Right now in Aotearoa, more than 5,000 children and young people are in care.
For each of them, a safe and loving home can make all the difference.
Open Home Foundation works to ensure some of the most vulnerable children in Aotearoa can grow up in supportive family environments.
In the top of the South, two people helping make that possible are Mika and Alicia. Mika is a foster parent recruiter. She connects with churches and Christian organisations, encouraging people to consider fostering as a way of serving God. Many, she says, already have the heart for it – they just don’t yet know how to begin.
Alicia is a foster parent social worker, assessing people who are interested in being foster parents. She spends time getting to know their values, history, and motivations, making sure that both foster parents and children are safe and well supported, and regularly checks in with foster families.
I felt honoured to sit down for a chat with them both about their work with Open Home Foundation, the needs of this region, and the ways God is at work in the lives of tamariki and rangatahi.
Mika: I was scrolling Facebook one day and I don't know how it happened but – coincidentally, maybe by God – I saw the job advertisement at Open Home Foundation. The advertisement talked about the vision: that every child or young person will grow up in a secure and loving family, and receive a depth of care that will bless them for the rest of their lives. When I saw that phrase – “bless them for the rest of their lives” – I thought, wow, what wonderful work they’re doing. I started thinking about how that blessing could continue for generations. I’m not a social worker, so I couldn’t do Alicia’s role, but I thought there must be something I could do. That’s how I started.
Alicia: Hers is a critical role because our foster parent pool is smaller than we’d like. Our region focuses mainly on teenagers, because that’s who’s coming into care. It’s tough to find people willing to foster teens, so Mika is the connecting point.
I grew up here but went back to California to study and then worked as a foster care social worker in Los Angeles, in a Christian organisation doing the same role as here. After about five years I burned out – high caseloads, tough work – and during Covid I decided to move back. Open Home Foundation had a position open, so I interviewed from managed isolation in my hotel room and got the job!
Mika: Our regional manager actually looks after Wellington as well as the top of the South.
Alicia: So our region is like the “middle” of New Zealand. Nelson and Blenheim are now merged as one team – we still have separate sites, but we work together. We service quite a wide area around us. We've worked with families from Golden Bay to Motueka, Murchison and other more rural areas.
Alicia: This area is very unique.
In other regions, it's more common for younger children to come into care, but in Nelson, we’ve been seeing mainly teenagers who need care outside of their whānau.
For younger children, it can be a little easier to locate enough grandparents and aunts and uncles to keep them within their families. But the issue this region is seeing is kids growing up with trauma, reaching around 11 to 15, and their families just can't cope anymore. The grandparents are getting older, and they just can't cope – not just with everything that comes with teenagers, but also the effects of trauma these kids have experienced.
So they call Oranga Tamariki, and Oranga Tamariki calls us.
They’re tough situations. A lot of them are really sweet kids, but they’re usually pretty high needs and don't have enough support. Those are the kids that we get calls for, like 99% of the time.
So when Mika is recruiting, and when I'm assessing foster parents, we're looking for families that can help those kids. Because that's who we're getting calls about.
Mika: It’s very difficult to recruit foster parents, because lots of people have this idea about foster children being cute little babies, and the reality is that they usually aren’t. But people naturally see teenagers as too difficult, and they don’t think they can help.
It is challenging, to be honest, but we have very good support from our social workers and support workers team.
We all work together to look after and love these kids. I like to say that we are like a village. We really need support from churches and the wider community to help these young people to thrive.
Alicia: Faith is such a significant part of this organisation, so we recruit Christian-minded families.
And they usually have good community support, which all really helps.
One huge need we have right now – that's not as intense as something like full time care of teenagers – is just people who can offer short breaks for our foster families. People who just are available to have a teenager for a few days or a week of the school holidays, or if we have a placement that's breaking down, somewhere for them to go temporarily so they don't end up in a motel.
It's a really good way for people to dip their feet into the water and get a sense of what it's like, and what their capacity might be. So it’s a safe way we like to start people, and just doing respite care is a huge need for us to give our families in this region a bit of a break, and to provide our young people with more loving, supportive connections.
Mika: It’s like having that village for a child.
Alicia: Anybody who provides long term care or short term care or respite care goes through the assessment process.
After the initial application process, I’ll make contact with them and have a few really in-depth talks with them. We talk about their culture, their values, how they parent, their home environment – even things like the animals in their house, it all helps me get to know them more.
