Some of you may know that for nearly four years, I was the Executive Director of Children First, an Athens non-profit working with children in the foster care system. Their programs, Athens-Oconee CASA, Family Time, SafeCare, and SPARC, helps over 200 families a year with guardian ad litem, therapeutic parenting, counseling, visitation, and other services, all at no charge to the families.
The work Children First does provides over $1.5M annually in services to those families, on a budget of $400K. This is in addition to the long term benefits associated with children and families remaining out of the foster care system, in healthy family relationships, and with stable home lives.