Faith-based groups respond to Brewer’s foster-care call
Aug 16, 2012, 7:53 AM | Updated: 7:53 am
PHOENIX — When Gov. Brewer created the Arizona SERVES Task force in 2010, one of the goals was to get the faith-based community involved in improving Arizona’s foster-care system.
The leader of that task force said it’s worked.
Chairman Terry Crist said over 100 churches statewide are now involved in foster-care efforts.
“It would be the pastor inspiring his church to care for the kids in the community and perhaps even holding a public meeting where the families could come and be further educated on what it means to become a foster parent,” he said.
Three hundred families turned out for one such meeting at Mission Community Church in Gilbert.
Crist said churches have what he calls “the noble goal” of ending Arizona’s foster care crisis. He said that some of the ways they are doing this is “by providing adequate homes for children who are needy, by adopting those children that are looking for their forever homes and by wrapping around foster care and adoptive families that are in need of additional resources.”
Christian Family Care Agency, a faith-based agency that provides new foster family applications, has seen the number of churches it works with double in the past year.
Crist hopes more people get involved.
“I think a good community is a community that is concerned about our weakest and most vulnerable citizens, which happen to be our children,” he said.
“I would just encourage people not to look away, expecting the need to be addressed by others, but to become part of the solution.”
