Foster Care

Altrusa International of Longview-Kelso Foundation sponsors approximately 60 Jiangxi orphans in foster care.  What a huge difference we've seen this make in the lives of the children!  Before foster care, many of them sat lined up against a wall all day long.  Now they are in loving foster homes with individualized attention from their foster parents.  And just being out in the community, seeing how people live their lifes, improves the liklihood that the orphan will stay in school and someday get a job and live independently instead of being an institutionalized adult.

 

Update 1-5-20:  WE'VE BEEN ASKED TO INCREASE OUR FOSTER STIPENDS FROM US$54 TO $85 PER MONTH.  SO SEVERAL NEW SPONSORS ARE NEEDED!

 

Details

 

We contribute part of the foster family monthly stipend; the orphanage itself contributes the other part.  100% of your donation is sent to Amity Foundation in Nanjing, China, which has a 7% admin fee and sends the rest to the orphanage, who pays the foster families.  So 93% of your donation is received by the foster family.

 

Amity Foundation has a staff member in Nanchang, who visits each orphanage and each foster family twice a year.  She sends reports on her visits, which are available at this website (see sidebar).  She also sends an individual report on each child (with a photo), which we send to their sponsor.  Most children have one sponsor, but some of the children have co-sponsors, and each receives a report. 

 

Each orphanage has one or more staff assigned to monitor the foster homes; they visit each home at least once a month, and more often if the child is young and/or there are other ongoing concerns.

 

Since we started foster care support in 1998, we had been contributing 200 yuan per month (the amount in US dollars has varied as the exchange rate has changed).  During Peggy Gurrad's visit to some of the Jiangxi orphanages in November 2012, we were asked to increase this amount to 300 yuan, since over the years the stipend paid to the foster families had increased (about 1000 yuan per month for most of the orphanages at that time) and the directors were having a hard time funding their share. So during 2013 we increased to 300 yuan at some of the orphanages, with varying start dates, and as of January 1, 2014, increased to 300 yuan at most of the remaining ones.  Then in 2017 the amount increased to 350 yuan and now in 2020 will increase to 550 yuan per month.  We're hoping this will encourage the orphanage directors and foster families to continue.  With the recent focus of the provincial government away from foster care we've dropped from over 300 kids in foster care to the current 60 children.  We want to keeping these remaining kids with their foster families!

 

Recently our share of the foster stipends had been about US$54 per month per child but as noted above in 2020 is increasing to $85 per month.  Sometimes this amount is donated by sponsors who are the sole sponsor for their foster child.  In the case where a sponsor cannot be found for the full amount then two or more sponsors share the amount (had been either $27 each or $36 and $18 but now also the addtional the additional $31 is needed monthly).