Hope Revisited was established in February of 2021 with a goal of reintegrating families that have been separated, into healthy sustainable family units and creating strong family bonds that will last for generations to come.
For many years, in Coweta County, as in many areas of the state there has not been a place for families whose children are in foster care(or other domestic situations) to have a family visitation other than a park when the weather is cooperative or a fast food restaurant. Visitations can occur at these establishments; however, it is almost impossible to mend broken bonds, begin reconnecting and establish healthy relationships sitting in a Burger King Play area. Visiting at these locations are stressful to all involved. The parents often stress because they must come up with funds to eat at the restaurant, the children don’t want to sit at a table and talk while there is a playground to play on and this is not what real life is like. When the parents are reunited with their children the visitations at Burger King do not prepare them for real life scenarios and situations. The visitations are equally as hard on the children. The only time they see their parents is in a public place with so many distractions and they feel like their every move is being watched. Families don’t experience the normalcies of cooking a meal, doing laundry, naptime, homework time, playing games, reading a book or many other family time activities.
That is where Hope Revisited comes in.
Hope Revisited’s mission is to create a safe and stable environment where families, disconnected due to life circumstances, learn to thrive and achieve unification for generations to come. We will achieve our mission using a three prong approach. Early intervention followed by education sealed with a support system.
Currently when children come into foster care it is awhile before they are able to begin visiting with their parents. Often times it can be several weeks before a family has their first visit. We will work to eliminate that barrier. We will offer our safe visitation center for family use as soon as visits are ordered, eliminating the need to find a place to have the visits. Lessening the time that the families are not in contact helps preserve relationships and bonds. Hope Revisited will be set up just like a home with Bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, common living areas etc. This allows the visits to be as normal and intimate as possible, while still allowing the visits to be monitored if that is required.
With Hope Revisited being set up like a home, it allows for the second prong of our program to take place most naturally. The education phase. This is where we will provide skills necessary for the families to grow and learn to function as a unit. This part of the program will take place in several ways. During visits we will offer resources such as parent aides, planned family activities, bonding activities, and relationship building and strengthening activities. We will also offer professionally taught classes for the parents separate from their visits with basic life skills like budgeting, resume writing, cooking, parenting, couponing and more. We will work closely with DFCS in an effort to provide customized classes based on the needs of the families we work with,
The third prong to our approach is putting support systems in place for families. As families go through their case plans as prescribed, we will work to create mentor type relationships and peer support relationships that will continue after the parents complete their requirements and families are reunited. The parents will be able to work through challenges and tough situations with peers who are going through the same thing as well as those that have successfully completed reunification and have many years of success with their reunification. This design will be in place so that families have an outlet when they feel stress and their have their own support system to cheer them on and to rely on for advice and knowledge from their previous experiences.
Foster care has an alarmingly high recurrence rate, meaning that when children go home and are reunited with their biological families there are many families that are not able to remain together. Often the stress of returning to family life together after being apart becomes traumatic and can cause parents to relapse into old habits and coping patterns putting their children’s safety in danger, making reentry into foster care necessary. When this happens, it causes even more trauma for the children involved, and severs more family bonds that have been built. Using Hope Revisited and the three prong approach we are equipping the families with real life scenarios during their visit where they learn the necessary skills to function together. We are also surrounding the families with support systems of people who understand what they are going through, because they have been there and are able to offer encouragement and support. We are enabling families to reunite, remain together and end the cycle of foster care that is often several generations strong.
Hope Revisited is using a model that creates, promotes and sustains long term change for families in our community. The model will raise families that are strong, can withstand tribulations and life circumstances that are thrown their way. These changes will affect families for generations to come and make our community a better place to raise families that stay together and support each other even in the toughest of times.
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