CHICAGO—When a crisis strikes, many of us rely on relatives and friends for support. But for some families, there is no safety net.

Often, a straightforward problem such as postpartum depression or unemployment can be debilitating. Children in these situations often suffer neglect or abuse; some eventually are removed from their home and placed in state custody.

But now, thanks to an exciting program sponsored by Baptist Family & Children’s Services, parents experiencing a temporary crisis can arrange for their children to stay with a Christian family while they address the issues that led to their situation.

The program, Safe Families, is fast becoming a national model for communities that wan to expand their safety net for at-risk children.

It all began in Chicago in 2002, in the wake of a particularly deadly summer for children.

Week after week there had been news of another child in Chicago who had died at the hands of a parent. The city responded with an awareness campaign that included billboards featuring a photograph of the police commissioner and the words “No Child Should Die for Crying,” along with a child protection hotline number.

David Anderson, executive director of LYDIA (a Christian social service agency in Chicago), reacted to the crisis by writing Mayor Richard M. Daley.

In his letter, Anderson asked, “Isn’t it shame that a family can’t get help until after they have abused or neglected their child? At that point, the children have been removed from the home and parents often have little hope of their children being returned.”

Anderson then made a radical proposition in his letter: What if compassionate Christians opened their homes to children from families in crisis before the children were taken into state custody?

The mayor and one of his trusted deputies responded enthusiastically and helped find seed money to implement this bold undertaking.

By February 2003, Safe Families for Children-Chicago began with a handful of volunteers. This movement has now grown to close to 400 volunteer families in the Chicago area alone with a placement rate of over 30 a month. Along the way, hundreds of people have been touched and changed — not only those served by the ministry, but those serving as volunteers as well.

The movement already has expanded into 16 other cities across America, from Atlanta to California. And with a partnership with Baptist Family & Children’s Services, families in Maryland and Delaware have a renewed hope.

The goal of the Safe Families program is to reunite children with their biological parent in a home that is more stable and healthy, in part, because of the contribution of the Safe Families intervention.

Safe Families is not just about the custody and care of the children. A mentoring relationship is established between the two parents that continues after the children are returned home. The Safe Family is a type of extended family member that can be a resource if problems reoccur.

How does Safe Families work?

Baptist Family caseworkers hear about families in crisis from a variety of referral sources, including schools, hospitals, social workers, churches and other Christian agencies. The staff works quickly to contact an available volunteer family and shares the situation with them.

Safe Families volunteers include singles, married couples with children of any age and empty nesters, all of whom simply decided to make room in their hearts and their homes for children in need.

Volunteers agree to the placement at their own discretion and put a time limit on their involvement. The average length of stay is about six weeks, but can range from two days to a year.

Biological parents maintain full custody of their child, and are encouraged to participate in decisions regarding their child’s care while they address whatever issues led to the crisis. For some, this could mean drug rehabilitation; for others, it might involve leaving an abusive relationship or finding steady employment.

Baptist Family staff members will keep in touch with the parents, working closely with the referring organization to determine when and if the family can be reunited.

Currently, 85 percent of all families in the program come back together, often in the most stable environment they have ever known. In other cases, the children are eventually placed with relatives or in foster care.

Why Safe Families?

Because all the resources are volunteer-driven, there are no physical buildings or finances that can limit its growth. There is the opportunity to build a volunteer-driven safety net for any child, any reason.

In addition to a measurable impact, such as a decrease in child welfare custody cases, there is a significant societal cost savings when child abuse is prevented and families are restored.

And because state child welfare agencies only intervene when a significant trigger incident (physical child abuse) occurs, there are thousands of children in quite vulnerable situations.

With Safe Families, any child for any reason will have a safe place to live.

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please contact Melissa Mazeski at Baptist Family at (410) 872-1050 or safefamilies@baptistfamily.org.

Ask any group of Americans what exactly comprises the American Dream and you’re likely to hear a variety of answers. But, if you boil those answers down to their essence, you might just find a common theme of freedom, prosperity and security.

The decade past may have taken the glow off of the American Dream for most of this country’s people. But, curiously enough, the American Dream is not just the property of Americans. Worldwide, especially in some of the globe’s most troubled countries, hundreds of millions of men and women lay heads on pillows each night and dream in American.

