I mentioned in my bio that I was the vice-president of a non-profit to be, but I realized that I haven’t really talked about what it is that we want to do with our organization. We are currently incorporated as The Transitional Life Center, Inc. Our original idea was to have a residential group home-type setting, where the staff was well trained and well paid, and we could house children ages 8-16 on a temporary basis, until we found an appropriate foster home for them. We wanted to try to avoid what is happening here and in many parts of the country, where siblings are split up or children are sent to other counties due to the lack of foster homes in the area.

We thought that by getting the kids into this setting and getting them good educational, mental health, and other pertinent evaluations, we could then match them with appropriate foster homes based on their interests and personalities. This would hopefully avoid the children being disrupted from homes so often. We would also provide a location and services needed to help with the reunification of families, such as an area for visitation, and transportation for everyone to get there.

Due to a change in state funding for “congregate care”, and another organization providing housing for foster children in the area, we decided to provide services that we thought were needed. Services such as transportation for family visits to take place, support for foster parents, educational and mental health services, independent living programs, …etc. We considered having a therapist, doctor, and other relevant professionals on site or available, thereby providing in-house services to the incoming children, and avoiding the dismal existing system of overworked, underpaid professionals that are currently working with these kids.

We are now in the process of getting our 501(c)3, non-profit status, so we can apply for some grants and get funding to get started. For more information on our group and our mission, you can visit our website (http://www.geocities.com/flyboy86342), that I am still working on. This is a work in progress, but feel free to stop by and let me know what you think.