Foster care agencies to work with homes of worship

Amid a burgeoning demand for foster care families in the borough, the city’s Administration for Children Services (ACS) has decided to intensify a new trend - recruiting foster parents through homes of worship.
To encourage support for the initiative and share know-how, on Tuesday, June 24, ACS and its community partners held a conference at The Greater Allen Cathedral of New York, a mega church in Jamaica, on 110-31 Merrick Boulevard.
Out of the 50 homes of worship in the city providing foster care help, Greater Allen is the only one in Queens. But with its congregation of 20,000, it is a major foster care partner, said Camille Clark, assistant executive director at Forestdale, a foster care agency in Forest Hills.
Faith-based communities have social networks and infrastructures that ACS and foster care agencies can tap into when trying to find placements, said Reverend Alfonso Wyatt, a Greater Allen minister. “They [homes of worship] have access to volunteers, people who can make things happen,” he said.
All faiths should join the initiative, Wyatt added. “I’m not talking about religion and denominations. What I’m talking about is being able to be motivated by compassion,” he said.
Using the help of faith-based communities is a great idea because “it takes a village to raise a child,” said Keema Davis, an ACS child coordinator. “All of these people can get the word out,” she said.
But not all conference attendants supported the initiative. “That’s the most devious thing – who wouldn’t trust the church, the word of God?” said Marvin James. He explained that children welfare officials should not focus on finding more parents to meet organizational quotas; rather, they should try not to remove as many children from their biological families because kids usually leave safe homes and sometimes see abuse in foster care.
Queens has 2,638 children in foster care, out of 16,982 citywide, according to ACS.