Called to Care: Resources for Every Stage of Foster Care and Adoption
This week holds a special anniversary for our family, as we remember the adoption day of our son twelve years ago. Our hearts were full of wonder at all God accomplished to bring the precious gift of a little boy into our lives.
In the years since that adoption day, God has continued to work in our family. He used adoption to deepen our understanding of God’s love as our true Father. He opened our eyes to the realities of loss and trauma and how they impact a child’s spirit. He wrapped our child and family in every kind of support to help him thrive. Through adoption, God has shown us the power of prayer. The need for humble, teachable spirits. The tenacity of love. And His faithful care that never lets us go.
We’ve also learned that the journey of foster care and adoption can lead through three distinct stages. Maybe today you find yourself in the stage of exploring. You’re asking the question, Am I called to open my arms and home to care for a child?
Or maybe you’ve moved to the stage of planning. You’ve started the process of completing your home study or license, you’re arranging your furniture and finding resources in your community, but you’re unsure how to best prepare for what’s ahead.
Perhaps you’ve already moved into the caregiving stage. You opened your life to a child, but you feel unequipped to respond to their complex needs, emotions, and behaviors as they unfold.
Rob and I remember our own journey through these stages as we explored foster parenting, partnered with an agency, and are now parenting our son through the ages and stages of growing up. We are here with a collection of resources to help you, right where you are, as you follow God’s leading for your family.
*Note: We’ve included short blurbs about/from each resource to give you a sneak peek at the content! Be sure to click on the links we’ve provided to dive deeper and learn more if a resource interests you.
Exploring
While every believer is called to love their neighbor with generosity and justice, not every family is called to raise a child who is separated from their birth parents. You might be wondering,
- What are the steps to becoming a foster or adoptive parent?
- How will foster care of adoption impact us financially?
- How will my biological children adjust?
- How will I cope if I get attached to a child who is then removed from my care?
- What kind of services are in place to support our child and family?
- How do I find the best agency to work with?
- What if a child joins our family with medical or emotional needs I don’t understand?
We’re grateful there are others who have walked the path of foster and adoptive parenting, and who stand ready to show us the way.
1. Understanding the Complexities of Adoption—with Brittany Salmon
When we read Brittany Salmon’s book, It Takes More Than Love, we felt seen and understood. That’s why we were so thrilled to have her join us on our podcast.
In this episode, Brittany shares with us:
- God’s intervention in their journey of infertility
- The different types of adoption that are possible
- Why we need to listen to all the voices in “the adoptive triad”
- Whether you should pursue adoption if your spouse isn’t 100% on-board
- How to be supportive even if you can’t adopt right now
- …and much more!
2. How to Adopt
Whether you are beginning the adoption process or are interested in learning more about what is involved, How to Adopt offers answers, insight, and guidance for the journey ahead.
3. Nurturing a Heart for Adoption with Michael and Sharon Dennehy
Adoption wasn’t always the plan for the Dennehy family. But as their relationship with God grew, so did their desire to help others grow. The Dennehy’s recognized adoption as something they could do to help children who wouldn’t otherwise have a home.
4. Called to Foster?: An Honest Guide to Getting Started
This book is a heartfelt, honest, and hope-filled guide to the journey of foster care.
Actress and advocate Jen Lilley, alongside foster care expert Dr. John DeGarmo, both foster and adoptive parents, bring you a real-world look at what it means to open your heart and home to a child in need.
5. Honest Truths to Help You Respond to the Call to Foster Parenting–with Jamie Finn
Jamie Finn is the executive director of Foster the Family, the Host of the Real Mom Podcast, and a sought-after speaker for events for foster and adoptive parents. Her honest insights and encouragement will help you understand:
- The questions and struggles foster parents face as they care for children from hard places
- Why your heart attachment to a foster child is the best gift you can give
- What “trauma” means for a foster child and your family
- …and much more!
Planning
Our foster care journey began with the arrival of invitations in our mailbox from a local foster agency. Our children would follow us around the house with those postcards, begging us to sign up for an orientation meeting. We did, and soon found ourselves in the thick of interviews, paperwork, babyproofing, and all the home study requirements to gain a foster license.
While we attended trainings to qualify for that license, we still had much to learn. We were far from trauma-informed. We didn’t have a bassinet or a stash of bottles and diapers. No one prepared us for quarterly court hearings or how to navigate relationships with birth families. We had begun planning but felt like we were feeling our way in the dark.
Now we know there is a wealth of resources to help families prepare to serve as foster or adoptive parents. Every step of preparation allows you to feel more steady, confident, and supported as you open your arms to a child.
1. Thriving Families: A Trauma-Informed Guidebook for the Adoptive and Foster Journey
Adoption and foster care are important callings that connect to God’s heart for children and families.
