Offering comfort and guidance at Arizonans for Children
Arizonans for Children provides many services for children
in foster care. We have 2 Visitation
Centers where kids come to spend time with their parents and siblings in a fun,
vibrant, engaging, educational, safe and supervised environment. Many times, a visit at our center is the
first time a child has seen their parent since the trauma that has brought them
in to care. Can you imagine the
uncertainty? The fear? The hope?
The Visitation Centers are set up like a home setting with
big deep comfy sofa’s, soft comforting music in the background, thousands of
books to choose from, games, movies, activities and of course food. This allows the child to direct the visit and
set the parameters for their comfort.
They can choose where to go in the center whether that is to play pool
or ping pong or to the dining hall for a meal or even the kitchen to cook
together. Each area of the center is
set up for bonding and engaging.
Arizonans for Children is a small non-profit with a BIG
impact. Each of our Visitation Centers
gets between 700-1000 families utilizing the center every week. We rely on our community for volunteer support
as there are only 7 of us when we are fully staffed. Volunteers welcome the families, offer
comfort, guidance and hugs when needed. The situation these families are in is very overwhelming and we can make
it better for everyone involved, sometimes with comforting a crying toddler when
a parent isn’t sure how to do it. We
model behaviors, offer suggestions and most importantly we do not judge
anyone. (The picture above is a staff holding and comforting a toddler while offering the father gentle suggestions on how to sooth)
Every single person that walks
through our doors is treated with the same dignity and respect. A parent with a child in foster care has
everyone in their lives telling them what they are doing wrong but not at
Arizonans for Children! We make a point
to tell them what they are doing right and that builds their self-confidence,
their sense of self worth and restores hope that they can get out of this
situation.
Arizonans for Children has changed the culture of visitations
and the impact will have a ripple effect that will last for generations and the
centers are just one of the programs available to kids in foster care! We could not do what we do without our volunteers.
To be a part of this start by filling out a volunteer application:
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