Chelsea McCoy, representative from the Nebraska Children Home Society (NCHS) visited our club and talked about the many things that NCHS does to help provide support for families, children, kinship caregivers, grandparents, adoptive families, and foster parents with access to community resources, support groups, and ongoing educational opportunities. The Nebraska Children Home Society was founded in 1893 and covers the whole state of Nebraska. Their number one principal belief has stayed the same — every child deserves access to a bright future and loving home. Their mission is to provide safe and loving care to children of all ages, and their vision is a safe and loving family for every child.
NCHS core values are:
Advocacy - We are champions for children. We speak out and take action to protect children and strengthen families and communities. We work to create change in policies and practices to put children first.
Integrity - We strive to do what is right for the child. Integrity is the foundation upon which we have built our organization, and is at the heart of everything we do.
Innovation - We embrace continuous improvement, bold creativity and change. We will persevere until all children thrive and families have the tools they need to succeed. We recognize that one size never fits all and push to design interventions that benefit every person.
Compassion - We care deeply for children and their families. Compassion begins with understanding trauma and promoting healing. We partner with families to develop, enhance and secure nurturing connections.
Inclusion - We embrace the richness inherent in our diversity. Integrating our unique experiences, knowledge and perspectives helps us better understand children and support their families
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Collaboration - We value the importance of teamwork. We join forces with team members, professionals and community leaders, but, most importantly, we partner with families and children. By passionately working together with all stakeholders, we challenge each other to achieve the highest levels of professional excellence.
Chelsea told us the programs that she specially works with in her role at NCHS. One of the programs is entitled, “Families Forever” where they give support to those families who foster children and decide to adopt or where grandparents adopt one of their grandchildren. They also mentor those families to give them the support they need to being a whole family.
A program called “Search” is where maybe an adopted child wants to find their biological parent(s) and need help because of medical conditions, etc. Since there are a few places on the internet such as Ancestry where they can go, they might get several calls looking to see if they might have been adopted through NCHS. They are able to look at records and let that person know what they find and will contact the biological parent(s) to see if is okay to give out that information. NCHS now has an “open” adoption policy so it does make things easier.
A program called “Family Finding” helps children who are in foster care to stay connecte4d with their blood relatives, including their biological parent(s). Chelsea told us they have a Pregnancy Adoption program which helps a mother who is not quite prepared to take on the responsibility of raising a child. They work with them and support them in what might be best for the child, helping them to secure housing, etc. and sometimes that child continues to live with the mother.
Whenever an adoption does take place, NCHS works with the adoptive parents and biological parent(s) to make sure that the child stays connected. Another program is “Reborn Care” where a family might foster an infant for up to six weeks so that the mother has time to prepare for taking care of their child.
Chelsea said that they do work with the York Women’s Prison where some of the women do have their children with them in the prison. They give them support through classes on parenting and what to expect when they do get out of prison while raising their child.
The Nebraska Children Home Society has been helping with children for over 120 years.