May is National Foster Care Month
Here at Common Ground Childcare we are dedicated to helping all children grow in a loving, nurturing environment.
Which is why we are using our voice to bring attention to National Foster Care Month. Foster care children are in more need of advocacy than ever. The Covid-19 pandemic has done a lot to shine a light on the inequalities of representation and support, especially for our minority children in the foster care system.
What can you do to help?
Educate Yourself
What is Foster Care? Why is it necessary? How can I get involved? These questions and more are answered Here.
Key Facts and Statistics
Include these key points in your messaging to demonstrate how child welfare and legal professionals can prioritize foster care as a services to families by engaging young people in all aspects of permanency planning and helpingthem maintain meaningful connections with family and other support systems while in out-of-home care.
There are over 423,000 children and youth in foster care. Over half have a case plan goal of reunification with their parents or primary caregiver.
Juvenile and family court systems can influence whether children are reunified with their families or reenter care.
Meaningful and appropriate involvement of youth in their court hearings and case planning greatly benefits all participants and leads to more favorable outcomes for families.
Competent legal representation for parents is associated with the achievement of timely reunification.
A strong support system of professionals and family can help young people address the challenges they face during their transition to adulthood. Virtual engagement tools can be used to establish and maintain that support system by enhancing connectedness for all involved.
In addition to supporting brain development, encouraging young people to be active participants in planning their own lives supports the development of leadership skills, improves self-esteem, and helps form critical social connections.
The Resources that child welfare professionals need to have access to are HERE. This site has a lot of info for adults in every level of involvement, including how to volunteer and be a personal advocate for a child in need.
A Proclamation from the White House - This is an acknowledgment that all foster care children, even ones recently aged out, need extra support. We need to do everything we can to make sure these kids don’t fall through the cracks just because they aren’t little.
Share what you have learned and how essential our impact is to foster children. Share it with friends and family, share it on social media, shed light on the inequities of our system and work to help us change it. Here’s a link to an Outreach Toolkit to show you the basics.
Donate: There are tons of non-profits all over the country that donate to help Foster Care Children in some capacity. We recommend checking Charity Navigator or doing your own research before picking one, but there are so many ways to help! For example, the Blue Ribbon Project aims to make sure foster kids are provided with a backpack full of essentials to make them more comfortable in their new homes.
Help your kids understand Foster Care
Explain to your children that Foster Care kids are just like them. Like all children, they need empathy, care, and patience while they figure out the world around them. This is always easier with books:
The Foster Dragon: A Story about Foster Care — One of the Dragon Series books that helps kids begin to understand what Foster Care is and what Foster Care Kids need!
Kids Need to be Safe: A Story about Kids in Foster Care — A children’s book for children IN the foster care system, and for kids who want to understand why the Foster Care system is so important.
Home for Awhile — A Children’s Book about Calvin, a kid in foster care who wants to feel safe in their “for awhile” home.
Love You from Right Here — Featuring a diverse representation of characters including men, women, boys, and girls, it is written from the perspective of the foster parent to the child in foster care.
No Matter What — A little squirrel’s journey to find love!
Above all, please keep abreast of the situation politically. Keep pushing for equity with your local representatives! Together, we will make a difference.
Love Love Love,
LJ and your Common Ground Family
Earth Hour: A Moment to Pause and Reflect
Saturday, March 27th at 8:30 PM local time is Earth Hour.
What is Earth Hour?
Traditionally, global skylines have gone dark and millions of individuals have turned off their lights for Earth Hour as a symbolic gesture to their commitment to preserving our planet.
EarthHour.Org encourages people to participate in the hopes to keep nature loss and climate change top of mind. It is that mindfulness and reflection that will encourage people of every generation to stop and reflect on the lovely fragility of this earth that holds the entirety of our past, our present, and our future.
The World Wildlife Post is hosting a meditative hour for peace and mindfulness Here. You can sign up for text reminders Here.
Reflection may be an important step, but it’s just the FIRST step. There are so many things you can do, even as an individual, to change the world for the better.