We talk about trauma, what that actually looks like and how to prepare them for handling it. And I'm very honest with people too. I'm not going to set them up to fail. So by getting them getting to know me and me getting to know them, that's a crucial part of the experience.
Then they go through training which covers different modules on each of those topics – culture, relationships, experience, attunement, trauma and environment.
It's pretty intensive, but it's very important because we want to prepare people properly. Then by that point I write up the assessment and they're pretty much good to go!
We're very accessible for support or to have any conversations that need to be had. We also have national trauma and disability advisors, and we refer children or foster parents to additional agencies to support them, especially if there are diagnoses like autism. And we have a permanency team that helps people who have cared for a child for a long time and they want to move to permanency.
Alicia: Every morning we have a prayer time at 9am as a team, because we're not just a social service organisation.
Impossible things have happened that we could never have done ourselves. We always do a devotional as well – we're going through Proverbs right now – and I’m blown away by the things that line up and speak to us that make us go, okay, that's our direction for today.
Our team is really creative because of this, I think. Our region has done things that no other regions have done yet.
For example, we've had kids in our care who just don't work well in a traditional family situation. So our region has put together a few foster flatting situations with approved foster “parents” who are in their 20s. They get very intentional support from Open Home Foundation, because these are usually very high needs kids. But we've had a few successful foster flats set up like that. It’s a very unique situation. We get creative so we can match kids with the right people and create situations that work best for them.
And I would say it’s those prayer times, that openness to God’s leading, that’s where all of our success stories come from.
Mika: One time, this young boy – he was 11 or so at that time – visited our service centre when we were having a prayer time, and we decided to ask him to pray. And this boy, because of his background, had lots of special needs, lots of challenges in his life.
But he started praying so beautifully. He started thanking the Lord for his biological parents first, then his foster parents, and for all the social workers and all the work of the Open Home Foundation. It was so amazing to see God working in this little boy in that way.
It really touched me, and it's really the motivation that keeps me going.
Mika: It's challenging, but it's rewarding. Very rewarding.
Because I go to churches to do presentations, I get lots of people coming up to me afterward to tell their own experience.
They always tell me how the experience was challenging, but rewarding.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
Right now in Aotearoa, more than 5,000 children and young people are in care.
For each of them, a safe and loving home can make all the difference.
Open Home Foundation works to ensure some of the most vulnerable children in Aotearoa can grow up in supportive family environments.
In the top of the South, two people helping make that possible are Mika and Alicia. Mika is a foster parent recruiter. She connects with churches and Christian organisations, encouraging people to consider fostering as a way of serving God. Many, she says, already have the heart for it – they just don’t yet know how to begin.
Alicia is a foster parent social worker, assessing people who are interested in being foster parents. She spends time getting to know their values, history, and motivations, making sure that both foster parents and children are safe and well supported, and regularly checks in with foster families.
I felt honoured to sit down for a chat with them both about their work with Open Home Foundation, the needs of this region, and the ways God is at work in the lives of tamariki and rangatahi.
Mika: I was scrolling Facebook one day and I don't know how it happened but – coincidentally, maybe by God – I saw the job advertisement at Open Home Foundation. The advertisement talked about the vision: that every child or young person will grow up in a secure and loving family, and receive a depth of care that will bless them for the rest of their lives. When I saw that phrase – “bless them for the rest of their lives” – I thought, wow, what wonderful work they’re doing. I started thinking about how that blessing could continue for generations. I’m not a social worker, so I couldn’t do Alicia’s role, but I thought there must be something I could do. That’s how I started.
Alicia: Hers is a critical role because our foster parent pool is smaller than we’d like. Our region focuses mainly on teenagers, because that’s who’s coming into care. It’s tough to find people willing to foster teens, so Mika is the connecting point.
I grew up here but went back to California to study and then worked as a foster care social worker in Los Angeles, in a Christian organisation doing the same role as here. After about five years I burned out – high caseloads, tough work – and during Covid I decided to move back. Open Home Foundation had a position open, so I interviewed from managed isolation in my hotel room and got the job!
Mika: Our regional manager actually looks after Wellington as well as the top of the South.
Alicia: So our region is like the “middle” of New Zealand. Nelson and Blenheim are now merged as one team – we still have separate sites, but we work together. We service quite a wide area around us. We've worked with families from Golden Bay to Motueka, Murchison and other more rural areas.