In the fall of 2009, Baptist Family began working with a group of African refugees living in the Belair-Edison neighborhood of Baltimore City. Nine large families (totaling around 60 people) were relocated from camps in the Congo by an international nonprofit organization called the International Rescue Committee.

These men, women, and children came to America to escape crushing poverty and illness. A rolling conflict called “Africa’s World War” has devastated massive swaths of the Congo and Rwanda and left millions homeless. Even refugee camps have become targets, and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or left homeless a second time after military strikes.

Those whose camps survive intact face food and water shortages and a lack of basic sanitation.

In the middle of this nightmare, the power of the American Dream is undeniable. And a very few people are given a chance to make the dream a reality in their lives.

Baltimore’s refugees live in neatly kept apartments and row homes. IRC provides their housing for eight months while they begin to acclimate to their new country.

The refugees speak Swahili and some French (a leftover of French colonial involvement in the Congo). They immediately reached out to Salem Gospel Ministries, a BCM/D church that has a strong French-speaking African population. Salem Gospel Ministries began to minister to and advocate for the refugees, who needed significant help in adjusting to a new way of life.

The parents and children, while well housed and out of immediate danger, needed major amounts of material assistance. Clothing and shoes were in short supply, and Baltimore’s cold weather months were coming on. Baptist Family donors and friends from University Church saw to it that the refugees would not suffer the winter’s cold.

The children were enrolled full-time at a Baltimore City public school with limited “English As A Second Language” resources. So Baptist Family staff and other volunteers began after-school English language classes for the refugee children. Bright and energetic, the children have taken to their studies and are making great progress with the language and culture of their new homeland.

Lessons begin with a scripture verse, and the refugees’ spiritual well-being is taken very seriously. Some are Christians and others not, but all are shown the compassionate love of Christ.

Adults are also learning a new language through English classes held after Sunday services at Salem Gospel Ministries. Salem meets regularly at Patterson Park Church in Baltimore.

Along with the great opportunity they have been offered, the adults face a great challenge: adjusting to a new language and culture and finding gainful employment in the current economy. Their rescue from the Congo comes at a bit of a price. They are expected to work to repay transportation costs for their family’s flight to America.

For some of these large families–with as many as eight children–this debt is large and looming.

Their needs are great, indeed, and the country they have left behind is the home of many painful memories. But the men and women afforded their own chance at the American Dream are working hard to heal their families’ trauma and to make a new start in what must still be called the Land of Opportunity.

Recently we wrote of a little boy in our CHOSEN program who was adopted by his foster mother (see our latest newsletter). I had seen a picture of him in this fabulous suit on adoption day and I knew there was a story behind the suit.

This past Tuesday I heard the rest of the story. A friend of the adoptive mother was extremely fond of “Nelson.” She learned that she had cancer and would not live much longer. She decided she would purchase a seersucker suit for him to wear to the adoption. In fact, she died before she could witness the adoption. Although she was not there in person, she was “there” in the form of that suit. What a wonderful tribute to that woman who understood the significance of that occasion. It will also serve as a reminder to “Nelson” of the new start he received because of people who reached out in compassion in his crisis and gave him the only thing he really needed – Love.

Every day it is our privilege to give people new starts. Refugees from the Congo are here in America and we are helping them get settled, learn the language, get jobs, and start new lives in this country. In another instance, a little boy came to us from the Department of Social Services as “Baby Unknown.” He was found wandering the streets of Baltimore and could not tell us who he was or where he came from. He now has a name, a birth certificate, and is able to apply for a Social Security card so that he can receive the services he needs to live a normal life.

When the people of the town of Nain witnessed a miracle performed by Jesus (Luke 7:11-17), they shouted, “the Lord has visited us, the Lord has visited us.” The Lord is about new life and new starts. It is our privilege to be His servants in giving people new starts. Thank you for your assistance as you continue praying for those we help. And pray for us!

In thinking about how we go about the work the Lord has called us to, I am reminded of something called the WOWSE concept. It is an acronym for “With Or Without Someone Else.” If you have ever been involved in a project you were committed to, you have come to this crossroads. You have probably said to yourself, “I will get this job done with or without anybody else.” True leadership is about a commitment so strong that a person is willing to complete the mission with or without anyone else.

