The Restore Network

10/14/2026

🏠 This Trauma Informed Tuesday, we are talking about life after placement.

When you invite a child to join your family, you become a new family. Things that worked before may not work any more.

Expectations might need to be adjusted, routines switched up, and space made to create the capacity to meet everyone's needs.

With this new family, needs to come a new way of being.

Now I wish I could tell you how long this new season is going to last. For some of you, a few months will allow you to adjust and establish a new healthy foundation for your family. There are lots of factors that will contribute to this: your child’s story of harm, their age, the number of kids in your home & their own adjustment, your own personal style of coping, etc.

For some of you, this adjustment period will be much longer. For some of you, you will make permanent changes to your family because parenting a child with special needs changes things and sometimes those needs are lifelong, or at least last for longer seasons.

The important part is for us to understand as foster parents that changes will be required regardless, so that we can have the right expectations when we welcome a new child.

What might some of those changes be?

Check out this "Life After Placement" resource for some ideas:

What life might need to look like after saying YES and welcoming a new child? When you invite a child to join your family, you become ...

10/13/2026

🚨🚨🚨 Reposting this need tonight per the casework team's request as they have not been able to find a home yet, they are now willing to place the kids into separate homes if needed.

_______________________________________________

🚨🚨🚨 My kids missed over 40 days of school the year before they moved into my home.

This is often one of the unfortunate consequences of being in a home marked by drug use or untreated mental health; when your caregivers aren’t present enough to ensure that you get up and going in the mornings or help you review homework in the evenings. This lack of educational support at home unfortunately puts children behind academically and developmentally and this is common in the children we care for in foster care.

It’s why schools and teachers are often the first to make hotline calls to inquire about a child’s safety in their home. Missing a lot of school, without a medical reason, often indicates something going on in the home and such is the case with this sibling set. They need to move from the home of an older relative caregiver to a traditional foster family home that can provide the structure and consistency needed to get them to school each day.

When children feel safe and are in an environment that cares well for their basic needs, we see many children flourish academically and catch up because safety and trust always precedes learning. Maybe that’s going to be your role in the lives of these two siblings?

Real Kids, Right Now, Who Need Us: Please pray. Please share this need. Please consider your role.

*Photo not of actual youth.
*Next steps in the comments.

10/12/2026

🚨🚨🚨 I do not know if this little girl is alone at the hospital; but previous experience with foster care tells me that it is likely she is. Her biological family isn’t visiting and a foster family hasn’t yet been identified, so this kiddo is likely feeling alone without consistent care outside of a revolving door of nurses and doctors. Everything must feel so scary right now; a new environment, people she doesn’t know, wires and beeps, prods and pokes.

Please help us find a special family to meet the needs of this vulnerable little one who has been hospitalized for months but is now ready to be discharged. Lots of additional information can be provided to a licensed foster family who is interested in talking to the case worker and learning more, but here is a little bit about what we know:

She is diagnosed with Down syndrome and enjoys listening to music and hearing staff at the hospital speak to her. She is overall a happy baby.

Real Kids, Right Now, Who Need Us: Please pray. Please share this need. Please consider your role.

*Photo not of actual youth.
*Next steps in the comments.

10/12/2026

😆 One thing we can all agree on, kids in foster care need us.

Grab a handful of candy corn (or don't) and join us tomorrow night at 7pm to learn more about how you can play a part in their story ➡ https://therestorenetwork.org/101-workshop/

10/11/2026

⛪ Thank you to our Metro East Partner Church Pastors!

This pastor appreciation month we are grateful for the pastors of our partner churches who continually call their congregations to care for vulnerable children.

We believe the Church is God's plan to bring healing and hope to the vulnerable and we are deeply grateful for the work you do in your congregations to shepherd your people and advance the gospel.

10/10/2026

What a day! ⛳

Our 6th Annual Golf Outing was SO much fun, and we are still so grateful for everyone who came out and made it happen!

