The CALL seeks to expand services in new year

The CALL, a faith-based nonprofit that educates, equips and encourages Christian communities to provide hope and a future for Arkansas foster care children, hopes to expand their services next year by offering more post-adoptive care for families and children.

Karen Langston, Union County coordinator for The CALL, said the organization would institute monthly support groups for adoptive families as one part of the expanded services.

“We’re really excited that we are adding a lot of post-adoptive support groups and other support, so that when our families adopt these children that come from traumatic backgrounds, they have the training and the support and just the community that they need to succeed,” Langston said.

One support group will follow the ‘Forming, Storming and Norming’ model, Langston said. She explained that the support in that group focuses on everyone being in the same boat and having similar frustrations that they can then work together to address.

Additionally, they hope to offer support groups that will follow the Trust-Based Relational Intervention model. Designed by Texas Christian University, the TBRI model is designed for children who have experienced abuse, neglect and/or trauma.

The model addresses children with traumatic backgrounds having a different course of brain development than children that are able to form safe, trusting attachments early in life.

“Because, honestly, if you’re not parenting a child from a hard place, you don’t really understand the obstacles,” Langston said. “So we’re kind of trying to help our families embrace that this is our normal, but we’re not alone in this normal; there’s a lot of other people with the same normal as us.”

Additionally, adoptive mothers will have the opportunity to join foster mothers on yearly retreats organized by The CALL. Langston said it is important to make sure adoptive families still receive support after completing the adoption, as raising children from traumatic backgrounds often has unique challenges.

“We’re just seeing that a lot of our foster families are getting adequate training when they’re fostering, then when they adopt they disappear,” Langston said. “And so we’re really wanting to make sure that we’re not letting our families fall off the grid after adoptions, that we’re continuing to support them, to love on them and make sure that they have what they need.”

Langston said in the past three years, 34 children have found permanent homes with parents trained by The CALL. Currently, there are 14 open foster homes in Union County, with eight more preparing to become foster homes. However, she noted The CALL is always looking for more foster families.

The CALL will host an information session at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 7 at Immanuel Baptist Church, 3209 W. Hillsboro. For more information about the session, visit facebook.com/thecallinunioncounty.

Caitlan Butler can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].

Upcoming Events