SAN ANTONIO — Love at first sight! That’s kind of what happened between our friends at SJRC and the Dave Thomas Foundation and their Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Program.
The two have come together to help fund the hiring of six case workers between now and the end of this calendar year, three of which are already working and three more to be hired.
The goal is to dramatically increase the number of adoptions of children in foster care that have the longest waits like teens, sibling groups and special needs.
"We know that this model which is evidenced based works best, up to three times better than business as usual, for harder to place and the longest waiting children and youth,' said Dave Thomas Foundation President And CEO Rita Soronen. "They are honestly much more likely to age out of care without finding a family," she added.
Each one of the newly funded case workers will carry a caseload of twelve to fifteen children.
"We first wanna look to extended family members, or people that are already known to the child," Soronen said. Current foster parents, former foster parents or teachers definitely fit that mold.
"All kinds of folks that are already connected to these children," Soronen added. "And then get them connected to a permanent family whether that is legal guardianship or sometimes even reunification, but most often legal adoption."
Thanks to the funding from the Dave Thomas Foundation and the WWK, caseworkers have the opportunity to get to know more children in the system working in the SJRC system, Region 8-B in Texas.
"They get to know the child," Soronen said. "They listen to the child's idea of who is important in their life. They also do a diligent deep dive case file search and find extended family members, former foster parents, teachers, counselors or best friends of families that already surround the child so that when they move to permanency the goal is to make sure they are not making another radical adjustment to their life, but rather they are with someone that they may already have comfort."
The funding program now exists in nineteen states across the country with the goal of being in all fifty by 2028. It started as an amazing vision back in the day by the Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas. Their program has been helping foster kids for years and the mission now continues.
“If you’re interested in learning more about fostering or adoption, you can send an email to adoptbelong@sjrctexas.org.”
TRENDING:
> MORE ON KENS