A home cooked meal, a warm bed to sleep in, someone to say goodnight to. These are moments in our lives that we witness, experience and can even take for granted on a daily basis. These are moments that we watch pass by without thinking that somewhere, someone is unfamiliar with the idea of a safe, warm, stable home environment.
The truth in the matter is that over 9,000 of Arizona’s children do not witness or experience these moments. According to the Arizona Department of Economic Security, as of March 2006 there were 9,902 children removed from their homes and placed in out of home care due to abuse and neglect. These children through unfortunate circumstances and no fault of their own are left searching for stability and a family like environment. Unfortunately, there is a great shortage of foster homes for these children. As a result, there is a loud “call to action” to help these children find a temporary home to experience these life moments that many of us have come to overlook.
A&A Cottages has developed the HOPE program to answer this “call to action.” The HOPE program’s mission is to recruit, train, license, monitor and support diverse foster and adoptive resource parents who are committed to providing quality care and services to dependent children in the legal custody of the Department of Economic Security.
A&A Cottages offers all of the trainings in order to become a licensed foster/adoptive parent. It is required that each care taker completes the PS MAPP training course which occurs over a ten week time period, each class lasting for three hours once a week. During this process fingerprinting, background checks, references, home inspections, physician’s statements and all other paperwork will be reviewed. In addition each licensed family will be required to comply with continuing education requirements that A&A Cottages will provide.
If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a foster/adoptive parent please contact A&A Cottages at 480.792.0265 or e-mail Ashlyn@aacottages.org.