Reclaimed Hope Initiative

Thrive through the thrive program, reclaimed hope initiative (rhi) ensures parents and caregivers of foster, adoptive, and children with disabilities have support and respite so they can better care for themselves and their families. Rhi hosts six monthly parent and caregiver support groups, four of those with on-site childcare provided by professionals qualified to care for children with complex care needs. Rhi also provides skilled in-home respite care to thrive families experiencing hardship, such as illness, job loss, or other crisis, so they can retain skilled, reliable, trusted care for their children with complex care needs. In addition to parents reporting that thrive helped them better take care of their own needs, as well as that of their children, the lasting impact of thrive is helping families stay together through hardship. As one family described the benefits of attending thrive, "there are so many i could name here, but for me the most significant are feeling like i'm not alone in walking this road and having a space where i can vent about the circumstances of our situation without feeling like people are going to pity me. In the "regular" world there are not many people who i feel like i can share things with without that reaction, and so that means i usually wind up just not sharing much, which makes the isolation feel even worse. The challenges we face are often so specific, and having this space to feel like there are people who get it is invaluable." in fy24, we served 125 families navigating foster, adoptive, and children with disabilities through the thrive program, which provides six monthly parent and caregiver support groups, in-home respite care, monthly respite nights for children, and referral services. Rhi surveys thrive participants annually. Among parents and caregivers who attended at least half of support groups held in 2024, at least 80% of them reported: -decreased feelings of isolation in parents. -decreased feelings of stress in parents. -increased self-esteem and self-confidence. -increased personal coping skills to decrease mental health crisis. -increased parent ability to manage the needs of their child without consistent overwhelm. -decreased family separation with preventative care strategies (either parent separation or child separation). The lasting impact of thrive is helping families stay together through hardship. One family shared that thrive "provides connection to other foster, adoptive, and special needs families who understand our reality...it isn't all sad, hard stuff; often we need a place where people understand the unique joys and victories our family has as well. Thrive has been great for us to connect to parents who 'get it,' a place where we can be real and have our stories witnessed in a community, as well as give our child safe access to a fun space with peers who have some shared experiences; a place where she isn't 'the odd one out.'"

Program coordination and training which benefits all programmatic activities.

Ramp (racial advocacy and mentorship program) ramp offers same race mentorship to youth ages 8-18 who are transracially adopted or fostered by white parents, as well as an educational program for white parents adopting or fostering a child of color. The intended impact of this program is to implement community change on the educational requirements of white adoptive and foster parents to limit implicit bias and promote racial identity, while also giving children of color a positive racial mirror through their mentor to facilitate growth, education, and confidence. In fy24, ramp served 5 children/families. Mentor sessions are held weekly for 1.5-3 hours/session. In terms of the mentorship portion of our program, research confirms the positive effects of quality youth mentoring, displaying more favorable health outcomes, decreased suicidal ideation, improved connectedness, decreased physical behavior, and a higher participation in higher education (ahrens et al., 2008, king et al., 2018, thompson and vance, 2001). Ultimately, mentoring enhances the personal growth and development, as well as social and economic opportunity for at- risk youth. These measures would be gauged by a three-tier survey, one completed by the child, one completed by the parent(s), and one completed by the mentor. These surveys would be done at pre-mentorship, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months to capture holistic change from multiple perspectives. The mentee survey would look at behavior, confidence, school participation/achievement, connectedness, sleep patterns, depression/mood, overall health, racial identity/worth and hobbies/passions. The mentor and parent survey would have similar categories, but would look at more qualitative data vs. Quantitative. We would expect to see an improvement in all of these areas, with significance being seen in connectedness, overall health, confidence and racial identity/worth based on previous research. On the other side, the educational portion of ramp will teach white foster/adoptive parents to 1) know terminology around race, 2) understand racial literacy, 3) have an awareness of their implicit bias around white supremacy, white privilege, and white fragility, 4) understand how to better cultivate and promote the racial and cultural identity of their children, 5) understand the grief and loss that accompany this transition, and 6) implement strategies on how to protect and prepare their child to live in a world where race has social implications. We will gauge the understanding of this content with our parents through surveys, quizzes and role-play. All parents will be given a pre-course survey to gauge their level of understanding around these topics and help us as educators target their greatest barriers. Each session will then include role-play and experiential education, in addition to a more didactic method of teaching, to allow a greater depth of understanding on each topic. Quizzes will be given at the end of each course to gauge level of understanding and continued areas of need. If parents do not pass with a score of 85% or higher, they will be required to repeat the session before moving on in the program.