As many of you are aware, the foster care crisis in our state continues to be an area of concern, not just at the state and local level, but entities within our federal government have taken note as well. As of April 2025, over 11,000 children still populate the foster care system in the state of Missouri, and although that number is down from the all-time highs of previous years, that volume of clients is overwhelming at times for the State of Missouri Children’s Division to manage.
At MBCH, we are thankful that one of the primary solutions chosen by the state Children’s Division was the privatization of foster care through a contractual relationship with child welfare providers like your very own Missouri Baptist Children’s Home. However, MBCH doesn’t simply provide services to the clients that we receive from Children’s Division, but additionally, we recruit, train, and then maintain the families with which our clients will reside. As you are also aware, we require that our families be those that are professing followers of Christ, for we believe truly effective care must address spiritual health as well as other aspects of care.
We are equally thankful that Children’s Division has in the last couple of years placed a heavy focus and effort on the process of prevention. The goal of prevention care as you would guess is to come alongside those families that may be viewed as in crisis-mode before a child is removed from the home and placed into state custody, thus possibly becoming part of the foster care system. Since arriving at MBCH fourteen months ago, I have now watched as the prevention emphasis has become an added solution of care that we provide as well.
Although prevention care was provided by MBCH some years back, due to the lack of a contractual opportunity and thus a revenue stream, we have not provided that specific type of care for several years. That all changed this past November 2024, when we were contacted by Lutheran Family & Children’s Services, another effective child welfare partner in our state, concerning a potential sub-contractual relationship opportunity. Lutheran had been awarded the state contract to provide prevention care in the greater Kansas City area, but due to staffing issues, inquired as to our interest in fulfilling and staffing that ministry effort.
Always looking to expand our ministry footprint, we jumped at the chance to provide these services (known as Home Visitation Services) in an area wherein we have few foster care responsibilities. Our six-person HVS staff now specifically works with ladies who are in the prenatal phase and can continue to work with those ladies after their babies are born up to age three. In our relational process with these families, again, the primary goal is to help the families out of crisis into a more stable standard of living. In accomplishing this task, we are able to not only contribute to the health of these families, but as desired, we also help reduce the number of clients entering into the foster care system.
We are so convinced of the necessity of this additional solution to the foster care crisis that we have now launched a similar service ministry on our main campus in Bridgeton. Since this ministry is not supported by contractual dollars, but instead is self-funded, we did not want to utilize the same designation, so this latest ministry is known as Stronger Family Services. Our four-person SFS team does not focus solely on ladies in the prenatal stage as does our HVS team, but instead, takes referrals concerning any component of a family dynamic that is in crisis. Our relationship with Children’s Division is still involved, although not contractual, for the state is a source of referral to our program. However, we can also take referrals from churches and schools, which of course frequently identify families in crisis. One of the challenges to SFS is obviously the fact that we are directly providing the revenue stream, while receiving no form of governmental support. Yet, these are the sacrifices that we are willing to take on in order to fully complete our mission.
As is always the case, we greatly need your prayers as we seek to do what we believe God has assigned us to do, i.e., serve Him by meeting the needs of children, youth, and families in order to have an eternal impact on their lives. We so covet the support and encouragement that comes from our Convention and the churches that comprise it.