Connect Our Kids

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Connect Our Kids

Pioneering tech to find families,
build connections,
& create community
for our most vulnerable. Connections matter. Visit ConnectOurKids.org to learn more.

Our technology tools help child welfare professionals connect vulnerable children to permanent families and support networks. Our innovative tools are free to lawyers, social workers, CASA volunteers, and family recruiters.

08/22/2026

This week's book recommendation is Refugees, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, contains a collection of perfectly formed stories written over a period of twenty years, exploring questions of immigration, identity, love, and family.

With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth.

From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of immigration.

08/22/2026

Their stories deserve to be heard. 🎶

A group of teens in foster care recently stepped into a Nashville recording studio and did something powerful: they turned their experiences, feelings, and hopes into a song.
Through the NashFilm Living Reel Project, the teens worked with professional songwriters, using journaling as a starting point to put their thoughts into words before bringing those words to life through music. They called themselves The Overcomers.

One of the most powerful parts of this story isn't just the song. It's the opportunity these young people were given to be heard, create something together, and know that their voices matter.

At Connect Our Kids, we believe every child deserves meaningful connections with people who see their strengths, support their journey, and help them know they belong.
Because sometimes, finding the right connections can help a young person discover their voice.

Every child has a story. Every child deserves someone who will listen. ❤️
Their song will debut at the Nashville Film Festival at the end of September.

Read the full story and watch the video clip at the link: https://www.newschannel5.com/news/teens-in-foster-care-co-write-record-song-in-major-studio-through-living-reel-project

08/20/2026

🎓Our Course: Why Relationships Matter 💙
Created by Connect Our Kids

Relationships change lives—especially for children in foster care.
In this 2 CE Credit online course, you’ll explore the powerful role that connection plays in child welfare and learn how YOU can be a catalyst for lasting, supportive relationships.

✔️ Perfect for social workers, educators, caregivers, and advocates
✔️ Self-paced and easy to follow
✔️ Real-world tools and insights you can apply right away

Help build brighter futures, one relationship at a time.
👉 Take the course today: https://connectourkids.org/product/why-relationships-matter-course/

08/19/2026

WEST VIRGINIA: Keith had experienced multiple placements over time—foster homes, hospital stays, even a residential facility. Through it all, he didn’t have a single meaningful connection outside of his multidisciplinary team (MDT). He was navigating a complex system without the comfort of family or familiar faces.

Everything started to change when his Family Seeing Trainer began the search for natural supports—people who had once been part of his life but were no longer in the picture. With the collaboration of dedicated staff and an Aetna care manager, a network of people came together using the Connect Our Kids tools to find names, track down contact information, and get the permissions needed to reconnect him with “his people.”

When asked who he most wanted to talk to, he didn’t hesitate—he just wanted to speak to his dad.

Thanks to this united effort, Keith was able to reconnect with his father, stepmother, siblings, and grandfather.

A child who once felt completely alone now has a list of family members he can call when he needs support or just wants to talk.

Healing begins with connection. And now, with the support of a real family network, this young person is starting to believe in a more hopeful future. Donate today at https://connectourkids.org/donate/

*Names and any personally identifiable health information have been modified for privacy. Images sourced from royalty-free stock libraries.

08/18/2026

Close connections in our lives act as a protective barrier. They check in on you, and you check in on them. "Did you make it home alright?" "How have you been doing lately?" "I'm here for you!"

They're the people who provide emotional and even physical safety. For children and youth in foster care, a big gap in building and maintaining these connections is a lack of access to tools that help find these vital relationships. We at Connect Our Kids see that when social workers have access to technology tools that help find these supportive people, lives change forever. Stories change forever.

In a society that uses technology for everything, this is one of the most important areas where widespread access is needed to help prevent populations from being exploited.

Isolation and a lack of connections make youth extremely vulnerable to trafficking. Those with a history of any kind of abuse are more susceptible, since abuse warps our perception of what a good relationship looks like.

The door to exploitation can be closed bit by bit if vulnerable populations (and everyone, for that matter) are in relationship with safe personal connections.

Foster care is a pipeline to human trafficking, and this pipeline can be disrupted by finding caring family and supportive community for children who are currently in the foster care system. Connect Our Kids provides this system-shifting technology. Do you or someone you know work in child welfare? Send them this post. ConnectOurKids.org

Video Attribution: U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Learn more about DHS’s Blue Campaign at https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign

08/17/2026

Today is National Nonprofit Day, and we're celebrating what we've accomplished together. 💚

This year has been one of growth, collaboration, and impact.

