The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition (FAAC) strives to create permanency in foster children’s lives by recruiting and supporting foster and adoptive families in the metropolitan St. Louis region. Only 13% of local, non-relative foster parents are African American/Black. In comparison, twice the number of African American children are placed into foster care over Caucasian children.

FAAC’s RESPOND program seeks to dismantle social injustices and recruit more culturally competent foster parents. Matching foster care children with foster parents from their culture of origin increases a child’s overall well-being, adjustment, and mental health. Since the 1990s, FAAC and RESPOND have supported hundreds of families throughout the St. Louis Community.

Deaconess Foundation provides funding to FAAC through the Responsive Grant portfolio to support their efforts to identify barriers for the African American community in the foster care system, advocate to legislators to reduce those barriers and help families obtain licensing, and increase the number of African American foster parents. Addressing and removing policy barriers that families face helps increase the number of the culture of origin matches in foster care and improves a child’s well-being.

Learn more about FAAC and how to become involved here.