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home > homes for children: Foster Care
Family is meant to provide love, safety and acceptance. Apart  from a Christian family unit, a child is unlikely to reach her or his full potential. As a foster parent, you can help a child reach his or her full potential.
Alabama Baptist Children's Homes currently seeks single adults and married couples who will provide foster care in their own homes. If you live in Birmingham, Alabama or within a 60-mile drive of Birmingham, phone (205) 945-0037. If you live in Anniston, Alabama or within a 60-mile drive of Anniston, phone (256) 235-2558. If you live in Mobile, Alabama or within a 60-mile drive of Mobile, phone (251) 639-1022.
Alabama Baptist Children's Homes licenses and trains foster parents to meet a growing need as the legal system seeks temporary, rather than permanent, removal of children from their households of origin when necessary.
Foster parents are needed throughout Alabama for children of all ages. Foster families who are willing to care for sibling groups and/or teenagers are needed in particular. Foster families of Alabama Baptist Children's Homes receive:
- a monthly board payment to help cover child-related expenses
- medical and dental reimbursement
- financial assistance with day care if necessary
- extensive training
Find someone who can answer your questions about foster care.
Are you called to be a foster parent?
 Being a foster parent with Alabama Baptist Children's Homes is one of the most rewarding ministries a family can tackle. Taking a hurting child into the home and providing that child a safe, stable and Christian environment impacts every member of the family. Foster care is also a ministry that requires an ability to cope with the "baggage" a foster child brings. Below are some questions that a prospective foster parent might ask.
Do I genuinely like and enjoy being around children?
If you have never had nor been around children for long time periods, you may want to volunteer to work with children in another capacity before committing to a child full-time.
Am I capable of setting different expectations for different children?
Foster children often come from homes where they have been neglected or even abused. They may have never been taught to eat at the dinner table, take a bath or learn. They need foster parents who can accept them where they are and begin to teach them the skills they have missed without judging or expecting more than they can give.
Can I be flexible and accepting, even when I do not understand the situation?
While Alabama Baptist Children's Homes & Family Ministries shares all the information we have on a child with the foster family, long-term plans often change and evolve over time. The plan is typically for the child to be re-united with his or her birth parent or parents after they accomplish specific goals. Some parents meet these goals quickly, others struggle taking two steps forward and one step back, and others never succeed. How a birth parent will progress is never easily predicted and can be frustrating for the other adults in the child's life.
Can I love a child as if he or she were my own, let that child go, and then open my heart to the next hurting child?
This is one of the toughest, but most crucial questions a prospective foster parent must ask himself or herself. It is the essence of foster care.
Are my own children ready to share me with another child?
Foster children are often starved for attention and have an extreme desire to belong. They may begin to call their foster parents Mom and Dad immediately. They need extra help with schoolwork or chores. They may be afraid to go to bed at night or to be left in a room alone. Foster care is a family ministry that works only when all members of the family are willing to participate and make sacrifices.
Am I comfortable opening my home to other professionals on a regular basis?
Once a foster child enters your home, many other people would enter as well.
Social workers would visit on a regular basis, and lawyers and judges would ask many questions about how the child is doing and what goes on in your home. A foster parent must be comfortable opening large portions of his or her life to the outside world.
Am I a team player?
As already suggested, foster children have many adults involved in their lives. As a foster parent you would be an important member of a team designed to meet the needs of the child in care. The team could include counselors, lawyers, social workers, teachers, and doctors. The foster parent's feedback would always be important, but not always the final word.
A foster parent must be able to work with the team even when they disagree.
What is my motivation behind my desire to be a foster parent?
The prospective foster parent must look closely at himself or herself, along with his or her motivations. If one is not called by God to perform this important role, then one will not be successful. If one is called by God then God will provide the strength to get through the tough times and peace required to enjoy the good times.
Find someone who can answer your other questions about foster care.
From Children's Defense Fund, January 2003:
- Since the 1980s, the number of children in the United States
in foster care has almost doubled, from 270,000 to 520,000, yet the number of adoptions has remained steady at about 20,000.
- A child in Alabama is born into poverty every 38 minutes.
- A child in Alabama is abused or neglected every 53 minutes.
- A child or teen in Alabama is killed by gunfire every four
days.
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