“Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.” ― Erwin McManus
Currently for most Americans, the known narrative around foster care is either non-existent because the majority of people know little about it, or it’s perceived as a space primarily full of only sadness and dysfunction with all of its converging complexities. And it is indeed complex. As foster care researcher Cris Beam points out: “Foster care is actually the fascinating, if sad, culmination of three separate lines of social policy- toward poverty, racial difference, and child abuse- finally braiding together in the middle and and of the twentieth century.” We at America’s Kids Belong do not pretend to fully understand all of the complexities around foster care. We certainly don’t have all the right words to help console all the courageous kids in foster care who are holding out hope to be reunited with their birth families or find a family through adoption. We don’t know everything there is to know in the space of foster care.
But here’s what we do know.
- We know that foster care is an imperfect system trying to align the goals of keeping kids safe and restore them to their families if possible.
- We know that foster care doesn’t just take effort and attention and sacrifice. It gives back.
- We know that foster care gives faith communities a clarion mission of loving their neighbors and reflecting the love of God.
- We know that foster care gives businesses a chance to use their innovative ideas and generosity to strengthen their communities by supporting foster families.
- We know that foster care gives government leaders a platform for hope and unity in an era of bleakness, division, and so much negativity.
- We know that foster care gives artists, writers, and musicians an inspiring cause to stretch their creative voice and powerfully spotlight a cause too few know much about.
- We know that foster care makes us as Americans need one another in a time of unprecedented division and disconnection.
Foster care in a way weaves us all together. That is the grand story we are helping to tell at America’s Kids Belong as we spotlight individuals, businesses, faith communities, and influencers who are engaging foster care. We believe telling great stories around foster care will bring many more great people into joining the cause. We also believe telling these stories will shift the narrative of foster care itself so that millions of Americans will come to know it and see it as a growing place of inspiration, hope, endurance, and belonging. We’re excited to see 2025 as a year filled with many more stories that shine and help illuminate the thousands of beautiful faces of children and families previously unseen and unrealized in the fringes of society. We all can do something great this year for kids and families in foster care.
