Dear Agape Family,

I am very excited to have had the opportunity to meet many of you at our Oct 23 parent meetings.   I so appreciate all of you and the commitment you have shown the children that we serve.

In reviewing information about Agape as I continue the process of settling in as the Foster Care Supervisor I found some very interesting and exciting statistics.  Many of you may not know this but, on average only about 45 to 50 percent of foster youth nationally make it out of the foster care system in a positive manner.  Many go AWOL, land in group homes, find themselves hospitalized, get in trouble with the law, or simply linger in the system.  Typically about 40% of youth will successfully reunify with families with another 8% – 10% being blessed to find an adoptive family.  But that leaves 50% to struggle as mentioned above.

I was thrilled to learn that in the past 12 months Agape has had 86 youth leave our system and nearly 70% of those youth left successfully.  You all as a group have helped 36 children to reunify with their birth families, 16 youth to become adopted or be adoptively placed with a forever family and another 5 youth emancipate successfully from the system at the age of 18.  Those are remarkable numbers and they speak to the dedication and commitment of our faster families and the quality of care and support services being provided by our Youth Specialists.

 

I am humbled to be a part of this team and to have the opportunity to witness firsthand the great work that our families are providing to our youth.  You all are AWESOME!!!!  Please know that I will begin slowly contacting many of you individually as I start the process of trying to personally meet all of our families.  I have heard wonderful stories from our Youth Specialists about all of you and now look forward to hearing what all of you believe that Agape does well and what you think we may be able to do even better.

With the foundation we have here at Agape and the strong families that stand ready to care for children I know we are going to accomplish great things for children and families as we move forward. Please know that I stand ready to support all of our families as I appreciate the work you do.

If you have any questions at all you may contact me at 937-439-4406 ext. 37 or email me at rstauffer@agapeforyouth.com.

Sincerely,

Rodger