05/02/2025
“I think one of the coolest things that we teach at Finally Home, is that it's a gift to some children to not have to be the parent. Many of our students have had to assume responsibility for their younger siblings because of neglect or abuse, so they have a tendency to try to parent their younger siblings. That’s one reason why we separate out middle school and high school—we want to allow these kids to just be kids and have fun and not have to worry about all the other things going on.
It cracks me up whenever we have a day camp. I know the drill: the kids aren’t going to talk to each other for the first hour—we’ll have to force them with awkward ice breakers but once they start talking they don’t stop. We’ll go fishing or hiking or rock climbing, and on the way home they’ll all be singing and dancing and goofing around. It is really cool to watch it unfold on our days together.
Finally Home was founded in 2008, and it was born out of one family’s story. Our founders, Mark and Kristin Orphan, had two biological boys, and they were called to open their home to foster to adopt. So they got a placement for two little girls. From that experience, they learned that parenting kids who had experienced trauma and abuse was a whole different ball game. They found that there weren’t a lot of resources for families post-placement. So they started Finally Home to fill that need. We walk alongside families on their journey and support them through different resources: in-person and online trainings, youth programs, our Revive and Thrive mental health scholarships, and family coaching. There is no time limit on services. It’s really relational support, so we will help families as long as they want to engage with us.
When a family comes to us, we sit with them and just listen to their story. They share whatever they feel they want to share, and we really just hold that story. Then, we go to work with them—sort of like their own administrative assistant. The goal is that they don’t have to keep re-sharing that story because it is often traumatic. So we go out to our partners and advocate for them. That might be something like finding a trauma-informed counselor or someone who has worked specifically with kids who have attachment issues. We’ll find someone who takes their insurance or who will partner with us for discounts. When you’re in trauma, it’s a lot harder to do those kinds of tasks, so we just try to become that part of their brain, if you will, to get that set up.
We want to reach the whole family. We have conferences twice a year where there is some learning and built-in respite for parents. Then the kids under 5th grade will go to our Superhero Academy which really focuses on identifying and regulating emotions. They get a Toolkit for Big Emotions which is filled with coloring books, a breathing ball, fidgets, just all kinds of activities to help them understand their emotions. And the teens get to go on field trips like rock climbing or hikes.
For our teens, they really love to be in community together—to know that there are other kids who have gone through foster care or been adopted and so we actually meet 6 times a year so they can build that community. It’s really powerful for them to just hang out with kids who are walking through similar things.
As a nonprofit, we are always looking for volunteers. One opportunity to serve is on our call team. We call every single family that has ever engaged with Finally Home once a month just to check in on how they are doing and what their needs are. We’d really like each caller to only have about 10 families each month, so more volunteers would help. There are also mentoring opportunities that you can learn more about by contacting us. And we have a prayer team that can always use more members as well.
In terms of finances, we are 100% grant and donor funded. The population we work with often needs specialized care—and a lot of the specialized therapists and programming we need does not take health insurance. So donations toward our mental health scholarships are always appreciated.
We always say that everybody can do something to help kids in the foster, adoptive, and kinship community. Some people feel called to open their home to foster care, and that is wonderful. We would love to walk alongside you if that’s the case. But that’s not for everyone. Still, anybody can support these families and children. You may feel like you can only contribute these little pieces, but, man, together what an impact those pieces have. Because families need to feel loved and cared for. We all do—whether your family is foster, adopt, kinship, biological—everything—we all need community. Bottom line: health, healing, and strength is found in community. So, any way that you can provide that for others, do. Be the village.”
Linda Motter, Family Support and Ashley Nichols, Community Engagement
Finally Home
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This post is part of the Weld Community Foundation’s 52 Fridays series.
The purpose of the series is to feature one nonprofit per week in a story-forward way as they work to "spread the good" in our region. We hope this series showcases the expansive and diverse richness of Weld and all the ways our nonprofits strengthen the bonds of our community.
You can make a contribution to this week's featured organization here:
https://finallyhome.net/home-team/
