At CAFO, we often share about the incredible healing power of family. Research bears this out: children are best positioned to experience health, healing and sturdy growth into adulthood when they are situated in the committed love and life of a home where they experience the good authority of parents and learn to receive and give love.
Adoption studies and long-term outcomes confirm this again and again. The power of an imperfect but devoted family is a source of immense good in a child’s life. No other temporal force comes close to the persistent and varied ocean of good that is family.
And yet, for many foster and adoptive families, the journey includes seasons that feel impossibly hard.
Some struggles go on for years, becoming deeply entrenched. At times, they escalate into true emergencies, causing profound distress for the whole family. A child may wrestle with self-harm, suicidal thoughts, aggression or behaviors that threaten others’ safety. Parents can feel bewildered and alone, and the way forward can seem confusing and dark.
Families in these kinds of crises often face painful questions and agonizing decisions:
- How do I keep my family safe from my own child?
- What if we need to consider out-of-home care?
- When things are this bad, do ordinary parenting practices make any difference?
- Am I failing as a parent? Where is God in this, and can I still hope for good?
The weight and reality of struggle
When we searched for resources to guide parents in such circumstances, we found very little.
While excellent models exist to wrap around families in need — and many good resources speak to the ordinary challenges of foster and adoptive parenting — there is far less for families facing serious, long-lasting struggles. Conversations with church and organizational leaders confirmed this gap.
Many of these families are Christians who stepped into fostering or adoption out of a deep sense of calling — as an act of faith and love, with great resolve to do whatever it takes to promote healing.
These foster and adoptive parents deserve the very best resources, representing both high-quality research and timeless biblical wisdom. They deserve to know they are not alone. They deserve to hear the voices and insights of others who have walked these roads before them. And they deserve immensely practical guidance for daily life and a clearer sense of what they can reasonably aim toward.
Resourcing families in times of crisis
Recognizing this need, we began creating what we thought would be a short booklet. But the complexity of these challenges demanded more. That small project grew into When There Is Crisis: A Handbook for Christian Foster & Adoptive Families Facing Serious Struggle.
Woven alongside curated insights drawing on research and biblical wisdom are the real stories of parents and young people who’ve endured these struggles. These stories offer hard-earned wisdom and remind others that they are not alone.
While not comprehensive, the book speaks to many of the key realities families encounter across stages of crisis, offering three kinds of help:
Immediate steps for stabilizing crisis situations.
Families need concrete actions they can take in moments of escalation, as well as guiding principles for everyday complexity. This includes wise consideration of therapeutic interventions and medication — their benefits, limitations and risks. Parents also want to understand how best to protect and serve every member of the family, not only the struggling child.
Guidance for families weighing residential care.
For families in prolonged crisis, residential care sometimes becomes part of the picture. This decision is complex, blending risks and potential benefits, and high-quality options are scarce. Families need trustworthy principles for discernment, clarity about how to continue parenting during separation, and practical guidance for reunification and renewal.
Everyday practices that foster healing and long-term growth.
Crisis often disrupts the ordinary habits that sustain life and health. Yet these are the very rhythms — living within limits, prioritizing marriage, practicing kind and firm authority, establishing daily patterns of physical health and growing in the habits of the Christian life — that can slowly cultivate healing. These practices are no quick fix, but over time, they can reshape a home and steadily grow new life in ways nothing else can.
Above all, families must be reminded that their pain is not wasted: God walks with them in the valley and works even through suffering to bring about good.
What families ultimately need
The book is only one contribution to a much larger need. More resources are required to provide specialized guidance for challenges like sexualized behaviors or addiction, directories of quality programs and practical support for financial strain.
But most of all, families need ongoing friendships: people who will walk alongside them in the midst of their deep struggles, care for them, pray with them, receive them and support their health and avenues for growth. A book can provide essential principles and practical guidance, but love is skin-enclosed. Journeying through crisis is best supported with close, devoted relationships, especially when embedded within the life of fellowship and worship of the local church.
We encourage you to share this resource with those who may benefit. And please also pray that When There Is Crisis will be a source of real help to families walking through especially painful journeys.
– Rachel Medefind is the director of the CAFO Institute for Family-Centered Healing & Health.
Explore When There Is Crisis to discover guidance for seasons of struggle as a parent — or grow in your ability to walk alongside families facing crisis.
