So we have five kids now–for awhile, that is.
At the end of April, I received an email from Safe Families about a baby boy. Safe Families is a faith based, volunteer-driven nonprofit that supports people who don’t have extended family available/able to help with their children during a crises or transition. The mission of Safe Families is to create family-like support through volunteers (called Host Families) who help with children for a period of time to keep families intact. Safe Families is not foster care–it’s for families seeking help for a specified period of time. For instance, a mama who is going to night school or a dad who is trying to find stable housing: they need help with their children for a period of time and they don’t have a support network who can help with their children during whatever transition or crisis they’re facing. Safe Families connects a family in need with a Host Family to help with their children and offer support–in other words, the Host Family becomes part of their extended family. And it’s kinda brilliant, in my opinion.
We became a Host Family around five years ago and hosted a little girl who was a good friend of our daughter. It was our introduction to Safe Families and was a good learning experience for us. We’ve been on the Safe Families list ever since that placement, but our lives got too chaotic during the renovation and birth of our fourth child to take on another kiddo. But now that our girls are older, we were open to saying yes to another opportunity. And that’s what we did–six weeks ago–with a newborn baby boy.
This is how it went down…
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