The Department of Children, Youth, and Families office in downtown Vancouver has narrow hallways and a lot of closed doors. Big decisions are made in these rooms.
The Abundance of Mothering
I’m sitting at gymnastics watching my Kindergartner keep up with a class of 3rd and 4th graders. He’s easily a foot and a half shorter and not nearly as polished, but the boy can run circles around them.
Confessions of a Social Worker
We’re half way through Foster Care Awareness Month, but are we really more aware? We asked a child welfare worker to share an insider’s perspective about the pressures of social work, the daily impossible heartache, and what a simple interaction with an Office Mom did to make it feel a little more bearable.
Placing Value Where it Matters
March is Social Worker Appreciation month so it’s fitting that I take a moment to explain one of our core Values. We value social workers. That’s the long and short of it. When we began this little nonprofit adventure over five years ago, we knew that honoring the difficult work that social workers do would be an integral part of our mission.
Office Moms & Dads 2018 Annual Report
With five years under our belt, 2018 was all about building sustainability. Our board knew that Office Moms & Dads needed stewardship to magnify its impact and continue helping children for years to come; and so the focus shifted from growing by desire to growing by design.
Community Resource: Office Moms & Dads helps kids through trauma
Imagine being a child whose family is in trauma. You’ve just been pulled out of your home. You’re sitting in an office wondering what’s going to happen to you. You’re scared and upset. Whatever has just gone on, you just want to go home.
A Redacted History
Questions are a lifelong struggle for children who have come through the foster care system. In this edition, our guest blogger, foster mom and former Office Mom discusses the struggle of raising kids with a redacted history.
Community Collaborates for Innovative App to Better Serve Foster Children
[Vancouver, WA] – Office Moms & Dads, a local nonprofit serving children entering foster care, has been awarded a $25,000 Focus Grant from the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington. These funds will be leveraged with in-kind work from Hint Consulting (a local software developer) to create and implement an app that will greatly enhance the organization’s ability to orchestrate and support volunteers working with foster kids.
Always room at Clark County foster family’s table
WASHOUGAL — On Tuesday evening, flour and colorful sprinkles were strewn on the Bumalas’ kitchen counter as they worked together to bake sugar cookies ahead of their annual Thanksgiving feast, which will also include a 21-pound turkey.
An Epitaph for a New Year
Attending a funeral at the start of a new year is sobering, to say the least. When talk of health and hope swirls around like a wintery January breeze, I am reminded that death is a cloud looming ever-present.