The Perfect Holiday Gift
This is our youngest daughter's Christmas wish. A wish our family will work hard to make come true! We'll have a sleepover with family members who can make it on Christmas Eve. We'll schedule sibling visits on Christmas day and spend time together during the week. Since becoming a foster/adoptive family 10 years ago, my husband and I learned that one of the most important things we can do to support the health and well-being of our daughter is to keep her connected to her first family, whenever possible. Our favorite way to do this is through Camp To Belong MA and Sibling Sundays, two programs that Sibling Connections offers to sisters and brothers who have been separated when placed in foster care. Sibling Connections offers great events and provides a huge safety net of support. There are numerous payoffs. The biggest: My daughter and her siblings get to spend the week together at camp AND come together all year long. I love being with the kids at their monthly events. While driving 4 siblings who live in 4 different homes to Sibling Sunday, I look in the rearview mirror and smile as they share conversation and music over cups of hot chocolate. This is “typical kid stuff.” Siblings in foster care don't often get the chance to be “typical kids.” 75% are separated from one another. Our daughter also loves being with peers who have the same life experiences. When she is at CTB MA or Sibling Sunday she is not different. She belongs. Everyone understands foster care and its ramifications. All of the counselors are supportive AND fun. They ride on banana boats, scale climbing walls, fly on trapezes, dribble basketballs and woosh down snow covered sledding hills. They act as teachers, friends and role models. Sibling Connections is investing in lives and futures. It is helping young people build life-long family relationships and community connections so that they will not “age out” of the public foster care system alone when they turn 18 and be at risk for homelessness, unemployment, incarceration, and lives of poverty. This holiday season I know what the perfect gift for my daughter will be. At the top of my Wish List: Everyone who reads this letter will make a donation to Sibling Connections and help us continue to offer dynamic programs that increase the number of sisters and brothers who will come together in wonderful ways all year long. Thank you! Judy Cockerton |
Our primary mission is to create enduring relationships for siblings who experience foster care through innovative programs and practices. Board of Directors "I love seeing their faces |
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