What role will you play in the St. Joseph Ministry?

Each of us is unique and none of us can completely understand another person’s decisions or journey. However, we can support children in the child welfare system, their biological and foster families, and all who care for them with respect, compassion and merciful care.

Consider the ways we can help build loving homes in our parish. What role is right for you?

Foster Care

• 30,000 children in foster care in Texas.
• Foster homes are most needed for children age six and older.
• Children in the state of Texas’ child welfare system can move on average three times - often not due to the system, but be-cause the foster family is not prepared to care for the child.
• Moving and inconsistent care can cause more trauma in a child than the original abusive environment.
• Foster parenting is a calling. Resources such as parenting training, respite care and “wrap-around care” are important supports for foster parents.

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Biological Family Support
Aged-out teens & young adults
Adoption
It takes a parish
Non-direct engagement
Direct engagement

Resources

Being a foster parent is a special calling, similar to God’s call to people to be a “forever” parent, or to the vocation of marriage. Not everyone has this calling to be a foster parent, and sometimes people find themselves moved to be a foster parent later in life.

Regardless, by our baptism, each of us is called to love our neighbor and to serve one another with a spirit of generosity. Therefore, each of us has a role to play in supporting foster parents.

This bilingual resource kit offers practical ways for a parish, and individual Catholics, to discern how they can be a community of support and love for children in the foster care system and their families, both foster and biological. Begin with the discernment guide: Each parish has a unique set of gifts and challenges which must be honored as parishioners discern their engagement.

What is the St. Joseph Ministry?

A Prayer for Foster Children

What role will you play in caring for foster children?

Collaborators for the Journey

Liturgical resources (homily notes and Prayers of the Faithful)

From isolation to encounter: How our parishes can become "islands of mercy in the sea of indifference.”

St. Joseph offers us a model of how to respond when the task may seem too daunting.

Our tradition of caring for widows and orphans predates Christianity!

Events to highlight care for foster children and their families

How does a child enter the state's Child Protective System?

Check back often as we update our toolbox of resources for parishes and Catholics.