Foster Parent Appreciation Dinner

The annual Foster Parent Appreciation Dinner will be held on Thursday, May 7th at First Baptist Church in Springfield. This event honors foster parents from Greene County and their willingness to open their hearts and homes to local abused & neglected children.

This event is organized by a variety of area agencies, including Ambassadors for Children. The event will feature free food, entertainment, guest speakers, and child activities for the kids. Area agencies also donate "theme" baskets for giveaways to each foster family. This year, Ambassadors for Children is pleased to donate a "Game Night" theme basket. I hope the receiving foster family has as much fun playing with these games as I had picking them out!

Sweet Success!

We had nearly 80 attendees at our Adopt-a-Caseworker orientation luncheon on March 31st. This event provided community members the opportunity to interact with Caseworkers served by this program and to hear from several guest speakers. So far, we have 4 new confirmed Partner groups who have "adopted" a Caseworker after attending the event. We have at least an additional 6 potential Partner groups pending following the event.

We also now have 22 active Adopt-a-Caseworker matches in Greene County! This is spectacular success considering we just started making matches 1 month ago and our goal for the entire year was 25!!

Caseworkers have already been making requests and lives are already being changed by this tremendous program. We are so thrilled and recognize this success would not be possible without the dedication of each Partner group and the teamwork established with their "adopted" Caseworker.

"The Adopt-a-Caseworker program is supported by grant #2005-VF-GX-K009 awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, in cooperation with HALOS. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of HALOS or the U.S. Department of Justice."

Please Join Us!!

Adopt-a-Caseworker Orientation Luncheon

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

12noon-1pm

St. John's Cancer Center 2nd Floor Auditorium

(2055 S. Fremont, just South of Fremont & Cherokee)

Free Lunch Provided

RSVP Required by March 24th to Sondra Uzzell

417-862-3586 or suzzell@ccozarks.org

To learn how you can make a difference in the lives of local abused & neglected children in a direct and positive way, please reserve your seat today! This fantastic program matches local community members & groups with a Child Protective Caseworker to fulfill the specific needs of children on the Caseworker's caseload. You can be an Ambassador for Children through this program! RSVP today--Seating is limited!

"The Adopt-a-Caseworker program is supported by grant #2005-VF-GX-K009 awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, in cooperation with HALOS. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of HALOS or the U.S. Department of Justice."

KGBX Women's Show

Ambassadors for Children will have a booth at the Annual KGBX Women's Show in Springfield on Saturday, February 28th from 8am-4pm at the E-Plex (Ozark Empire Fairgrounds). Admission is $5.00 and parking is Free. Please stop by and learn more about our Adopt-a-Caseworker program and the difference you can make in the lives of local abused & neglected children.

We will also be inviting folks to attend our 2nd Adopt-a-Caseworker Orientation event on Tuesday, March 31st from 12-1pm at the St. John's Cancer Center (see more details above).

"The Adopt-a-Caseworker program is supported by grant #2005-VF-GX-K009 awarded by the Office for Victims oice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, in cooperation with HALOS. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of HALOS or the U.S. Department of Justice."

Adopt-a-Caseworker Begins!

January is FINALLY here and that means the program begins this month! After 10 months of planning, procedures, guidelines, policies and forms are all complete. A program manual has also been completed (30 pages long).

We currently have 17 Partner groups to match with local Caseworkers. One group is adopting 2 Caseworkers, so we will have 18 matches in month #1. That is a very strong start to this amazing program and we look forward to recruiting enough groups for the remaining 54 Caseworkers. I have completed training for Caseworkers and the Primary/Secondary contact persons for each Partner group. I look forward to making matches by the end of this month!

The Web Exchange is up and running. I finished entering in all Caseworker emails today and will be listing our first item before the weekend. The Caseworkers are very excited about this resource. It's a great way to provide resources for the Caseworkers who are still waiting to be adopted. Please visit the site at www.ambassadors4children.org/xchange

New Gifts to Support the Kid's Closet!

The Kid's Clothes Closet recently received generous funding from the following organizations. We are so thrilled to receive this funding and look forward to using these funds to purchase new clothing, coats and shoe gift cards for local foster children. Thank you so much for your wonderful generosity!

The Musgrave Foundation: $1,000.00
The C.W. Titus Foundation: $10,000.00
Pauly Trust: $5,000.00
The Gannett Foundation: $2,500.00

Kid's Clothes Closet Update

The numbers for 2008 are in! The Kid's Clothes Closet program saw nearly 350 appointments from Greene County foster children in the pursuit of new clothing. The program served just under 300 total foster children in 2008, which is slightly less than the past few years.

As I've been training Caseworkers for our Adopt-a-Caseworker program, I've discovered that there was a great deal of foster care Caseworker turnover in 2008. That likely explains the decline in children served this year, as the Caseworkers are not aware of the program. To address this problem, I created a Kid's Clothes Closet flyer and emailed it to all Greene County foster care Caseworkers. They were all encouraged to make copies and distribute the flyer to foster parents. I also plan to pursue having the flyer included in all new foster parent training materials. My next shopping trip is Friday, so the Kid's Clothes Closet will be well-stocked for the weekend!