Foster Child

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

One More Bed

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on September 21, 2021

What if there was one more bed?

One more bed for a 14 year old would mean that Kayla could step down from a group care program where she’s completed her service plan.  She has skills to manage her anxiety and a care team to support her.  She could live with a family while her biological family regains its footing.  She could feel a bit more like a regular kid.

One more bed for a

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4 min read

A Sign from Little Miss Awesomesauce: Attachment in Foster Care

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on July 1, 2021

The goodbye was a hard one.  As soon as the kids learned that they were going to live with their relatives, behaviors that had long since stopped began cropping up again.  The cuddly children who once snuggled in for stories and movies, who danced in the living room to music, who were joyful turned angry and closed off.  Hurtful words were flung about, tantrums were common, and fists were even raised at Mama T.  “You’re

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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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4 min read

A Foster Care Message: Grateful Hearts in 2020

By Robert Costa Jr. on December 2, 2020

As 2020 winds down, we all know that it has been a tumultuous year. But despite the difficulties we have faced, I know there are people we can call, day or night, when a child is in trouble.

 

They are the caretakers who open their homes when the courts order a child removed from their home for their own protection — perhaps because a parent or guardian has been arrested for drugs or violence

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3 min read

Seventeen: A Foster Child's Road

By Courtney Edge-Mattos on August 18, 2020

“I’m her seventeenth.”

Foster mom’s voice was full of emotion.  My eyes widened, my skin prickled. “Seventeenth?  Home?”

“Yes, she’s seven, her sister is four, and I’m their seventeenth.”

A is seven years old and has lived in seventeen homes.  D is four years old and has lived in nearly as many.  For the seven year old, that means a new home roughly every four months.  For the four year old, that means a new

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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.