Educate Yourself
Earth Hour has links on Nature Loss and Biodiversity, Climate Change, and Potential Solutions Here
World Wildlife Fund has several excellent links on what’s at stake, what needs to change, and how we can help Here
Nasa talks about the proof of Climate Change Here
COTAP.org talks about several ways to reduce your Carbon Footprint Here
The Rainforest Alliance offers tips on how to teach your kids about Climate Change Here
One Planet One Future has a video lesson series coming out that you can watch Here
SCRAWL BOOKS has a whole section on Science and Nature for Kids Here
Sign Petitions and Donate
Earth Hour has its pledge for educating others and finding greener ways to live Here
World Wildlife Fund has a ton of excellent petitions to go through Here and several ways to donate Here
GLOBAL DEAL FOR NATURE PETITION HERE
TWENTY GLOBAL NON-PROFITS PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT YOU CAN DONATE TO HERE
#GiveFundsGiveTime is a motto we came up with during our Giving Tuesday event last year, but we find that the concept behind it is one we want to keep top of mind ALL year long. If you don’t have the funds to donate, spend time educating yourself and others! Every time you pass on knowledge to someone, they pass it on to someone else. These good deeds ripple out. You may be one person, but one person spreading their love can change the world.
With Love,
Ms. LJ and your Common Ground Family
Thanksgiving Box Drive: BIG THANK YOU!!
Common Ground Family and Friends,
I am, as always, sincerely humbled by the giving hearts of our community. We had promised Cornerstones 6 lovingly decorated boxes, one for each classroom, and we ended up with 10 fully stocked Thanksgiving meals. That’s ten families that will get to celebrate with a proper meal on one of the most difficult holiday seasons in recent memory.
This was an elegant example of what our #GiveFundsGiveTime campaign is all about. Together, each of you giving a little time and money, we managed to pull of something magical.
And you know what? Our kids see that.
I had a student come up and ask us what else we needed. He was so excited to be a part of this with his family, and he wanted to know if there was anything missing from any of the boxes. He and his parents then went out, together, gathered the remaining items, and brought them in.
This was something they did as a family, something that this child genuinely enjoyed, and he could see, first hand, what a difference his items made.
He’s always had a good heart, but practice makes perfect. We are helping our kiddos work those giving muscles so that when they’re adults, they’ll be SUPER heroes.
After they were all packed and ready to go, I went over to our buddies at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church! They had gathered a whopping 54 BOXES!! SOME OF THEM GLUTEN-FREE!! I WAS ECSTATIC to be working with them!
With all of their helpful volunteers, we loaded up the Common Ground Bus and drove all 64 boxes over to the drop off station. I have to tell you, I love driving that bus, but loading would have been quite a big chore had everyone not been ready to give a little. They have been at this Thanksgiving Box drive thing for many years, so it has been really amazing working with the and learning all about how to make this an effective Giving campaign.
All together, working as a unit, most of the volunteers maybe spent 5-10 minutes of their day pulling this off. Many hands make light work. DO NOT EVER DOUBT what your five minutes of giving a day can do, especially with a community like Common Ground Childcare.
Warmest Thanks and Love,
Ms. LJ
Giving Tuesday is December 1st
Give Funds. Give Time.
Sometimes we only have one. Sometimes we have both, but only a little. In a world wracked by a pandemic, sometimes it feels like we only have enough money and time to stand still.
Giving is a muscle we have to work.
The more we all give, the better we become at it, and the better we feel when do.
Most importantly? That kindness gets paid forward. Suddenly other people around us in our community have the bandwidth to grow and prosper. They, in turn, give to someone else, and so on.
#GivingTuesday is December 1st this year, and here at Common Ground we’ve started early.
We are looking for community partners to help us with our mission, please contact us if you are interested in participating in our Giving Tuesday Drive.
We hope to gather funds for our Teaching Scholarship Fund so that we can give our educators an opportunity to grow. With that boost, our dedicated teachers can give time to further their own education. This will lead to them providing more quality time to their students to help them thrive in a loving environment. Imagine all of the ripples that would come from each student.
This is not just a fundraiser.
We also hope to inspire you, the members of our wonderful community, to give. We will be posting several giving initiatives in the coming weeks:
- Giving time to your children with no phones, no tvs, no distractions
- Giving money or food to your local Food Bank to make sure no family goes hungry, especially on Thanksgiving, a day of gratitude.
- Giving time to your neighborhood environment by picking up litter.
- Giving money and business to your favorite local business that has been struggling under the COVID-19 pandemic
- Giving time to draw loving, heartfelt chalk pictures and messages around your community so people know that, on the darkest days, they are not alone.
Watch on Facebook to see how we are giving in our community through the next couple of weeks. We encourage you to be a part of it, as well as our BIG GIVING TUESDAY EVENT which promises to be heartwarming, fun, and just the right amount of silly.