Golfers, sponsors, volunteers, donors, raffle item donors, and so many others all showed up to support foster and adoptive families.

And together, we raised $37,050! 🎉

We had the best raffle items yet, a course full of golfers, and a whole lot of fun.

We’re already looking forward to doing it all again next year!

Check out these awesome photos taken by Loving Moments Photography: https://photos.app.goo.gl/uzK7kNQ7fEMgvRn56

Thank you for making this such a great day for Restore! We are so grateful for you! 💜

📆Save the date for 2027: September 24th at Spencer T. Olin!

Shared album · Tap to view!

10/10/2026

🏘 Help us Restore the Village with respite support that actually works.

Email Victoria at [email protected] or text (618) 910-4863 for more information on how you can get involved.

*Our "Restore the Village" respite support matches Restore Network foster & adoptive families with a volunteer in their community who can offer them ongoing breaks to help them take care of themselves, their marriages, and the other children in their home. Volunteers are screened, trained, and matched with a family for whom they are a good fit. We are looking for volunteers with capacity and a strong commitment to care well for the family they are matched with. This volunteer opportunity would not be a good fit for currently licensed foster parents who are already serving our kids well in that role!

10/10/2026

🚨🚨🚨 There is a 16 year old girl sitting in a foster care agency office right now because she has nowhere to go. The agency says they have exhausted all foster homes and shelter options.

You could argue that this is the state’s fault, that they need to figure this out and have a better and safer option for where kids can go….and maybe you wouldn’t be wrong to say that.

But you could also argue that there are over 16,000 churches in Illinois and that the Church has a Biblical mandate to get involved in the needs of vulnerable children in our communities, that this is our responsibility too, and that our absence for far too long is part of the problem…and maybe you wouldn’t be wrong to say that either.

This teen, and nearly 15,000 others like her in Illinois, find themselves in a system of protection that we must have in order to keep kids safe. But we also know that systems don’t provide healing and safety, people do. And that’s where the Church comes in. We have the people and the power to change the culture of foster care so that every child experiences healing.

We can open our homes. We can open our churches. We can make sure that any kid who needs this system of protection also finds the protection of God’s people.

Real Kids, Right Now, Who Need Us: Please pray. Please share this need. Please consider your role.

*Photo not of actual youth.
*Next steps in the comments.

10/09/2026

📣 Calling all Karens! Redeem yourself!

Attend an informational workshop here ➡ https://therestorenetwork.org/101-workshop/

10/09/2026

🚨🚨🚨 The goal of foster care is reunification. This means that by God’s design plan, children belong with their parents. When parents are struggling to provide the kind of care required in order for children to have their basic needs met, or when they are acting in directly unsafe ways toward their children, the foster care system of protection might need to get involved. When this happens, families might be given intact services so they can keep their children with them or the safety and risks might be too high and require immediate removal of the children.

Once children are in foster care, the goal is always to return them home to their parents when it is safe to do so.

Sometimes, that option never occurs and after a (sometimes lengthy amount of time in Illinois), children are then adopted by their foster parents or a new adoptive family is recruited for the child. Adoption is celebrated as the best next plan for a child in need of safe forever caregivers.

But sometimes, we get to celebrate reunification and a family restored back together. It is good that a foster family would grieve this time of transition because their grief is an indicator of their love and care for the child in their home and each youth in foster care deserves this exact thing; a foster family who would grieve at their goodbye.

In many cases the foster family remains an active part of that youth’s life, transitioning from fulltime caregiver to more of a support role to the family; a respite provider, a babysitter, an auntie, or a family friend.

Join us in celebrating that a mother is enjoying unsupervised visits with her 2 year old son right now and that their reunion back together looks very promising in the first half of next year. We know that there is so much that can happen in the meantime but we are in need of a foster family who has space in their family to welcome this little boy until that day.

Real Kids, Right Now, Who Need Us: Please pray. Please share this need. Please consider your role.

*Photo not of actual youth.
*Next steps in the comments.