March 2026 Community Spotlight

This month, we are highlighting local initiatives that support children and families surrounding foster care. From prevention to intervention, passionate nonprofits are making an impact. If you want to learn more, we invite you to reach out to each organization directly.

Foster Care presents a tremendous challenge and opportunity to love kids and families well. It’s an urgent challenge to the Church, as “the least of these” face many challenges from foster care:

30% of youth who age out of foster care develop serious substance use disorders, and 50% to 75% of foster youth experience substance use issues by young adulthood
One stat cites 98% of children who are sex trafficking survivors had previous involvement with child welfare services.
Approximately 50% of homeless people have spent time in foster care. 20% to 50% of youth who age out of foster care experience homelessness within the first few years of emancipation.
Trauma can have a generational impact. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) describe the abuse, trauma, or neglect that creates toxic stress in a child’s brain, which is linked to physical and mental conditions later in life.

Read more in the “Learn More” section about how TN is getting involved on a state level.

Nonprofit Highlight – Safe Families for Children

Safe Families for Children, a project under Bethany Christian Services, works to prevent children from entering foster care, by coming alongside families in crisis. Every day in Chattanooga, parents face crises that make it difficult to keep their children safe: housing instability, trauma, medical emergencies, or the lack of a support network. Safe Families for Children steps into these moments with a simple but powerful goal: to keep children safe and keep families together.

They are a voluntary, community-driven program that provides short-term hosting for children, practical support for parents, and compassionate, relationship-based care from trained volunteers. By surrounding families with a circle of support, which includes churches, community partners, trained staff, and volunteers who wrap around families in crisis, they help prevent unnecessary foster care involvement while giving parents space to stabilize, heal, and move forward.

It is a cost-effective alternative to foster care. While traditional placements can cost around $30,000 per child each year, Safe Families serves an entire family for less than $5,000 annually—thanks to volunteers who give their time, their homes, and their hearts.

Read a story of impact, and more about their model here [link to pdf].

How can you get involved? Volunteer, partner, or support their work here.

Nonprofit Highlight – CarePortal

CarePortal is a care-sharing technology that drives action for kids and families in crisis. Through CarePortal, church and community members can be informed of the vetted needs of vulnerable families in their very own zip codes. In Tennessee, over 60% of children in the foster care system are placed for preventable reasons. The CarePortal platform allows churches and community members to collaborate and make an immediate impact for these families by providing or funding critical items. Local churches will then be empowered to serve as the point-of-care delivering these items and making meaningful connections with families—because connection changes everything!

CarePortal began operations in Hamilton County in January 2025, and since then, they have had an economic impact of $65,934 in support of over 187 children and parents, through the partnership of 15 churches.

The current challenge is not providing funding for vulnerable families’ needs, but rather finding more churches interested in partnership by meeting in person, delivering the necessary items, and establishing relationships with these families. CarePortal is praying that God continues to provide able-bodied church members who can serve as the hands and feet of Jesus! Interested? Sign up for free here.

Pictured: families delivering items, and a church here in Chattanooga that met a CarePortal request from Choices Pregnancy Center to host a baby shower for a mom-to-be in need of baby items… 40+ women showered her with love!

Want to learn more about how you can give or get involved? Reach out here.

Nonprofit Highlights – The Haven & Isaiah 117 House

Two local organizations have stepped in to provide compassionate, trauma-informed care for children entering foster care. Together, both Isaiah 117 House and The Haven help ensure that no child faces the foster care system alone by helping children feel safe, cared for, and supported during this time of transition. Moments of transition, often the most vulnerable times in a child’s journey, should be met with peace rather than chaos, and comfort rather than uncertainty. Both organizations envision a foster care system where children are never left waiting in uncomfortable or impersonal spaces, but are instead welcomed into environments marked by safety, dignity, and care.

Isaiah 117 House provides a safe, welcoming place for children immediately after they are removed from their homes, for up to 72 hours. When children are removed from their homes out of concern for their safety, they are usually brought to a child welfare services office to await placement. These children often have nothing with them and feel afraid. Isaiah 117 provides a comforting home for these children while they await their more permanent placement. Isaiah 117 provides a safe place with friendly, loving volunteers who offer clean clothes, smiles, toys, and snuggly blankets. This space allows children to receive the comfort and care they need while child welfare staff can do the necessary paperwork and identify a good placement. Their mission is to reduce trauma for children awaiting placement, lighten the load for child welfare services, and ease the transition for foster families.
The Haven is opening in June and was birthed out of Ridgedale Baptist. They will provide a stable, home-like place after those first 72 hours, where children can stay while a long-term placement is found — especially older children, sibling groups, or youth with higher needs who may wait longer for the right home.

The Haven steps into a critical gap within the foster care system. Through intentionally prepared spaces for rest and stability, they offer children a peaceful place to pause, breathe, and feel safe while awaiting a permanent placement/foster home, providing routines that bring stability and care that reflect Christ’s love in tangible ways.

How to get involved:

Isaiah 117 House: Become a volunteer or supporter and learn more here.
The Haven: Connect here, and help furnish the home!

Learn More

Attend the Called to Care Event on April 30th at the Chalmers Center, hosted in collaboration with various community partners. Register here!

Leverage your business capital or expertise to fund people working in this space. The Haven’s House was recently built in large part thanks to in-kind donations from a local construction company.
Read more about TN Foster Care and Adoption Statistics here.
Get inspired! The Governor’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative (GFBCI) mobilizes Tennesseans to unite to serve vulnerable Tennesseans. One of their focuses is the “Every Child TN” initiative, a comprehensive, coordinated entry point for everyday Tennesseans to support children, youth, and families impacted by foster care through preservation/prevention, recruitment and retention of foster families, and transition of older teens and young adults into adulthood (read their paper here). Their Director, Lance Villio, joined us for a call recently, and you can view their content here.

Upcoming Events & Resources

*Here are some community-wide events. Please contact these organizations directly to register or volunteer.

April 3: Good Friday Chattanooga – Multi-Church gathering hosted by Pray Chattanooga

April 7: Scenic City Women’s Praise Breakfast with speaker Babbie Mason (register here)

April 8: Ministry Leader Luncheon

April 30: Called to Care Event @ the Chalmers Center (register here)

May 19: Chattanooga Area Leadership Prayer Breakfast welcomes speaker NASA Astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore (register here)

May 16: JFest Christian Music Festival

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