A note on fostering:Â
The purpose of foster care is to provide temporary care—to offer a child safety, stability, and nurturing while their path toward a longer-term future unfolds, ideally toward reunification with family and loved ones. Sometimes families impacted by the child welfare system need temporary support, respite, or safety, and a foster family can offer a child that support while their family is given the time and resources they need to regain their footing. Many times, however, children and families enter a system that is shaped by poverty, trauma, inequity, and policies that do not always act to prevent family separation or serve children and parents as they deserve. To foster a child, then, is not to declare that the child’s separation was necessary or that the system that brought them to your door is just. It is to recognize that, whatever the circumstances that led here, this child deserves to be met with safety, dignity, and care.
This blessing is for those entrusted with caring for a child—whether as an individual, a couple, a relative, or another member of a child’s community—to set an intention for how we will show up in this relationship.
Blessing:Â
May this temporary dwelling be a place for stability, nurturing, and rest.
May we be as open as possible, and may we find the words, the body language, and the boundaries to make this relationship a trusting one.
May we support this child/these children in the way they need, always with a willingness to ask questions and connect.
When connection isn’t possible, may we honor distance and not overextend our influence.
May we see this child/these children as an individual with a story, a heritage, a family that is their own.
May we guard their story as something entrusted to us, not something that belongs to us.
May we protect them, delight in them, and hold hope for their future when hope feels far away.
May we trust their agency to know what they want, and support them in pursuing their truest selves.
May there be room here for silliness and boredom, play and discovery, ordinary meals and ordinary days.
May this temporary dwelling be as a sukkah—a shelter that protects while honoring uncertainty, a home whose walls remind us that we are one part of a much larger life,, and whose openness leaves room for whatever comes next.
May this home be a place of care and possibility in their life—a place from which they can continue their own path toward wholeness, healing, and peace.
