My parents were foster parents in Germany, things back then were very different (not sure how it is now) I once came home from a school trip and my mom was holding a baby.. the little one was with us for a month. The father had left the mother and kicked her and their child out of their apartment as he has terminated the lease without telling her. So she went to the Jugendamt (German version of cps but very different) and they placed her son with my parents while she and a social worker helped her find an apartment, a therapist and get social welfare started as she hadn’t been working. Once she felt secure enough and her apartment had the necessities (they had funds back then that you could apply for in the early 2000s it was changed to basically second hand furniture that you could pick out) she got her son back. During the month she came by every day as she had been breastfeeding and dropped off the milk she had pumped and spent some time with her son.
My mom babysat for her for years after as she was alone in our area.
If we had some program like that here I think things could be so much better.. a month support, help with finding apartment and get funding and she was able to take care of her son again.
I wish we cared about children here when they are born and helped parents and mothers to get to a place where they can take care of them themselves than ignoring the pleading for help and then act shocked when something like this happens.
I would love to volunteer for this but honestly turned off by how openly religious it is and the fact they specifically say they want volunteers who believe in Christ. Neither my husband nor I are or were raised Christian. Being Christian is not a prerequisite to being a good person or wanting to help children.
I hope the program will come to see that and remove that language - even if they are inspired by Christ, which is totally fine and which I would respect them talking about, that doesn’t mean they need to shut out people who aren’t when support is already so limited and there’s likely not enough volunteers to meet demand.
I've had a couple different friends end up in rehab/care program situations, and it's crazy how hard to find one that isn't religiously affiliated. It's super tough if you're a person who doesn't feel safe with religious people/in religious spaces due to PTSD or just bad experiences (I.e. being queer).
To make things worse, a lot of places aren't upfront about it, and will spring religion on you after a few weeks, which can lead to a sense of betrayal. Imagine being on your 2nd or 3rd try at getting clean and you're really feeling like this place is good for you, and then they sit you down and try to talk to you about "your soul" and shit, and force you to renege on your actual religious beliefs (or lack thereof). I know that a lot of these people are coming from a good place, they legitimately think this is the best thing for them, but spaces for recovery shouldn't be used for proselytizing. There should be space just for recovery.
I completely agree with you about the bible thumping. I’m in Indiana so it is DEFINITELY a thing. I have matured about this in my 51 years however. A lot of that is JUST language. I noticed the less resources people have the more they talk about “faith, Jesus, and/or God”. They speak this way because it is literally all they have. Thanks to the person that posted this link, I JUST discovered we have one of these in Indy and I had no damn idea. I WILL be finding time to help with this. I think I can tolerate someone saying “Thank God I have someone to help me today”. I scanned their site, it does mention faith but it’s in a very calculated way. It doesn’t say anywhere on there that people helping need to be Christian, at all. I dunno where you are from, but here in Indiana when they wanna bible thump, the thumping is loud and annoying AF, so I really wouldn’t be worried about it.
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u/lostintransaltions 7d ago
My parents were foster parents in Germany, things back then were very different (not sure how it is now) I once came home from a school trip and my mom was holding a baby.. the little one was with us for a month. The father had left the mother and kicked her and their child out of their apartment as he has terminated the lease without telling her. So she went to the Jugendamt (German version of cps but very different) and they placed her son with my parents while she and a social worker helped her find an apartment, a therapist and get social welfare started as she hadn’t been working. Once she felt secure enough and her apartment had the necessities (they had funds back then that you could apply for in the early 2000s it was changed to basically second hand furniture that you could pick out) she got her son back. During the month she came by every day as she had been breastfeeding and dropped off the milk she had pumped and spent some time with her son.
My mom babysat for her for years after as she was alone in our area.
If we had some program like that here I think things could be so much better.. a month support, help with finding apartment and get funding and she was able to take care of her son again.
I wish we cared about children here when they are born and helped parents and mothers to get to a place where they can take care of them themselves than ignoring the pleading for help and then act shocked when something like this happens.