Hope Spring Community

Hope Spring Community believes one of the best gifts we can give to children in the foster care system is a parent who is equipped to rise and lead their families well. In a one-of-a-kind home-like space for visitation, parents learn healthier ways to care for their child from a trauma-informed Visit Facilitator. Parents learn new skills and measure their progress. They meet with a coach to gain confidence and develop effective strategies to achieve their family goals. The parents and children also receive free counseling from a licensed therapist and are paired with a community mentor to be with them throughout their case.

Why do we focus on visits? Parent-child visits have been linked to shorter foster care placements. When a child is placed into foster care, it's often because trauma has occurred. The separation and loss they feel when removed from their family only adds to their distress. Usually, almost everything and everyone a child knows is lost, at least temporarily. Studies show that visitations help children maintain emotional attachments and continue connections. Visits can also help motivate parents to follow through on their court-ordered plans and expand their skills to care for their children.

Why a visitation coach? As is true for all of us, we often need a coach to help us learn a new way of doing something. What better time than during a monitored visit with a visit facilitator who cares about parent and child and wants to see a broken relationship restored. Our visit facilitators at Hope Spring Community are Trauma-informed and have undergone intensive training to learn how to coach and model gently. After each visit, the parent and facilitator will conduct a check-in without the child to offer encouragement and guidance on how to make the visit more fruitful in the future.