Children At Risk

For licensing and placement information, please visit Carver County, Scott County, Hennepin, or Dakota County. Private agencies such as St. David’s and Bethany Christian Services provide licensing, training, and support for foster families.

• Foster Care Reimbursement Fund – These funds are used to support families within Grace Church who are fostering. These funds directly support our strategic initiative to care for at-risk children. Find out more about our applicant criteria and process.
• Support Groups – Foster care support consists of a variety of ways to connect with other foster and adoptive families. We have Connected Child book studies and periodic equipping sessions. Our goal is to encourage parents through community to help them face the unique challenges of parenting children in foster care and support them with prayer, care, and resources on their journey. For more information, contact Kirsten Bengtson at .

Current Support Groups

• Need a little break? Enjoy an evening out while your kids get a fun-filled evening of games and activities. This free event is for 0- to 12-year-old foster, adopted, or host children and their siblings. A pizza dinner will be served.

*Note: Our Respite Nights are currently paused due to COVID-19. We will update this page as soon as we schedule our next event.

• Safe Haven Foster Shoppe creates placement bags for children when they are first assigned a foster home. These bags are age-, gender-, and size-specific and are delivered to the child’s new foster home upon request.
• Foster the Love creates placement bags for children when they are first assigned a foster home. They also provide support and extensive resources for foster parents.

As a church, we want to provide support for and encourage our foster care families. If you are currently providing foster care or beginning the process, email Katie Morton at .

The primary purpose of Royal Family Kids Camp is to give children, ages 6-12, who are in foster care, a week of positive memories and royal treatment in a Christian camp environment. Each child that attends Royal Family Kids Camp will receive attention and encouragement from an adult camp counselor (i.e., his/her “buddy camper”). In addition, each camper is also exposed to a variety of fun activities where they learn more about their Heavenly Father and His love and care for them. For most of these children, it’s the best week of the year — a special time when they can focus on having fun and enjoy being a kid.

Team member opportunities include:

• 1:1 Camp Counselor
• Support Staff
• Craft Leader
• Licensed Nurse
• Licensed Social Worker

2021 Applications Coming Soon

If you have questions, please reach out to Katie Morton at .

Volunteers are crucial to making our Respite Nights a success for foster and adoptive families. Volunteers play with children while helping the night run smoothly. Opportunities include crafts, games, gym time, a movie, and more. These events are a beautiful opportunity to love on and affirm children who have experienced trauma. If you would like to get involved, please email Katie Morton at  .

*Note: Our Respite Nights are currently paused due to COVID-19. We will update this page as soon as we schedule our next event.

You can support a foster, adoptive, or host family in the following ways:

• Provide meals – Taking on extra children is taking on extra appointments, visits, school meetings, and more. Providing a cooked or freezer meal can give a family a much-needed break.
• Laundry – Offer to do a family's laundry.
• Transportation – Visits are common with foster and host children, depending on the length of the placement. Offering to transport a child to visits or any of the family's children to commitments can really minister to a family.
• Childcare – If you're trained to care for children in foster care, or have been trained through TFG to care for host children, you could offer to watch the family's children while the parents enjoy a much-needed break.
• Run errands – With more children, there are always more errands to run, so offering to run errands for a family can be a great blessing to them.
• Home maintenance – Offer to help with lawn care, shoveling snow, etc.
• Tutor – Many host, foster, and adoptive children are behind in school, and it's tough to get caught up. If you enjoy teaching, tutoring could really help a child.
• Offer your service – What are your gifts? Can you use them in this ministry? (e.g. – music lessons, art lessons, sports lessons, photography, etc.)
• Donate gift cards – Gas cards, pizza cards, etc. can help with the extra load.

You will receive periodic requests related to the above areas. If you would like to proactively offer help in any of the above areas, please let us know, and we will present your offer to our foster, adoptive, and host families. To join the support team, please email Katie Morton at .

We have the opportunity to mentor young, single moms who attend New Beginnings, a full-day high school for parenting and pregnant teen girls located in Chaska. We also mentor those who attend our Embrace Grace and Embrace Life groups. Our goal is to come alongside, provide encouragement, assist with developing life skills, and share about Jesus as a trusting relationship is established. Mentoring also involves:

• Completing the application, interview, and training
• Attending quarterly mentor equipping meetings
• Meeting 2x/month with your mentee for a minimum of one year
• Demonstrating patience as building a trusting relationship may take a while

If you're interested in becoming a mentor, complete this form. This opportunity is limited to females, age 24+. If you have questions,  please email Kirsten Bengtson at  .

By partnering with the organization Together For Good, we strive to come alongside and invest relationally in biological mothers. In most cases, hosted kids are being raised by a single mother, and to move forward and work through their crisis, they need to a healthy support system. You could invite her to church or Bible study, help her learn new life skills, apply for a job, etc. To get involved, please email Kirsten Bengtson at .

Through our annual Stop the Trafficking 5K, we strive to fight injustice and human trafficking in our surrounding communities. All proceeds support anti-trafficking organizations with an emphasis on supporting the restoration of sexually-exploited youth. We begin planning our annual June 5K event in the fall. Our next planning meeting is in January 2020. There are many opportunities to help, including:

• Sponsorships
• Promotions
• Race-day preparations

If you would like to get involved, please email Christine Erickson at .

Join our e-mail prayer group and support young, single moms and their children through prayer. We believe prayer is powerful and foundational for our ministry. The struggles that single moms face can be overwhelming, but we know that nothing is too difficult for God. We want each mom and child to be covered in prayer on a weekly basis. When you sign-up to pray, you will receive an email with specific prayer requests for each mom. We ask that you take time to pray for each one. To sign-up, complete this form. If you have questions, please reach out to Kirsten Bengtson at .

During the school year, September through May, we provide a birthday cake to celebrate teen moms who attend New Beginnings school, along with personalized cards. If you’re interested in helping with one or more months, please contact Kirsten Bengtson at .