When you hear the name “Missouri Baptist Children’s Home,” what images come to your mind? Do you see campuses full of young children waiting for a forever home? Do you see an orphanage? Does residential care only come to your mind? Well, hopefully, after you read this article, you will have learned more about what the Agency is and who it serves.
First of all, instead of calling it “Missouri Baptist Children’s Home”, we are now referring to the parent corporation as MBCH. The affiliate of MBCH that provides all of the client services is MBCH Children and Family Ministries, and there is an affiliate of MBCH Children and Family Ministries called The LIGHT House which serves pregnant young women and their babies.
When I first came to MBCH in June of 1990 thirty-three years ago, 90% of our client services were residential-based and 10% were community-based. Flash forward thirty-three years to today, and it is totally the opposite – 90% of our services are community-based and 10% are residential based.
If you were to come to one of our campuses you would find that we are serving mainly youth 16-21 years of age in programs like Pregnancy Services, Transitional Living (a program to help older teens and young adults learn independent living skills), Therapeutic Group Homes (this program serves youth who need a residential facility for a short time – we are currently serving teen girls in this program), and Anti-Trafficking Services where we provide group living/services for teens and adult women caught up in sexual trafficking. Notice that I did not describe any young children or babies (except the babies that belong to our biological mothers in the Pregnancy Services program). Last year we served 142 youth and their families through our residential services ministry.
Our community-based ministries include services such as Family Foster Care which is case management services for children and youth (infant to age 21) in state custody due to abuse/neglect; Treatment Family Care which is a ministry that provides specially trained foster parents to care for youth who due to trauma have moderate to severe behaviors. Treatment Family Care also provides these same types of services to relatives who take in their grandchildren or niece/nephews, etc. Another community-based ministry is Pregnancy Services which is provided to adult women who are pregnant and need in-home services. Finally, we also recruit, train and assist prospective foster parents and relative providers to become licensed by the State of Missouri, and then we manage their license for them by providing supportive quarterly visits, opportunities for ongoing training, and assistance in re-licensure every two years. Our goal is to provide Christian foster families to take in foster children and to provide ministry to relatives who take in their relative foster children. Last year we served over 2,300 children and families through our community-based ministries, and we served and supported 300 foster parents and relative providers statewide.
So – did you learn something new about Missouri Baptist Children’s Home after reading this article? Let me name a few things:
- We serve far more clients in the community than we do in facilities on our campus (142 clients on campus vs. 2,300 in the community in 2022) which is good. We want youth to be in homes with families as much as possible.
- We serve all ages in our ministries – infants to adults.
- We focus on recruiting Christian foster families for youth who need that service.
- We love placing youth with their relatives and see it as a ministry opportunity for the whole family.
One thing that never changes about MBCH is our mission: “Serving God by responding to the needs of children, youth, and families to make a lasting difference in their lives!”