How to Help Kids in Foster Care

In honor of May being National Foster Care Month, Strengthening Families, Changing Lives is running a special series designed to give a voice to the many different perspectives of foster care and adoption. This series will feature guest posts by people with widely varying experiences. 

How to Help Kids in Foster Care
by Addison Cooper, Adoption at the Movies

There are lots of ways that you can help kids in foster care. You could be a long-term foster parent. You could open your home to kids who have just been detained and need a safe, comforting emergency shelter home. You could be a camp counselor, a respite provider, or a CASA. Maybe your skills lie in social media, and you could be an online advocate. Or maybe you’re just a really loving person that could be a mentor, a Big Brother, or a Big Sister. Or even, just a friend.

Whatever the reason, you care enough about foster kids to be on this site. And that says a lot. Either that, or you got sent here by a friend. Or really, really badly mistyped that last Google search. Or you like flowcharts. Whatever. I’m glad you’re here.

So how can you help foster kids?

Let’s find out…

For more ideas about helping kids in foster care, check out our tip sheet, Ways to Help Youth and Children in Care.

Addison Cooper, MSW, LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Missouri and California. Addison spent several years as a foster care and adoption social worker and supervisor, and now works as a therapist. He’s journeyed with over 100 children as they finalized their adoptions out of foster care, and with many more as they journeyed through foster care on the route to reunification. As a therapist, he helps children, adolescents, adults and families work towards health, healing, and better communication.

Adoption at the Movies is aimed at helping foster, adoptive, and pre-adoptive families start important conversations about adoption-related issues. Adoption issues are often highly emotional, and are also pretty often unique to adoption. Families often feel intimidated because the issues are so important and yet so unfamiliar. Movies are pretty easy to talk about though, and Adoption at the Movies is about using films as easy bridges into those important but hard-to-reach conversations.

Addison lives in Missouri with his wife, who is also a psychologist. He doesn’t win many arguments.