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♦ Welcome
The Ohio Family Care Association (OFCA) serves as the statewide voice for resource families, uniting the voices of children and families involved in adoptive, foster, kinship and respite care.
♦ Adoptive families often need support in order to sustain their permanent commitment to children.
♦ Foster families provide both flexibility and stability to the children in their care, and deserve advocacy and support.
♦ Kinship families rise to the challenge of parenting, braving the maze they must travel through in order to access resources.
♦ Respite families serve a critical role in providing continuity for children, and giving foster families time for rejuvenation.
OFCA exists to offer support, encouragement and training to resource families and the children in their care, and to advocate on their behalf.
ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
History
The idea of an organization to address the needs and concerns of foster parents came about in the early 1970’s. At that time a group of foster parents came together to discuss the following issues: establishing annual reviews, redefining permanent custody, subsidized adoptions. They collaborated with other groups of foster parents who were interested in having a stronger voice to speak out for foster children and foster parents.
In June 1974, a group of foster parents met for a picnic in Columbus, Ohio and initiated a plan to establish a statewide association. Their goal was to educate and empower foster parents to advocate for change.
In 1975, this group of foster parents formed the Ohio Foster Care Association. They immediately started working on the following concerns: the public agencies were the only recruitment sources in the state, foster parents were not considered as placement resources for children in their homes that became eligible for adoption, no education or training was provided for foster parents, foster parents were discouraged from meeting together to garner support or discuss issues.
In June,1989, the organization legally changed its name to Ohio Family Care Association, to incorporate all resource families-not just foster parents. It continued to operate as an all volunteer organization until 1998 when a part-time staff was hired for capacity building.
Currently, OFCA is the Ohio representative for the adoptuskids program. OFCA is aware of all legislation that affects foster, adoption, and kinship parents and testifies at hearings about bills that affect them. OFCA executes a state-wide annual conference. OFCA continues to assist locl leadership in the development of cross-agency county associations. OFCA continues to work closely with the State agency to keep them aware of the needs and concerns of foster, adoptive, and kinship parents.
Mission
To unite the voice of children and families involved with adoptive, foster, kinship, and respite care.
Goals
To assure the safety and well-being of children in the following manner: by pursuing a permanent plan for every child in the system, advocating for child placement on the basis of selection of the family most capable in meeting the needs of the child, promoting adoptive, foster, and kinship families and agency connections in the best interest of the child, promoting the utilization of family care rather than instituitional care, whenever possible and deemed beneficial.
To support and encourage resource families in the following manner: strengthen the image, rights, and status, encourage recruitment of, improve education and supportive services for adoptive, foster, kinship, and respite families and to support the establishing of local, foster, adoptive kinship associations within the state