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Seven Homes
Foster Care & Adoption Agency's -
Mission
Statement
The
mission of Seven Homes is to reach out to youth in crisis due to their need for
love, safety and stability. The therapeutic vision of this mission is to serve
the needs of the whole child.
Seven
Homes was established in 1995 by a group of concerned Social Workers, Direct
Care Staff, and Mental Health Professionals. The agency was established to focus
on changing the placement pattern of children in the Social Services system. The
program is managed by the Executive Director. It is directed by a Board of
Directors who are recruited from the community at large and volunteer their time
because they see a great need to reach out to neglected, abused and troubled
children and their families.
Our
Foster Families
Our number one philosophy and favorite quote, “Foster Care is about finding
Families for Children, Not about finding children for families.” As an agency
that provides both foster care and adoption services, it is important to
recognize the difference between fostering and adopting.
If you
are seeking an agency with which you may find a rewarding experience as a foster
famiy, we believe that Seven Homes Family Foster Care Program
offers such a place. Seven Homes is a traditional foster care program that
offers a supportive and nurturing system for both the foster child and foster
family.
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Foster parents work in
partnership with the staff of Seven Homes. Our foster parents enjoy and
exercise autonomy over the management of their foster children within a
supervised program to ensure the needs of the child, foster family and birth
family are being met.
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The staff at Seven Homes
provides a high level of support to foster parents beginning with mutual
solidarity. Within this voluntary compact, training and education are
provided to our foster parents without interrupting the uniqueness of their
family culture and their parental culture and autonomy. Such training and
education begins with and grows out of the experiential contexts of their
family life.
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In this mutual
respect of Seven Homes’ staff and foster parents, these foster children are
able to grow and develop in the context of parental values and family
meaning apart from the imposition of an artificial therapeutic system that
is out of character with the true challenges and healing that occur with the
family.
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Seven Homes prides itself
on the provision of a safe, secure and nurturing environment for its foster
children by not only preserving the dignity and autonomy of the family unit,
but by fostering what befits the unique nature of each of its foster
families. This unique nature is substantiated by values of love, trust,
responsibility, caring, industry, sharing, mutual respect and understanding,
self-control and prudence, chastity and the like.
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Children who enter our
foster homes not only experience such values but are allowed to bring their
unique values and personalities into the new family context. Children are
not punished for negative behaviors but are constantly
encouraged and taught into developing values through making positive choices
and taking positive actions. Altogether our foster parents bring years of
experience and knowledge in the loving acts of fostering children. Seven
Homes encourages and supports our foster families who are interested in
pursuing adoption of their foster children if the court decides that the
children cannot return home.
If you
are interested in becoming a foster parent with Seven Homes, please give us a
call at (336) 542-3307.
Our
Forever Families
If you are seeking a North Carolina agency
that can help your family grow through adoption we encourage you to
contact us.
Our focus in adoption is on Foster Care. Seven Homes does not provide private or
International adoption services. Our belief from day one is there is a family
for every child. That family may be next door, down the road, out of town, in a
different state, or in another country. The children in our care find forever
families because we refuse to fail. Our philosophy is centered on selecting in,
not ruling out. Our job is to find families while ensuring that the safety,
stability, love and nurturing for each child is maintained. Want to adopt,
contact us. Feel the difference in your life, make the difference in a child’s
life, and become part of an extraordinary journey.
SOME COMMON BOND EMOTIONS EXPRESSED HERE AT SEVEN HOMES -
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Not Flesh of my
flesh, nor bone of my bone, But still miraculously my own. Never forget for a
single minute, you didn't grow beneath my heart, but in it.
~Anonymous
A Single Starfish
By Loren Eiseley
One day an old man was walking along the beach. It was low tide, and the sand
was littered with thousands of stranded starfish that the water had carried in
and then left behind. The man began walking very carefully so as not to step on
any of the beautiful creatures. Since the animals still seemed to be alive, he
considered picking some of them up and putting them back in the water, where
they could resume their lives.
The man knew the starfish would die if left on the beach's dry sand but he
reasoned that he could not possibly help them all, so he chose to do nothing and
continued walking.
Soon afterward, the man came upon a small child on the beach who was frantically
throwing one starfish after another back into the sea. The old man stopped and
asked the child, "What are you doing?"
"I'm saving the starfish," the child replied.
"Why waste your time?... There are so many you can't save them all so what does
is matter?" argued the man.
Without hesitation, the child picked up another starfish and tossed the starfish
back into the water...
"It matters to this one," the child explained.
A poem from a Needing Child
I am so very special
I have been from the start
Before they held me in their arms
my family held me in their hearts.
And like a single drop of rain
that on still waters fall
My life and love will ripples make
and touch the lives of all.
So read this precious story
as step by step I grow.
I am a blessing and gift
as each page here will show.
~Anonymous
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