Alicia: This area is very unique.
In other regions, it's more common for younger children to come into care, but in Nelson, we’ve been seeing mainly teenagers who need care outside of their whānau.
For younger children, it can be a little easier to locate enough grandparents and aunts and uncles to keep them within their families. But the issue this region is seeing is kids growing up with trauma, reaching around 11 to 15, and their families just can't cope anymore. The grandparents are getting older, and they just can't cope – not just with everything that comes with teenagers, but also the effects of trauma these kids have experienced.
So they call Oranga Tamariki, and Oranga Tamariki calls us.
They’re tough situations. A lot of them are really sweet kids, but they’re usually pretty high needs and don't have enough support. Those are the kids that we get calls for, like 99% of the time.
So when Mika is recruiting, and when I'm assessing foster parents, we're looking for families that can help those kids. Because that's who we're getting calls about.
Mika: It’s very difficult to recruit foster parents, because lots of people have this idea about foster children being cute little babies, and the reality is that they usually aren’t. But people naturally see teenagers as too difficult, and they don’t think they can help.
It is challenging, to be honest, but we have very good support from our social workers and support workers team.
We all work together to look after and love these kids. I like to say that we are like a village. We really need support from churches and the wider community to help these young people to thrive.
Alicia: Faith is such a significant part of this organisation, so we recruit Christian-minded families.
And they usually have good community support, which all really helps.
One huge need we have right now – that's not as intense as something like full time care of teenagers – is just people who can offer short breaks for our foster families. People who just are available to have a teenager for a few days or a week of the school holidays, or if we have a placement that's breaking down, somewhere for them to go temporarily so they don't end up in a motel.
It's a really good way for people to dip their feet into the water and get a sense of what it's like, and what their capacity might be. So it’s a safe way we like to start people, and just doing respite care is a huge need for us to give our families in this region a bit of a break, and to provide our young people with more loving, supportive connections.
Mika: It’s like having that village for a child.
Alicia: Anybody who provides long term care or short term care or respite care goes through the assessment process.
After the initial application process, I’ll make contact with them and have a few really in-depth talks with them. We talk about their culture, their values, how they parent, their home environment – even things like the animals in their house, it all helps me get to know them more.
We talk about trauma, what that actually looks like and how to prepare them for handling it. And I'm very honest with people too. I'm not going to set them up to fail. So by getting them getting to know me and me getting to know them, that's a crucial part of the experience.
Then they go through training which covers different modules on each of those topics – culture, relationships, experience, attunement, trauma and environment.
It's pretty intensive, but it's very important because we want to prepare people properly. Then by that point I write up the assessment and they're pretty much good to go!
We're very accessible for support or to have any conversations that need to be had. We also have national trauma and disability advisors, and we refer children or foster parents to additional agencies to support them, especially if there are diagnoses like autism. And we have a permanency team that helps people who have cared for a child for a long time and they want to move to permanency.
Alicia: Every morning we have a prayer time at 9am as a team, because we're not just a social service organisation.
Impossible things have happened that we could never have done ourselves. We always do a devotional as well – we're going through Proverbs right now – and I’m blown away by the things that line up and speak to us that make us go, okay, that's our direction for today.
Our team is really creative because of this, I think. Our region has done things that no other regions have done yet.
For example, we've had kids in our care who just don't work well in a traditional family situation. So our region has put together a few foster flatting situations with approved foster “parents” who are in their 20s. They get very intentional support from Open Home Foundation, because these are usually very high needs kids. But we've had a few successful foster flats set up like that. It’s a very unique situation. We get creative so we can match kids with the right people and create situations that work best for them.
And I would say it’s those prayer times, that openness to God’s leading, that’s where all of our success stories come from.
Mika: One time, this young boy – he was 11 or so at that time – visited our service centre when we were having a prayer time, and we decided to ask him to pray. And this boy, because of his background, had lots of special needs, lots of challenges in his life.
But he started praying so beautifully. He started thanking the Lord for his biological parents first, then his foster parents, and for all the social workers and all the work of the Open Home Foundation. It was so amazing to see God working in this little boy in that way.
It really touched me, and it's really the motivation that keeps me going.
Mika: It's challenging, but it's rewarding. Very rewarding.
Because I go to churches to do presentations, I get lots of people coming up to me afterward to tell their own experience.
They always tell me how the experience was challenging, but rewarding.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
