“Lent comes providentially to awaken us, to shake us from our lethargy.” — Pope Francis
Lent can be described as a process of conforming our heart to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Christ demonstrated radical solidarity with the marginalized, the outcast, the suffering. This Lent, consider radical solidarity with children in the foster care system. We can focus prayers, almsgiving, and fasting for the vulnerable children, the families in crisis, the families that foster, and all those impacted by foster care and by adoption.
Foster care is a decidedly pro-life issue. This was the message of Kimberly Henkel, founder of the Catholic apostolate Springs of Love, who spoke last month to diocesan directors of life and family ministries.
The mark of a child in foster care is a family in crisis, Henkel said. Children enter foster care because of abuse or neglect, unaddressed behavioral problems, parents who are incarcerated, the death of a caregiver, etc. When necessary for the child’s needs and safety, the child is removed from their home.
The child is preferably placed with relatives or with a licensed foster family. The ultimate goal of foster care is to reunify a healed, healthier family. The results are that children are either reunited with parents, adopted by a foster family (kin or unrelated), or aged out of the foster care system at 18 or 21 years of age.
Sadly, children may be placed into a home with caregivers who have little training and no faith. These children, who have experienced trauma, may not receive the specialized care needed to promote healing. The parent or parents may never connect with the foster family or with multiple foster families to foster healthy reunification. Foster care can be a cyclical nature of crisis that is interconnected with a host of social justice concerns such as addiction, homelessness, poverty, incarceration, unplanned pregnancies, and sex trafficking.
A few statistics from the National Foster Youth Institute characterize the crisis. The foster care system in the United States currently cares for about 400,000 children. Less than 60% of those children graduate from high school. Only 3% of children who have been in foster care extend their education beyond high school. About 60% of children who are victims of sex trafficking have been involved in some sort of child welfare.
Each year about 20,000 youth age out of the system. Some states exit children when they turn 18, others at 21. Within four years of aging out, one out of four will be homeless. Of the girls who age out, seven out of 10 become pregnant by age 21.
Solutions to this cycle involved preventing the crises through the work of pregnancy care centers and parent education and mentorship programs; intervening in the crisis with solid foster, adoption, and other programs; and restoring healing through prison and homeless ministries, transitional living programs, and sex trafficking recovery.
Our God is a God of healing. God wants to bring His loving mercy to these families in crisis. He wants us to be conduits of His healing.
What can be done? As faithful Catholics, we can pray for these families. We can learn more about the reality of our foster care system in the United States and its material needs. We can, ourselves, consider becoming fostering and adopting families.
A good first step is to pray and act this Lent guided by Springs of Love’s weekly intentions for Lent, which can be found at springsoflove.org
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27
