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We taught together at Merry Oaks Elementary for a couple of years. It wasn’t easy—we worked 80-hour weeks—but we loved those kids and families so much. Visit fostervillagecharlotte.org or facebook.com/fostervillagecharlotte for more information and ways to get involved. If you are already a full-access volunteer (background check, training, childcare webinar training completed) the portal is a great way to have all up-to-date information in one place! Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities?
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Members of the community host donation drives and gently used items are posted on Foster Village Charlotte Swap for further needs. FVC staff follow up by email within two weeks with each family and also to introduce new families to other support services to stabilize the journey in foster care. Foster Village Charlotte creates connection with dignity for children and families experiencing foster care by meeting urgent needs, providing educational and emotional support, and advocating as a collective community voice for children. Foster Village Charlotte is committed to helping children, foster families, kinship families, and/or biological families by creating a village of support during their time of crisis. Staying emotionally present during the difficult transition into foster care takes lots of energy from all parties involved.
Untangling Foster Care in Charlotte
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Kinship families, often much less prepared because of the situation, are given any resources needed. Our delivery zone is 20 miles from our resource center but all items can be picked up at the center if out of range, allowing us to serve additional families. Forms are located on our website and filled out by social workers or caregivers.
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This program equips caregivers with sensory tools and play-based strategies to help manage children's trauma responses effectively. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic further tested our resilience, prompting us to advocate fiercely for caregivers' needs during unprecedented times, enhancing our virtual support offerings to maintain continuity of care. In the ever-expanding and growing community of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, where nearly 400+ children navigate the complexities of foster care, we at Foster Village Charlotte stand as a beacon of support and hope. Established to address the tangled web of challenges these children and their families face, our mission is rooted in untangling critical issues such as insufficient resources, isolation, and fragmented information.
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Foster Village operates on an annual budget of about $350,000, 70% of which comes from individual donations. It occupies a small house in the Oakhurst neighborhood in southeast Charlotte, but Santoro hopes she can raise enough money for a new resource center by the end of 2023. A new center would allow for more comfortable interactions between children and caregivers at sensitive and emotionally charged times, like when foster children reunite with their birth families. It is this ‘village,’ alongside a real community need that has fueled Foster Village’s momentum.
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I’m here to be an ally.” I had a picture of her room on my phone that I showed him. My empathy grew in leaps and bounds in the hospital that day. We work to elevate the voices of children and families, build awareness, and increase access to the tools needed to end generational cycles of adversity. By connecting foster families with other foster families, biological families and trusted resources, families are strengthened and empowered to continue fostering. We believe that strengthening the families and systems that surround a child experiencing foster care leads to a resilient next generation that breaks the cycle of childhood adversity. Bill Martin echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the team’s aim to create a relief valve for directors and a template for the organization to transcend founder-centric care.
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A recent Foster Village survey of more than 100 of its client families found that 75% of caregivers are likely to continue fostering in 2022 because of the organization’s services. All said they depend on Foster Village to learn how to access resources and navigate the system. When a family decides to foster a child, it can be scary and overwhelming.
Foster Village Charlotte’s mission is to make that transition easier and provide resources and support for children and families. The journey is often lonely and emotionally exhausting for everyone involved. It was this challenge that prompted four Charlotte-based foster moms to seek out support during their own foster care journeys. After finding each other, they quickly realized the need for a community of support that would ensure every foster parent had the resources they needed to continue offering a safe place for children. Today, even with the disruption of the pandemic, Foster Village thrives.
Our advocacy efforts have extended to legislative achievements, including the NC Foster Parent Bill of Rights, signed into law in September 2021. We've also ramped up our educational outreach, combating harmful myths and providing accurate, comprehensive information to foster families. This initiative helps foster parents navigate the system more effectively and advocate for the children in their care. Your support gives children experiencing foster care and the families caring for them the village of support they need to thrive.
We also found out that our foster daughter’s biological brother was born and needed a home. But then, during a court meeting, the judge decided that the baby would live with an aunt and uncle. Once we did, I couldn’t unhear or unsee what I had seen and heard. We finished classes and home inspections, then got a phone call saying we could start hearing about kids soon.
When Foster Village Charlotte joined Cultivate in 2020, they were an emerging organization that had a groundswell of grassroots support, an ambitious vision and deep passion for local children and families. The FVC team had recently moved into a Center that would serve as a home for their support groups, Welcome Pack storage and space for foster families and biological families to work together to support the children in their care. At Foster Village Charlotte (FVC), the commitment to providing a supportive space for children and foster families goes beyond the ordinary. FVC facilitates connections, offers educational and emotional support, and equips caregivers with essential advocacy tools. My vision has always been for Foster Village to be a safe haven for kids to come back to over and over again, one that’s comfortable and dignifying for their families.
Foster Village is a “village of villages,” with locations all around the country. Our goal is to be in every community where there is a need. Find the location nearest you to discover how you can get involved. The Village Partner Community creates pathways of consistency, allowing Foster Village Charlotte to plan forward with vision and confidence for sustainability and scalability. We invite you to become part of this transformative journey.
You play, show them around, and blow out the candles with so many adults that are here just for you. The team launched Foster the Movement, a fundraising campaign that asked foster families, volunteers and donors to share their stories on social media and ask for support from friends and family. The Village overwhelmingly responded, raising more than $80,000 to help continue the services that had supported many of them so well.
I would have loved for my (foster) children’s father to have access to a home-like setting like our current resource center in the Oakhurst neighborhood. We hope to open a larger resource center so we can provide more intentional programming around the foster and biological family on their road home. When Raeya was 6 months old, we both left teaching. I took a job at Watershed, working in the children’s program. During that time, I said to Tony, “Let’s do foster care.” Looking back, that did not feel like the right time to start something new. Tony was starting his business, I was in a new job, we had little kids.
Copyright © 2024 Next Stage Consulting All rights reserved. I asked the leader of Foster Village there if she would consider an affiliation model. But she kept checking on us and eventually agreed to let us use her logo and brand. That allowed us to point back to something that was already working elsewhere.
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