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For a child entering the foster care system, or maybe making the transition to adoption, life can be traumatic and unsettling. Dwell Orphan Care is there to make that time less scary by offering support to the child and their caregiver. Something as simple as a backpack filled with clothing shows a child, who carries all that they own in a plastic bag, that someone cares.
Established in 2019, Dwell, according to founder Jennifer Lake, is "a ministry that supports foster, adoptive and kinship caregivers and the children that they love in our community."
Lake admitted that she really didn't expect that the work that Dwell does would spread beyond Lycoming County.
"Very quickly word started to spread about who Dwell is and what Dwell does and why we do it and we were getting calls from other counties asking-whether it was from foster parents or agencies or churches-just asking how can we be involved in this," Lake, who serves as executive director, said.
Currently Dwell runs programs in nine counties.
The idea for Dwell came to Lake in 2018 when she was studying scripture in the Book of John.
"I knew that I wanted to start a nonprofit to do work in the community to meet a need that wasn't being met," Lake said.
Lake, who is a former educator, had also worked in social work and as a resource family specialist and post-adoption specialist. Her work in a foster care and adoption agency included recruiting families and licensing them, writing home studies and matching them with children in the foster care system that needed forever homes and supporting them through the process.
"I found through that work that there was a significant lack of community support, church support, to help these families who were saying yes to a lot of unknowns, to stick with it, and so families were quitting...As a foster parent, you welcome children into your home, you have certain hopes and expectations, even if you know and support that the first goal of foster care is supporting reunification about half the time that doesn't happen, but you have to go into it knowing that that's on the table," she said.
"A lot of times children who have been severely abused and neglected and end up in foster care have behaviors that are very challenging that caregivers don't know how to help and how to handle that, and so they can turn in what's called a 30-day notice and basically then the county and the agency have 30 days to find another new home for that child," Lake explained.
"That was devastating to me because then this child has to move to another new home, but also the family that was fostering is now also devastated and just feeling so much grief and loss and guilt, and now we're not just trying to find another new home for the child, but also work with the family and help them process and do grief counseling, essentially," she said.
Lake said that she really started questioning why this was happening and what could be done to alleviate the problem. What role could the community play in supporting the caregivers so that they're not overwhelmed by the system?
"I think in the world of foster care, two words that we often hear are not enough. Like there's not enough foster homes. There's not enough resources. There's not enough community support. There's not enough money. There's not enough whatever. I believe that with the collective power of community and the church that there's more than enough," she said.
"What would it look like for us as a community to build a culture of more than enough for these families and these kids...we're constantly working on that. What if we had more than enough foster homes in the community? What if we had more than enough financial resources to keep running our programs at Dwell? What if we had more than enough church support to wrap around foster families and help them do this hard work for the sake of the children that they love? A lot of our work at Dwell is advocating for that and kind of just being honest about what the issues are and what some of the solutions are that we see, and how people can get involved," Lake said.
One of the solutions they came up with was the Hope Chest Foster Closet.
Often when a child or a sibling group enters foster care they are coming with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. Or, if they do have anything it's often carried in a trash bag or a grocery bag. It may also be in poor condition, soiled, torn, ripped or it doesn't quite fit. Often they are wearing mismatched shoes.
"Our Hope Chest Foster Closet provides a brand new duffel bag with that child's name on it, so it's personalized for them. And then two weeks of clothing, and all the clothing we provide is either brand new or it's like new. So we do accept gently used clothing donations, but we're very picky about what we keep because the Hope Chest is not a thrift store. I love a good thrift store, but that's not the point of the Hope Chest. So, two weeks of clothing, brand new shoes, new socks, new underwear, new pajamas, bedding if they need it, blankets. We do a care package for the whole family, so that includes activity books, sticker books, chapter books, toys, new Lego sets, blankets, Squishmallows, new water bottles, board games, hygiene kits for the kids-all the things that are going to help that family just breathe, work on safe, secure attachment and connection with one another," she said.
"Children from hard places who have experienced significant abuse and neglect, or significant childhood adversity, need to learn how to give and receive care again, and that there are safe adults in the community. There is such a thing as safe adults again, but that's going to take some time, a lot of time," she added.
Dwell also provides a freezer meal, which they deliver to the foster or kinship family's home.
They also offer family support groups for the foster, adoptive and kinship families. There is also a mom's night out group, a virtual support group and a dads' group that meets for all foster and adoptive dads.
A brand new program that was launched last year is called Made to Celebrate.
"Made to Celebrate is a program meant to bring joy to children who are in foster care on their birthday. As simple as it can be, right. We believe that these children were created to be celebrated, and they need to be reminded of that. That there's a community out there that they don't even know that thinks of them and prays for them and cares about them, even if they don't know them," Lake said.
"With Made to Celebrate, we collect the child's birthday wish list. So we're actually getting their wish list. We don't want to make an assumption that every nine-year-old boy gets this and every six-year-old girl gets this, so we collect their wish list through a referral form that is filled out either by their caseworker or themselves with their foster parent," she said.
Then, a staff member shops for the gifts on the list and wraps them, puts a couple of other special things in the box, and then that gets shipped directly to that child's foster home.
"So they're receiving happy mail and hopefully creating a positive core memory because birthdays can be hard for even the best of us right but it's a time where, understandably, for children in care, it can be triggering-a lot of memories. But there's also some kids in care that we have served that have never had a birthday party or have never had their birthday acknowledged and recognized and celebrated, and so we hear some pretty hard stories," she said.
"We have seen with Made to Celebrate...that it is helping, like it's helping create positive core memories for children, and that's exciting," she added.
Dwell also offers Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) training for foster, adoptive and kinship caregivers in service area agencies who work with children or for anyone who cares about children who are coming from trauma and adversity.
One way this summer that the community has supported the work that Dwell does is through churches who have partnered with the non-profit for their Vacation Bible School programs.
"Different churches have reached out and asked if it would be okay if Dwell was their partner ministry for Vacation Bible School, and that's almost always a yes for us. And so we've had a couple of different churches in the area reach out, and that looks somewhat different for different churches based on how they do it, but one church recently had reached out and asked if there was like one item that they could collect during Bible school, and we suggested the Jesus Storybook Bibles," Lake said, noting that Dwell provides either a children's or a teen Bible if a family wants it and their supply had been running low.
"Then we had another vacation Bible school that reached out, and we just created like an Amazon wish list for them-items that they could collect for the Made to Celebrate birthday program-and I think the kids brought in their change also, and did like a little change war. It's been really sweet because it just brings it home for the children that are involved with the different vacation Bible schools," she said.
"I absolutely think it's important to support overseas missions, but not at the exclusion of supporting missions that are happening right in your neighborhood and right in your community. Figuring out a way to do both is a challenge, but essentially, I think that Dwell is a bridge ministry. We are a mission. We're just doing mission work right here in the community and not overseas. So, it's very encouraging when churches want to partner in whatever way makes sense for them," Lake added.
For more information about ways to support the ministry at Dwell, visit their website at: dwellorphancare.org.
"I really do think that it's all of our job collectively to get involved and do your something. We don't believe that everyone is called to foster and adopt, but I do believe that everyone is called to do something when it comes to caring for children from hard places and the families that love them. So I want people to get curious and wonder, what's my something," Lake said.