Jesus was committed to preaching, teaching and healing regardless of whether the disciples came along. And in the end he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice regardless of the fact that no one else would or could. My mentor in the ministry, Richard Ledbetter, was like that. He was committed to the church achieving her mission and would do whatever it took to get the job done. He would never ask someone to do something he wasn’t willing to do. Another WOWSE person said he was that way because he was raised on a farm. Everybody pitched in to do whatever needed to be done. When a cow needed to be milked it didn’t matter whose turn it was to milk it. The job had to get done.

Families, businesses and churches would run much smoother if everyone had the attitude of “just get the job done.” The lack of this attitude is why true customer service is in such short supply in our businesses and even our churches. Jesus was a WOWSE person. How about you? What commitment are you wiling to follow through on with or without someone else? Think about it and do it!

COLUMBIA, Md.—The staff, trustees, donors and clients of Baptist Family are very grateful to Maryland/Delaware Baptists for your generous and continuing support.

Thanks to your prayers and donations, 2008 was a banner year for Baptist Family. Our programs served more people than ever before, and we were able to add significant capacity, improving the quality of our care in equal measure to the increase in quantity. We are pleased to report the following progress:

Record-breaking material assistance. As in years past, Baptist Family headed efforts to provide poverty-stricken families with support at back-to-school time and Christmas. Funds and supplies were raised from a variety of sources, including individual donors and Baptist churches in Maryland and Delaware. Four thousand three hundred one kids were served in these combined events, up 60 percent from 2007. A year of strong fund raising was critical to this effort, as it allowed us to upgrade the staff person responsible for these two projects from part-time to full-time. Her extra hours returned extremely good results.
Families have told us many times that without our assistance they would not have been able to provide anything for their kids at back-to-school and Christmas. We have been blessed by strong partnerships with local churches that care deeply about their communities.

Record-breaking information and referral. Strong fund raising also allowed Baptist Family to hire a part-time staffer to man our information and referral hotline. Families in all kinds of crises (financial, psychological, medical) call Baptist Family for help. To assist families whose needs for help are beyond the scope of our programs, we have long maintained a directory of local organizations whose services complement our own. In 2008, we focused on updating and improving the quality of that directory and increasing the number of hours staff were available to answer calls for help live, rather than responding to a message left on voicemail.

These efforts paid off, as GSN staff responded to 411 calls for help in 2008, an increase of 64 percent over 2007. God has given us many opportunities to provide clients with a listening ear, encouragement, and prayer. One caller prayed with Baptist Family staff and even accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord.

New opportunities in transitional housing. In 2008, we also saw GSN’s acquisition and lease of two new single-family homes that the program will use to provide transitional housing services to homeless families. One home, in the Pen Lucy neighborhood of Baltimore City, is already in use. The other, in Baltimore’s Brooklyn neighborhood and a partnership with the First Baptist Church of Brooklyn, is currently being outfitted with furniture and supplies.

The impact of this program is massive. The family in our Baltimore City house is a young married couple with an infant. We have been blessed to help them grow and mature, and to raise a healthy child while working and going through school.

Foster care goal well met. Our CHOSEN Treatment Foster Care program met its 2008 goal, caring for 70 children. CHOSEN receives children via referrals from county-level Departments of Social Services. It then matches referred kids with trained treatment foster parents. CHOSEN kids are treated by individual families in individual–not group–homes. The child’s treatment is implemented by our foster parents and overseen by skilled Family Treatment managers employed by CHOSEN.

Major success was accomplished in transforming foster families into adoptive ones. Of the 70 children in our care in the past year, 12 have been adopted by their foster parents or are in the final stages of their adoption. This is a fantastic result, which shows that we have matched our foster kids with the best possible foster families.

Two of our foster children are preparing for baptism into the churches of their foster parents. Please pray for them and for all of our kids.

In all, we at Baptist Family are proud of the work we accomplished in 2008. We took major steps in the service of our mission, and laid solid foundations for future work.

Baptist Family & Children’s Services, 800-621-8834, baptistfamily@baptistfamily.org, www.baptistfamily.org