Due to a generous grant from the Speedway Children’s Charities, the Mecklenburg Guardian ad Litem Advocacy Foundation is humbled and excited to begin our latest project, Knowing Who You Are. The GALA Foundation will be partnering with the Guardian ad Litem Program and the Department of Social Services to coordinate this initiative.
Every child who enters the foster care system is confused, frightened and overwhelmed with the reality of being taken from all they know and being thrown into a new and often strange environment. A disproportionate number of our children are from minority communities and while the Department of Social Services strives to keep them within their communities, often many of them are placed in homes very different from the ones in which they were raised.
The goal of this project is to: help make the transitions for children in foster care as smooth as possible, foster healthy racial and ethnic identities within them, and to provide the GAL volunteers with another resource through which they can build relationships with their child clients. The GALA Foundation will be purchasing books with positive cultural or racial messages to help ease the transitions for children and help them develop a positive identity.
Social workers, judges, program supervisors, and eventually Guardian ad Litem volunteers will be trained to identify and help those children who may be in need. The books will be distributed through our Guardian ad Litem volunteers and will also provide another way for our volunteers and their child clients to bond! More information about KWYA can be found at: http://www.casey.org/Resources/Initiatives/KnowingWhoYouAre/
Keep an eye on our blog and our website for more updates on this new initiative!
