Fostering Hope Florida

Fostering Hope Florida is non-profit organization that provides help to foster children in the Tampa Bay area. Our children are very important to us and they need love, nurturing, and a stable home to thrive. Foster parents and children live in our Hope Houses, along with some assistance from volunteers. Our Hope Houses provide the type of stable environment necessary for children to grow and thrive. Many foster children come from troubled homes – we work hard to offer foster children the best possible place to grow up. Additionally, we strive to keep siblings together in one family – something that is vitally important to their development.

Our Mission

Our mission at Fostering Hope Florida is to partner with the community in creating a compassionate system of foster care that honors and protects the rights of children.

Areas of focus include:

• Keeping siblings together
  Many children only get to see their brothers and sisters during scheduled visitations
• Preventing placement disruptions
  Often children in foster care move from home to home, some live in 20+ different places
• Raising children in families
  Due to the shortage of foster parents, many foster children are growing up in facilities instead of homes
• Aging out foster youth
  Many foster young adults age out of the foster care system with no support or mentors in their lives,
  leaving them up to their own devices. This lack of a support system may lead to drug addiction, homelessness and incarceration.

Fostering Hope Florida provides healthy, nurturing, community-supported foster homes, complete with client-specific services for children who are unable to reside with their own families. In our Hope Houses we are offering a secure and stable environment to our foster children, while giving support to the foster parents who love and support them. Our foster parents work with each child, by providing services and assistance designed to meet his or her unique needs.

Fostering Hope Florida is located in the Tampa Bay area, currently serving Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties.

Did You Know?

• There are more than 35,000 children in foster care in Florida today.
• Sixty-six percent are under the age of 10, spending their critical early development years in an institutionalized setting.
• Many children remain in foster care for three years or more.
• Due to foster home shortages, children can be placed in up to 20 foster homes, until a permanent place for them is found. Many go to a different home each night, carrying their belongings in a grocery bag.
• Siblings are often separated from one another indefinitely. The foster home shortage plays a large role in this unfortunate fact.