1️⃣ Our Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. Jennifer Jacobs, testified before Congress during the hearing "Leaving the Sticky Notes Behind: Harnessing Innovation and New Technology to Help America's Youth Succeed.” As one of only four child welfare technology leaders invited to testify, she shared how innovative technology can strengthen family connections and improve outcomes for children in foster care.

2️⃣ Connect Our Kids was one of six organizations selected for Every Child TN’s Reconstruct Thriving Youth Challenge, a venture philanthropy initiative designed by Belmont Innovation Labs to address the gaps in stable housing, supportive relationships, and mental health care for the more than 800 youth who transition out of Tennessee’s foster care system annually.
Connect Our Kids received $100,000 to pilot our technology in Tennessee over the next 12 months, working closely with the other winning organizations to create innovative solutions for connecting youth in care with extended family and support networks.

3️⃣ Our technology tools have now been used to serve over 30,000 children and youth and their families across the United States.

To our donors, partners, volunteers, advocates, and supporters: thank you. Every milestone we reach is possible because of you. Together, we're proving that relationships matter, and that every child deserves to grow up connected to the people who love them.

Happy National Nonprofit Day! 💯

08/15/2026

This week’s book is called When the Body Says No.

In this accessible and groundbreaking book--filled with the moving stories of real people--medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis and many others, even Alzheimer's disease.

When the Body Says No is an impressive contribution to research on the physiological connection between life's stresses and emotions and the body systems governing nerves, immune apparatus, and hormones. With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds, invites us all to be our own health advocates.

At Connect Our Kids, we believe that trauma can impact physical, mental, and emotional well-being, especially for our nation’s children in foster care. That’s why we place such a big importance on healing through connection. Learn more about our mission: https://connectourkids.org/solutions/

08/14/2026

We all have busy lives. Do you ever forget to exhale and let yourself have even a moment of calm? A moment away from the noise?

To show up as the very best you can, it’s vital to take even just 5 minutes to recenter yourself during the busiest of days. We wanted to share with you a 5-minute mediation that you can do anywhere, at any time: https://youtu.be/inpok4MKVLM?si=mkLR_MhREOHgDCF3

We’re big into the importance of relationships, and that starts with the relationship you have with yourself. For more mental health education and tips, watch our All Connected: A Place For Belonging series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

08/13/2026

This throwback story gets us every single time and was originally from the 2024 FamilySearch conference.

Daniel had a foster family that wanted to adopt him. But he felt unworthy of the love being offered to him. Daniel’s WWK recruiter began to build out his family tree, with the hope of showing Daniel that his family legacy was deeper and broader than the struggles of his birth parents.

Using Ancestry.com and the Connect Our Kids technology platform, his recruiter learned more about his family and discovered that Daniel had several distinguished ancestors, including a well-loved pastor and celebrated World War II nurse in his lineage. When this news was shared with Daniel, his whole world shifted. “There are good people in my family?”. He became open to adoption because his sense of self-worth had completely shifted. He no longer saw himself as not worthy, as “part of a bad family”.

This is the power of tools like the Connect Our Kids technology tools used in conjunction with powerful genealogy tools like Ancestry.com.

Please consider donating to our mission, so that more child welfare workers can help children in foster care find their forever home. https://connectourkids.org/donate/funds/

*Names and any personally identifiable health information have been modified for privacy. Images sourced from royalty-free stock libraries.

08/12/2026

WEST VIRGINIA: Cade had just turned 18 after nearly two years in a Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility.

Approaching discharge with no known family, he was facing homelessness and total independence without support. Aetna West Virginia’s Family Seeing Program stepped in as his situation grew more urgent.

Contact with his West Virginia Department of Health Services worker dwindled. An Aetna Family Seeing Trainer worked with Cade’s Behavioral Health Navigator to ensure he still received necessary care, then began the Family Seeing process using Connect Our Kids tools. To uncover any family history, the trainer pushed for renewed collaboration and communication with Cade’s former DOHS worker.

The worker was able to provide a short list of relatives’ names on September 25th, and Cade’s Family Seeing Trainer began the search immediately. Cross-team collaboration and communication have a big impact on youth in care and their lifelong outcomes, and Cade’s case shows the results of that kind of effort.

Connect Our Kids’ tools were used to identify 33 potential connections for Cade, and by December a breakthrough emerged: a biological uncle and his wife were reconnected with Cade and began talking with him right away.

For the first time in years, Cade had family—people who wanted to hear from him and support him. He didn’t spend the holidays alone. What began as a young man facing discharge with no home or connections became a story of rebuilt family ties.

Help fund more success stories like Cade’s today at: ConnectOurKids.org

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1069 WEST BROAD Street SUITE 778
Falls Church, VA
22046

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https://connectourkids.org/

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