Grant to help Beech Acres place longtime foster care kids in permanent homes

Beech Acres Parenting Center received a $280,000 grant from the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption’s signature Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program to help the agency find permanent families for local children who have spent significant time in foster care.

The funding supports Beech Acres’ ongoing work with Hamilton County Job and Family Services on cases involving children who can’t safely return to their biological families.

“Foster care is meant to be temporary. Reunification with the biological family, when safe, is always the priority,” Beech Acres wrote in a statement. “But when children remain in the system and a judge determines it is unsafe for them to return to their biological family, this partnership allows for the work of finding a permanent, safe and loving home for the children.”

Some children stay in foster care for five years or longer.

To address those long-term cases, Beech Acres — which serves more than 32,000 people each year through foster care, kinship care, adoption services, behavioral health supports in schools and parent-focused programs — relies on the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids model. Studies show that this approach helps children find adoptive families more often than traditional recruitment efforts do.

The model centers on detailed, child-focused casework. Staff review many parts of a child’s life to identify potential adoptive families, including extended relatives, former teachers or coaches, neighbors, parents of friends and other long-standing connections. When appropriate, they also contact biological parents to identify relatives or determine whether reunification could still be an option.

When staff identify a potential family, the process moves through interviews, a trial period and other required steps before adoption. “Most importantly, children have a say in which adoptive families could be a good fit for them,” Beech Acres wrote.

Wendy’s Wonderful Kids reports nearly 16,000 adoptions through this approach nationwide.

“It is a slow, deliberate process that comes with highs and lows,” Beech Acres said. “But for each child, it only has to be successful once to make a forever difference in their life.”