You could say we're "The Little Engine that Could": We started with a few concerned members of a church Sunday school group who saw foster kids being treated like second-class citizens and decided to do something about it.

Now, barely 10 years later, we've turned foster care upside down and have emerged as one of the top child placement agencies (CPAs) in the state of Colorado, with more than 120 children rescued from the foster-care system and happily adopted.

Along the way we've created a program where children in foster care are nurtured and truly cared for, and where the foster parents who give these children a home can do so with a level of friendly, professional support not found anywhere else. The result? Hope & Home is recognized by numerous judges, child welfare experts and others as having the best foster parents, and as being the agency that does the best job taking care of foster children.

Hope & Home's strength comes from our Christian commitment to children, from our large and highly invested community of donors and supporters, and from our pledge to only accept first-rate foster parents who believe, as we do, that no child should ever feel like a second-class citizen.

Babies, brothers and sisters, teenagers: All kinds of good kids get caught in the middle when bad things happen in their family--things like drug abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, homelessness, mental illness.

In many of these homes, the struggling parents abuse or neglect their children severely enough for county officials to remove the children and place them in safe foster homes.

That's where Hope & Home comes in--and where you can, too, simply by giving these kids a strong sense of belonging and acceptance that only a loving family can offer. Some children need just a short time in foster care while their family receives help; the kids are then returned, or reunified, with their birth family. Others can never go back and need a new family to adopt them. However long a child is with you, your love and care may be the only light coming into their dark and scary world--and that can make a world of difference.

We are the only agency that nurtures foster parents as much as foster children.

When you join Hope & Home, you become part of a whole community. Thanks to the many people who support us--more than 500 donors, churches and businesses--Hope & Home provides a large range of activities and services simply not available at other agencies.

THE ESSENTIALS:

An accountable, reachable staff. When you call Hope & Home, you will almost always reach a live person ready to address your needs! In addition to a "no dumping to voicemail" policy during business hours, we have an on-call phone that allows us to place children and handle your emergencies 24/7, seven days a week.

Dedicated family support team. From helping you through the first few days of a child's arrival to helping sort out your paperwork, a team of employees serves as advocates and troubleshooters for our valued foster families. It's important to us that our foster parents never feel like they have to "go it alone."

Hope & Home University. Our families receive the finest training--all without leaving the building. Your 27 hours of core training, plus 12 hours of specialized parenting training, are all held at Hope & Home's in-house training center.

Love to Nurture Training. Parenting kids is hard work. Nobody knows this more than foster parents. Ross Wright, Hope & Home's executive director, has been working with tough kids for more than 20 years in settings ranging from psychiatric inpatient hospitals to specialized residential treatment centers to foster care homes. Ross is the author of "Kids in Crisis," from B&H Publishing, a book on how to keep your children from spinning out of control. All Hope & Home foster parents receive Love to Nurture training for free! Our gentle approach to raising kids has received praise from state officials and is just one reason why our foster parents have such successful relationships with the children they care for and even adopt.

Active support groups. Hope & Home is committed to remaining small and personal, even as we grow. Each foster parent is assigned to a small support group through which parents meet monthly, provide "respite" breaks for each other, and advise and encourage each other. Contrast this with the policy at another foster-care agency in town, where there are no support groups and parents are discouraged from gathering together!

Visitation services. Court-ordered visits between birth parents and their children can take place and be supervised right here at Hope & Home, sparing foster parents the extra drive to a county visitation center downtown. And unlike visits at other facilities, parenting time is enhanced here thanks to our casual, comfortable environment that includes hit Nintendo games on a big screen, a foosball table and more. Hope & Home foster families can enjoy a cup of coffee, browse our lending library and wait during visits, or leave and return with peace of mind that Hope & Home staff will manage everything while they are gone.

Adoption support. It costs Hope & Home thousands of dollars to certify just one foster family. For this reason, some agencies forbid their foster families to adopt any of the children they care for to prevent the families from "retiring" and quitting foster care. At Hope & Home, fully half of our families each year will "go inactive" because they have adopted and their households are complete! We celebrate every family who gives a child a "forever home" through adoption, and we honor their permanent place in our extended family here. In fact, watching these adopted children grow up and come back to visit for parties and to model in our yearly fashion show is one of our biggest joys!

