South Texas Alliance for Orphans

In five years, we hope to achieve our goal of 100 Alliance supported church foster/adopt/kinship ministries with capacity to serve 1,000 children in foster care with a trauma-informed family, church body and care community. Families will be enabled to foster long-term, children will have stable, healing homes, and individuals serving in the care community will produce a natural funnel of future skilled foster homes. Long term we anticipate impacting other social sectors that are largely populated with adults who spent time in the current unstable foster care system as a child including the homeless population, juvenile justice system, prison system, teen pregnancies and sex trafficking victims.

We pursue our mission by raising up more than enough individuals and families from the largely untapped church community to serve in the three critical areas of prevention, capacity and support which impacts the entire foster care continuum of crisis pregnancy to aging out youth. We know from a robust body of research that a family environment improves healing, promotes normalcy in childhood and models healthy family life for children who have often never experienced it, while also being the most cost-effective solution. ​Our strategic collaborations with organizations serving in the three areas allows all members of the church an opportunity to understand the whole system and get involved and do something. Our ministry model also helps organizations recruit volunteers at little to no cost\nThe Alliance model is built utilizing evidence-based practice. The initial BUILD phase allows the church to Discover, Gather and Serve their CORE members already engaged along the foster/adopt continuum. The Alliance provides Ministry Leader Development and mentors the lay leaders in crafting care communities, which consist of veteran mentors, peer to peer support groups, verified babysitters and support families, for their CORE. After the CORE is supported, the Alliance leads churches into the GROW phase to Discover, Gather and Serve their Crowd, which is their church body. We provide training and guidance in crafting a Sunday sermon followed by an information meeting which informs the CROWD about the whole system, where each collaborative partner serves and allows them to connect with organizations serving in areas they feel their time, talents and resources can best serve. Lastly, churches serving their CORE and educating their CROWD can then trauma-informed the COMMUNITY. In this THRIVE phase, the Alliance ensures church staff, volunteers and care community members are continually educated in trauma-informed care. Trauma-informed volunteers are able to serve not only in their church but also in the COMMUNITY. Churches are also connected with kinship families, families at risk of having their children placed in care, caseworker appreciation and various donation drive events. THRIVE ministries can also serve as anchor churches in their community for the smaller or newer churches and their Long-term.

The Alliance has a history of a very high return on investment for the capacity and services it is able to provide and is poised to continue as we scale to meet the demands and needs of our whole community. We utilize volunteer lay leaders, collaborate with established organizations to prevent duplication of services, and utilize a ministry model founded on evidence-based practice. These practices produce a sustainable, renewable source of individuals and families from an under accessed robust church network full of individuals called to serve.\nOur staff are veteran foster/adopt families with extensive connections with churches, agencies, local child protective services and other local nonprofits. \nThe Alliance’s core program is the More Than Enough Initiative which seeks to support, equip and encourage 100 churches and their families to provide a family for every child in our community in five years. Through strategic collaborative relationships, it also serves to activate the whole church body into serving along the continuum from crisis pregnancy to aged out youth in the areas of prevention, capacity and support.\nWe utilize established relationships within churches to gain an audience with church leadership.\nCollaboration is critical to achieving the goals and mission of More Than Enough for children and families involved in the foster care system. We collaborate with excellent organizations, government entities, churches and nonprofits in our area serving at various places along the foster/adopt continuum. Collaborations are the best way to engage everyone in the church to do something while not overwhelming the church with programs to start or manage. It also serves to prevent costly duplication of services and funnels individuals to organizations already doing excellent work in our area. Several of our goals are dependent on our collaborative relationships. Our collaborative relationships serve to create a cohesive community that closes the cracks children have been falling through.

Since our launch in 2016 as a dba of San Antonio Marriage Initiative we have accomplished:\nLaunched and support 45 churches that are active in foster/adopt/kinship ministry \nFacilitated the Short Term Care Collaborative (Babysitting Collaborative) in verifying 411 foster babysitters\nFacilitated the presentation of the foster crisis to over 37,000 people through dedicated sermons and messages\nServed over 2,000 foster/adopt/kinship families through our Community Engagement (PNO, CONNECTED, Caseworker kits, trauma training)\nEquipped 200 child protective services investigative caseworkers with Caseworker Kits to serve the children they remove\nCollaborated with Threads and SA Grandparents Raising Grandchildren to create an event where 43 grandparents were able to give their 97 grandchildren two full outfits, shoes, backpack and toilietires.