A cluster of individual SOS family homes share facilities and administrative offices at SOS Children's Villages in Chicago, Illnois

May 18, 2010: The nearly half a million U.S. children in foster care are being honored this month, which President Obama has declared National Foster Care Month. SOS Children's Villages agrees with the President that, as he noted, every foster child deserves a loving home offering “unconditional love, stability, trust, and the support to grow into healthy, productive adults.”

But providing stable home settings for these children is not easy. Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than other children to have emotional, behavioral, and developmental problems, according to the Child Welfare League. These difficulties include depression, problems in school, and impaired social relationships.

Even when foster parents are plentiful, public payments to foster care parents in some states are not keeping up with costs, a situation that can inhibit placements.

SOS Children's Villages and Foster Children

An SOS Children's Villages family home in Coconut Creek, Florida

Well known for its work overseas, SOS Children's Villages also provides stable, nurturing homes in the United States. These are the kind of homes that foster children dream of.

SOS Children's Villages had several decades of experience raising needy children around the world before it opened three villages in the United States in 1993 and 2004. These Villages -- SOS-Coconut Creek, Florida; SOS-Chicago, Illinois; and SOS-Lockport, Illinois (outside of Chicago) -- were set up with the aim of supplementing the traditional U.S. traditional foster family system.

These U.S.-based SOS Children's Villages offer an alternative to foster care that works in conjunction with respective state foster care systems. In both Florida and Illinois, SOS mothers and fathers are trained and certified as foster care parents in accordance with local regulations and often far surpass the states' requirements.

At SOS Children's Villages in the U.S., foster kids find a haven -- an end to neglect and abuse, to multiple placements, and to separation from siblings. In Illinois and Florida, SOS offers family-based care and a host of special services to over 250 foster children. SOS also provides vital services to their families with the aim of family reunification.

Promising Results

An SOS family at home in SOS Children's Villages - Illinois

Together with state child welfare officials, SOS Children's Villages works hard to reunite families. In 2009, 28 SOS-Illinois children were successfully reunited with their biological parent or were placed in a relative's home or a pre-adoptive home. SOS also puts a lot of effort into seeing that its youth graduate high school and go on to higher education. All senior-year SOS-Illinois high school students graduated in 2009 and, as of today, 77% of former SOS-Florida residents are enrolled in post-secondary education and numerous others have completed college, with some in graduate school.

And at a time when states across the country are finding it challenging to find foster parents who can communicate in foster children's native languages, the SOS-Illinois' Hispanic Foster Parenting initiative is bearing fruit. One-third of SOS-Lockport, Illinois, homes are staffed by Spanish-speaking parents. Because of that success, Illinois's Department of Children and Family Services has asked SOS to partner with it to recruit more Spanish-speaking foster parents statewide.

Help a troubled child find a secure home and a secure future. Donate to SOS Children's Villages.