THE PERKS:

An active social calendar. It's exciting to belong to Hope & Home! Our many supporters in this town show up to build swing sets for our families every year during the Great Swing Set Build-Away; sponsor toy drives on behalf of our children; cheer our "kid models" during our yearly fashion show fundraiser; provide scholarships to specialty camps and much, much more. Their financial support makes it possible for us to hold frequent parties, picnics and other celebrations that enrich the lives of our foster families and show them how much people are rooting for their success. Our weekly e-mail newsletter paints an accurate picture of how much fun we have together.

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For more on Hope & Home's great events, 

Jericho Java. This is our private, in-house club just for our families and kids which provides a 5,000-square-foot "coffee shop" where families meet for classes and small groups. Teens receive free daily tutoring and sign up to "work" as baristas and gain valuable work experience. Special guest performers provide entertainment on our coffeehouse stage.

YMCA Memberships. When you join Hope & Home you can be automatically enrolled at the YMCA. The $96 application fee is waived and you receive a 50% discount on monthly dues.

Free CPR Training. Taking CPR and First Aid, which is a requirement for all foster parents, is always a headache. At Hope & Home it's all done right here - at no cost to you!

We have a special way of raising kids at Hope & Home.

We call it "Love to Nurture" and we teach it to all of our foster parents and staff. Tough kids, withdrawn kids, good kids who sometimes just mess up--every child will respond to this gentle yet effective system of discipline and encouragement.

We know this because it was created by Hope & Home's executive director, Ross Wright, who saw it reach and do wonders for even the most hardened kids that he met during his years working with emotionally troubled youth in various medical facilities. We know this because out of all the foster children who get adopted in Colorado, fully 19 percent will "blow out" or fail, and yet nearly 100 percent of the adoptions by Hope & Home families succeed.

After teaching "Love to Nurture" to hundreds of foster parents and seeing its remarkable effect on families, Ross folded the techniques and lessons into a book called "Kids in Crisis: A Workable Plan for Successful Parenting." It was published by B&H Publishing Co. this year and has received praise from parents and child welfare experts alike.

Now, with the help of foundation grant money, Love to Nurture training will be offered through Hope & Home and the newly created Love to Nurture Institute for any parent--foster parent or birth parent--who wants it.

To order the book "Kids in Crisis," 

To visit the official Love to Nurture website and read reviews, 

To inquire about Love to Nurture training classes, 

Our Mission

We are a Christian foster care agency dedicated to building bridges to permanency for children and their families.

Our Vision

We work to build communities in which someday no child will lack an enduring source of family love, care and concern.

Our Values

Christian principles: Hope & Home is a Christian ministry. As such, we derive our values and standards from Scripture. We believe that the Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments, is a divine revelation, the original texts of which were inspired by the Holy Spirit. We derive our organizational values from the Bible and fully subscribe to the ethics and beliefs contained within.

Family focus: We believe that the single most important aspect in the life of a child is that child's family. We believe that children deserved to be raised in families, not just in a house or a home. Children must feel embraced as part of a family to feel loved and respected and to grow up with a healthy sense of self-respect and confidence. Hope & Home is committed to creating permanence for children through strong, healthy families.

Strength based. Hope & Home subscribes to the simple belief that everybody has strengths, and that by building on those strengths, tremendous potential can be realized. In releasing this potential we can increase our capacity to form positive relationships and self-sustaining lives. Hope & Home does not condone punitive, aversive approaches to the raising and disciplining of children. We are committed to a nurturing, strength-based approach in all of our relationships. This includes the relationship we have with our employees, our vendors, our customers and our clients.

Educational commitment. Hope & Home provides a wide range of unique educational opportunities focused on building strong family relationships.

Customer driven. Hope & Home is driven to provide the services and products required by our customers. Our two primary customers are the Department of Human Services, which refers children to us, and foster families, who partner with us to provide care for children.

Humble excellence. Hope & Home is committed to providing the highest-quality foster care available. This is manifested in every aspect of our behavior, beliefs and actions. We believe that the way we interact with others, our appearance, attitude, the quality of our written work, our presence in court and our casework are all a reflection our commitment to excellence. We do this without a need for personal recognition and give all glory for what we do to God.

Analytic and scientific. We commit to the best clinical practices, sound scientific processes, and data-driven, analytic decision-making.

The power of change. We believe that through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, anything is possible. Addictions can be overcome, abusive parents can learn to become good parents, lost and forgotten children can find hope.

Servant leadership. We believe in the power of leadership. We subscribe to the manner modeled to us by Christ as a servant leader. We strive to bring leadership to our community in a manner that is selfless and upholding of the community.