Last year for Covenant Kids was definitely a year to remember. We celebrated ten years of serving children and families through both foster care and adoption. CK also experienced some significant blessings, such as facilitating over 100 children being adopted by CK families. We served over 400 abused and neglected children in our foster care program. We verified over 120 new foster/adoptive families who are ready to serve the call to minister to at-risk children.
Despite the successes of CK over the past 12 months, issues on a state level continue to spiral downward. Programs are being cut drastically, including Child Protective Services. Funding and services are being cut back and are going to be well short of the need. The number of foster children in the state of Texas has grown to over 17,000. Within that number, over 4,000 of these children are currently waiting to be adopted. In the Dallas/Fort Worth area alone, over 300 children every month are removed from their families because of abuse and neglect. That is roughly 10 kids every day, 365 days a year. From what we have seen, these numbers will continue to grow.
Every year hundreds of kids “age out” of the foster care system in Texas. That means they turn 18 and have not been adopted. They are considered adults and they are on their own. Most don’t stand a chance. Of those kids that age out of care, half of them will experience homelessness. Half of the boys will spend time in prison. Half of the girls will become pregnant before they are 20 years old. Research, as well as common sense, shows if these children are adopted they fare much better. Statistics show that adopted children are much more likely to succeed.
Despite the need to place children in adoptive homes, the climate of the child welfare system is going to be making this increasingly difficult for agencies such as CK. As some of you may know, Child Protective Services is planning a complete redesign of the foster care and adoption system to save money. A managed care approach to working with abused and neglected children is coming this year. It will forever change the way faith based agencies like CK partners with CPS.
Covenant Kids needs to adapt to the changing landscape. We are very concerned about the changes coming to CPS. Managed care will not be a better option in serving the needs of these children.
Because of these changes and the overall decrease in funding, CK needs to find other sources of funding to continue the good work God has begun here at CK. We need to raise money in the community so that we can continue to see these children placed in loving, caring, Christian homes.
That will not happen if we don’t act.
It takes approximately $7300 to complete an adoption of an at-risk child at Covenant Kids. We continue to be one of the most efficient agencies serving children today. Our overhead is low. We don’t own any buildings or vehicles. We don’t have any unnecessary expenses. Over 80% of every dollar is spent on direct care services to children and families. We are proud of that.
We implore you to pray about how you and others in your network of family and friends can help support our adoption program. We are open to taking one time financial gifts. Or, it takes around $20 a day, over a period of a year, for you to sponsor an at-risk child to be adopted through Covenant Kids.
Won’t you sponsor one or more children this year? It takes us working together on behalf of these precious children to save a life from growing up in the foster care system and without a forever family to call their own.
