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Permanency: Why It’s Important for Foster Children and How Parents Can Help

When foster parents have a relationship with biological parents, they can help children find permanency.

Child welfare professionals often use the word “permanency” to describe the desired outcome for children in foster care. But what does that really mean?

Permanency refers to the idea that a child has a lifelong place to belong, with a committed caregiver who assumes the legal responsibility of a parent-child relationship. Permanency can be achieved in many ways — reunification with the child’s family, guardianship with a safe adult, or adoption. Once a child lands in a permanent place that is safe and nurturing, the state closes the case and the child is no longer in need of foster care. Continue reading “Permanency: Why It’s Important for Foster Children and How Parents Can Help”

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With COVID Microgrants, Sponsors and Donors Keep Families Together

Around the world, the COVID crisis has significantly increased the risk of family separation. But because of Holt sponsors and donors, vulnerable families have what they need to stay together. View a slideshow of families in Cambodia who received COVID microgrants to start small businesses they can sustain throughout the pandemic.

Around the world, the COVID-19 crisis is far from over. Cases continue to spike in communities where sponsors and donors support children, and families continue to struggle with loss of employment, school closures and sick family members. Continue reading “With COVID Microgrants, Sponsors and Donors Keep Families Together”

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Best Birthday Snapshots

It’s so fun to see how children in Holt’s programs celebrate their birthdays around the world!

Every year on June 1,  International Day of the Child, Holt kids around the world have the biggest birthday bash of the year — all thanks to Holt sponsors and donors like you!

Here are some of our favorite photos of birthdays around the world from years past:

 

Just $25 gives a child in living in an orphanage or in poverty a handpicked gift, special meal and birthday party on June 1 — International Day of the Child! 

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Happy Mother’s Day!

This Mother’s Day, we recognize that the meaning of motherhood can be different for everyone. It can change and grow over time. Often, it means putting the needs of others before yourself, fueled by grace and kindness and perseverance. Sometimes, it means waking up first and going to bed last. Constantly, motherhood means unconditional love.

Some mothers open their hearts and homes to a child not born to them. Other mothers experience loss or longing. So many mothers do what they can to make the right choices for their child, to be strong and courageous, to inspire hope and joy.

Motherhood finds us in varying ways, shapes and sizes. No matter how motherhood found you, we are grateful for you, today and every day.

To all of the mothers out there — adoptive, foster, birth, bonus, waiting and more — and from all of us at Holt, Happy Mother’s Day.

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Thoughts on Older Child Adoption From Experienced Parents

If you’re considering older child adoption, one of the best things you can do is seek advice from other families. Families who have worked through many of the same fears or concerns you’re now grappling with, and who have gone through the experience of helping an older child adapt to a new country, culture, language — and, in many cases, to life in a family instead of an institution. Families who have learned how to help their child heal from trauma and long-term institutionalization, and how to build a loving, trusting bond with a child who may have never experienced that kind of bond with a caregiver or family member before.

View the slideshow above to hear from a handful of Holt families who have adopted children at older ages. You can also read more in-depth stories about these families below and, if you would like more advice, you can contact an adoption service specialist to get in touch with an advocate family directly!

Continue reading “Thoughts on Older Child Adoption From Experienced Parents”

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140 Children, Forever Loved From Korea

Together, Mrs. Yang and Mrs. Kim have fostered over 140 children in Korea. In August 2017, they visited Holt families in Oregon — an experience they, and the adoptees and adoptive families they met, will never forget.

This story originally appeared on the Holt blog in September 2017. 

Mrs. Yang sat in a room at Holt’s international headquarters in Oregon — sobbing.

She clutched the glossy photobook to her chest then set it down to cover her face with her hands. The photobook was sent to her by a Holt family, and full of pictures and descriptions about how their son was doing. Her shoulders rose and fell with emotion and a Holt Korea social worker and translator, who was helping me with the interview, put an arm around her.

“Separation is not easy,” she said to me. Continue reading “140 Children, Forever Loved From Korea”

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Video Updates on India’s COVID Crisis for Children & Families

India COVID crisis banner

India is battling its second wave of COVID-19, and children and families there are in crisis.

Children are shut in their homes on lockdown and unable to get enough food. Families can’t work and have run out of money. Our partners are not safe as they go out in the community — risking their lives to help in whatever way they can. Some of the children and families we serve are even getting sick…

The directors of each of our three partner organizations in India filmed updates to share with Holt donors. Watch their videos below to hear updates directly from the field amidst this India COVID crisis in their country. Continue reading “Video Updates on India’s COVID Crisis for Children & Families”

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How the Pandemic Caused a Malnutrition Crisis in Ethiopia

EthiopiaHolt’s nutrition program director, Emily DeLacey, shares about the current malnutrition crisis in Ethiopia, and how Holt staff and donors are helping to identify, feed and treat children.

While it’s never easy serving the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations, this is just the nature of going the distance to best serve children and families in need. And this is what Holt staff around the world and generous Holt donors do every day. In rural Ethiopia, this means faithfully serving thousands of single mother-headed households and children who have been orphaned.

But now, during this time of COVID, our challenges in Ethiopia have multiplied…

And our biggest concern for the children is malnutrition.

Continue reading “How the Pandemic Caused a Malnutrition Crisis in Ethiopia”