that kind of intense, specialized training comes at a price. We're seeking donations to be able to send these children to a school that gives them their best chance at fulfilling their potential. So far we know that at least 15 kids will need full or partial scholarships for the school year starting now.  For a listing of children, more information and to sponsor a student, click HERE.

Hope for Children in Foster Care

With a grant from the United States government, Bethany Christian Services has implemented a new and unique pilot program aimed at uniting older children in foster care with loving families.

Called Operation Forever Family, the program employs four former foster youth to serve as lead recruiters, coaches, and mentors to teens who are still in foster care. It empowers children in the foster care system to know that they're not alone, and that others just like them have prevailed through difficult circumstances and gone on to lead successful lives. Read more

Amber is one of these recruiters. She shared her story in the summer 2015 issue of LifeLines. See a sneak peek here!

A Fun Way to Support Adoption & Vulnerable Children

Get ready for a 5K or 1 Mile Family Fun Run supporting Project Home Children's Foundation, a non-profit striving to support vulnerable children, including those with special needs, by providing adoption grants, supporting orphanages, educational programs and various activities.

Sunday September 20, 2015 at Darien Community Park (71st Street and Clarendon Hills Rd.) Register by August 31st , receive a free t-shirt

Schedule:

7:00-8:00 Registration AND Packet Pickup (at the North Pavilion off of 71st Street)

8:15 - Warm-ups provided by Right Fit

8:30 AM for 5K participants

8:40 for 1-mile participants

Awards immediately following

Prices:

• 1-Mile Run – $20 per entrant in advance ($25 on race day)
  • $10 for participants under 18 years old ($15 on race day)
• 5K Run – $30 per entrant in advance ($35 on race day)
• $15 for participants under 18 years old ($20 on race day)   
  
  
                             Children under 4 years old are free     
   
   REGISTER HERE
         

 WALKERS, RUNNERS, STROLLERS & WHEELCHAIRS WELCOME! 

 FREE Parking will be available at the Indian Prairie Public Library located on the corner of Clarendon Hills Road and Plainfield Road across from Darien Community Park. No parking will be available along 71st and Clarendon Hills Road or in the North Lot of Darien Community Park.

Additional Location Information Race Day Headquarters: Darien Community Park is located at 7100 Plainfield Road in Darien. The race and registration take place on the North end of the park at 71st Street and Clarendon Hills Road. Race day registration begins 7am.

African-American Adoption Champions Needed

 

 

Black Lives Matter: African-American Adoption Champions Needed

Ken Mullner
National Adoption Center
215-875-0323
Kmullner@adopt.org

Black Lives Matter: African-American Adoption Champions Needed
Philadelphia, Pa: 26% of children in U.S. foster care are African-American, double the percentage of African-American children in the U.S. population. The National Adoption Center (NAC) is working with other leaders in child welfare to help create solutions to these issues. We are convening a meeting of academic, spiritual, governmental and community organizers and leaders to understand the racial inequality in the child welfare system and then to develop a national strategy to address this issue.

“While national attention has waned over the years, and the numbers of children in care goes up and down, racial disproportionality and disparity in services remains constant for African American children in foster care and for those in child welfare systems throughout the nation who are in need of permanent adoptive families” states Toni Oliver, MSW, President National Association of Black Social Workers. Likewise, Frank Perfinski, Adoption Program Manager Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, shares “every child deserves to be a part of a forever family. Currently in Delaware, there are 82 children in foster care needing permanency and 63% of those children are African American.”

Continue Reading HERE.

SOS Villages Looking for Foster Parents

Spiritual Battles on the Homefront

The Vulnerable Children’s Ministry 
at Willow Creek

Invites you to join us this month for our workshop:

Spiritual Battles on the Homefront

Learn how the prayers for yourself, family and children in your home

can transform and redirect lives.

Guest speaker and Section Leader, Lori Mazzenga, shares her personal story of abandonment, adoption and the blessings of a birth family reunification.

Through her journey, Lori has experienced the healing power of prayer and learned to recognize and overcome the negative emotions and struggles that come from sources other than the power and authority of the Holy Spirit.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

7:30 PM – 8:45 PM

Willow Creek Community Church

67 E. Algonquin Road, So. Barrington, IL

Room TBD

***Registration for this event is not required. 

***Questions? E-mail vcministry127@gmail.com.

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Childcare for infants through pre-K is available and Awana is available for Kindergarten through Grade 5 at Midweek for Kids.

http://www.willowcreek.org/midweekforkids  

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