April 2021
Directors Message
Happy Anniversary! It was a year ago last week that we started making changes because of this virus called COVID-19. It was a year like no other year! Some were impacted in ways that brought devastation and grief, others were impacted by sickness and significant health issues but we were all impacted in just about every layer of life. At Christian Family Services, we served our clients with very little interruption. It impacted how we provide services but our social workers immediately started working remotely, our counselors quickly learned to counsel with tele-health and our office workers staggered their hours to provide the social distancing needed to be safe.
Throughout the pandemic we learned you can’t predict the future and no matter what happens, we can trust God. ”
Our mission did not change and our staff continued to be on the frontlines with help, hope and compassion.
The pandemic forced us to provide services creatively. Every aspect of our services was impacted and had to be approached differently. With the needs changing, we had diaper drives, food drives and collected several different essential items like baby wipes and cleaning supplies because young moms were not able to go to the stores to purchase them. At the beginning of the pandemic we led the rally to provide hospitals with homemade masks to protect our healthcare workers, we had “emergency drops” were we took wipes, diapers and other items to young moms and put them on their front porches so that we could abide by the social distancing protocol. Our counselors and clients learned very quickly how to do counseling on a computer. Throughout the pandemic we learned you can’t predict the future and no matter what happens, we can trust God.
Our ConnectCare program has eight wonderful families that continue to open their homes to children that need a loving home. Our counseling program continues to grow and has increased the number of counseling sessions by 60% since 2018. Our adoptions have decreased this year to 1 agency adoption and 4 agency assisted adoptions. The social work staff has been working hard at doubling up our efforts to reach out to more birth moms. We continue to expand our services in our ConnectCare program to a more holistic approach to serve families that are in crisis by counseling and focusing on the parents to insure a healthier environment for the young children we work with. (See our impact story)
God has sustained us during this past difficult year. Like everyone, at CFS, we miss the community that is built from being face to face in our offices and churches. We hope and pray that we will be able to get back to a better sense of normalcy with the vaccinations. With God’s help we will be able to continue to help the families and children in need.
It has been a difficult year for everyone. Thank you for your continuing support and for your faithfulness to our mission of finding homes for children and helping families find solutions. If there is anything I can do or if there is anything I can pray for you, please contact me!
