support foster care

6 min read

Ten Ways to Support Foster Care (Without Fostering!)

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on April 29, 2022

Many folks want to support foster care, but aren’t in a position to open their homes to a child or youth in care. 

Is it still possible to help?  Absolutely!  Here are ten ways you can step forward to support foster care.

  1. Hire a Youth in Care

Are you a small business owner or manager?  Do you hire for summer/after school/weekend work?  Reach out to your local fostering agency and submit a job description.  If

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3 min read

National Foster Care Month 2022

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on April 29, 2022

May is National Foster Care Month.

What does that mean?  Why does it exist?

It isn’t a celebration of foster care.  Foster care occurs when families do not have the supports they need to safely keep children in their homes, so that’s not something for which we should break out the party hats.

What is National Foster Care Month all about?

National Foster Care Month is a time to bring the conversation of foster care

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9 min read

Why Choose JRI Foster Care?

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on October 21, 2021

Why JRI Foster Care?

According to our most recent foster family surveys, foster parents choose to work with JRI Foster Care because of the support they receive from our team and our agency.  If you’ve never done foster care, it might be hard to know what you would need in terms of support and what to look for in an agency.  Well, wonder no more!  Here are the supports JRI Foster Care provides and why

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3 min read

Foster Care: Take a Look, Send a Book

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on January 29, 2021

This month, JRI Foster Care is hosting a book drive.  To be perfectly honest, we have no end date for this and hope to keep our book list ever-growing, but we’ve decided that now is the time to start this movement.

Why books?  With all of the moving parts of foster care, all of the challenges facing children and youth in care, what good is a book going to do?  It is a fair questions

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3 min read

Foster Friends

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on June 25, 2020

“Remember that no one succeeds alone.  Never walk alone in your future paths.” –Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer

There are days and nights when we all feel alone.  Our staff, our children, our foster parents, our biological parents…Probably even the judges presiding over these fragile lives feel alone. 

But we never are.  Not a single one of us.  And we shouldn’t be. 

We are part of a caring community.  We are surrounded by friends

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JRI Service Navigator

Do you have a question about JRI services?

Rachel has been a part of the JRI team since January, 2000. For over 20 years, Rachel has been working in the field of human services assisting families with accessing and navigating services. Rachel received her Bachelors degree in psychology and Masters Degree in Public Administration from Bridgewater State University. She was promoted in July 2005 to Family Networks Program Director where she closely worked with the Department of Children Families for 10 years ensuring that children and families received the highest quality of individualized services ranging from community based through residential care. Rachel is very dedicated to helping the individuals she works with and is committed to improving the lives of children and families. Rachel’s passion for creative service programming inspires her in her role as JRI Service Navigator.