But this road isn’t always easy. It’s important that foster and adoptive parents prepare to address their children’s history of trauma, separation, and disrupted placements, which can lead to mental health, emotional, and behavioral difficulties.
Drawing on the latest science and research on trauma, attachment, sensory processing difficulties, cultural competence, and grief and loss, this book offers a practical roadmap for foster and adoptive families.
2. The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family — and addressing their special needs — requires care, consideration, and compassion.
Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, The Connected Child is a very helpful resource for understanding and navigating these challenges.
3. 10 Life-Saving Tips That Will Breathe Hope into Your Adoption Story
Even a successful adoption story isn’t easy. No matter the beauty or the love we are ready to give as we choose to make adoption part of our story, the reality is that your child’s life began in a family that for some reason, couldn’t be.
In light of this truth, Lori Schumaker has compiled a list of insights and tips that will help you hold onto hope even when the journey gets hard.
The Replanted Conference is a Christian conference designed for foster and adoptive parents, Safe Family parents, kinship providers, support systems, and professionals – basically anyone supporting or caring for children through adoption and foster care. (If you register for the Chicago 2026 conference, don’t miss Joanna’s prayer workshop c0-led with Susan Tebos!)
5. It Takes More Than Love By Brittany Salmon
Cross-cultural parenting takes intentionality, listening, learning, growing, repenting, changing . . . then starting all over and doing it again. It’s hard work!
And yet, when an adoptive family honors the ethnic heritages of their children, the whole family—as well as the watching world—gets to see the beauty of a gloriously creative God.
Caregiving
When a baby boy was placed in our arms one snowy February night, we felt blessed to love him as his foster parents. We didn’t know that three years later, we would become his forever family through adoption.
We also didn’t know the physical and emotional impact of the trauma he had suffered. Or the kinds of therapies and academic supports that would be needed to help him thrive. We didn’t know the questions or feelings he’d carry around his birth story, or what he would feel as a transracial adoptee. We would also discover how significant prayer would become in his life and ours. And what a priceless gift our friends and family would become as they wrapped us in their care.
We know you, too, are always growing as a parent and learning what it means to love, support, and raise your child. These resources hold encouragement and wisdom that can meet you right where you are.
1. Healing for Every Heart in Adoption
In this book, written by an adoptee, a birth mother, and an adoptive mother, you’ll find guidance on how to:
● Address the spiritual challenges created by adoption
● Overcome loss, grief, shame, hurt, and more
● Experience restoration and healing through the love of Jesus
You’re wired for connection.
But when you’ve experienced prolonged periods of stress, your nervous system can get stuck in protection mode.
Melissa Corkum provides training and support for people who care for kids but feel like they’re running on empty.
This book is an unprecedented glimpse into the unfiltered feelings, thoughts, experiences, and unanswered questions that well up in the heart of every person with adoption in their story.
From people who have been there as adopted kids, this book not only invites adopted teens to bring their concerns into the open, but also helps them process how they feel and offers them hope on the other side. And it allows the teen’s loved ones to understand their thoughts, emotions, and experience that can be difficult for young people to express.
4. Connection is the Key to Healing Your Child’s Heart—with Jenni Lord
Jenni Lord is the founder of Chosen—an organization that connects families impacted by the child welfare system with the resources and support they need to move from hurting to healing.
In this episode, Jenni shares:
- How trauma impacts the brain, body, and behaviors of youth in foster care
- How prioritizing connection over correction can strengthen your parenting
- The importance of creating safe spaces for your child to open up
- And more!
5. Sandra Flach
Sandra is an inspiring mom of eight—five through adoption. Her heart and calling is to encourage and equip adoptive and foster parents and to inspire Christians to tangibly care for children and families in crisis.
We love reading Sandra’s blog and listening to her podcast—we’ve found time and time again that Sandra knows just the right words to make us feel seen, to help us practically, and to remind us of God’s grace. She just gets it!
6. ConnectionPlus Parent Coaching
ConnectionPlus walks alongside parents and caregivers through personalized coaching, trauma-responsive education, and ongoing support, helping you bring healing and connection home. This one-on-one support can help and encourage you on your own unique journey of parenting your child.
7. Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish
This devotional gives adoptive families encouragement as they seek God to work through the emotions unique to their family.
Daily 365 inspiring devotions are filled with Scripture and authentic insight into the heart of adopted children.
Rob and I know that stepping into foster or adoptive parenting is an exciting and beautiful—but daunting—change to your life. We pray that these resources help you hear God’s voice of help and guidance even more clearly.
As we continue our own journey of adoptive parenting, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you as friends. Reach out any time for prayer, to share a praise or ask a question, or to simply know that someone cares. We are stronger together!
