This week is Foster Care week in Australia – an opportunity to celebrate the stunning individuals, couples and families who decide to open their homes as Foster or Kinship Carers.

Currently there are almost 46,000 children in Out-of-Home Care in Australia and over 24,500 carer households providing home-based care in an emergency, for respite, short or long-term care, or until a child is 18 and sometimes beyond.[1]

Theirs is a thoughtful commitment to living out their faith by taking care of the vulnerable and placing the lonely in families.

In many ways, Foster Care can be seen as beautiful picture of God’s love, His grace and His plan for reconciliation through family and church on display to our community.

Throughout the Bible we see God calling us to protect the vulnerable and welcome children and this is mirrored in the very act of caring for children who cannot, for a number of often complex and varied reasons, be with their birth families.

So as a church we celebrate the carers. We recognise the beautiful and sacrificial ministry of opening your home to a child and understand the importance of homes within healthy community, homes of hope and healing, salt and light, all the while being respectful of birth families.

Below is a short video featuring one of our amazing families in our church who took up this call to care for children in Out-of-Home Care.

Hillsong CityCare has recently launched a program called Our Village Project, which seeks to support and serve vulnerable children and their carers in our community – because children need families and families need community.

This program is currently being piloted in Melbourne and we hope to see it expand to other locations in the not too distant future.

If you are based in Melbourne and interested in finding out more about how to be involved – either as a carer, a volunteer, or as part of a support network for carers, email [email protected]

[1] Australian Institute of Health & Welfare (2021) Child Protection Australia 2019-20.