Holt International Childrens Services Inc

Mission Holt International is dedicated to carrying out God's plan for every child to have a permanent, loving family. Programs Holt believes that, first, children should be in safe and secure families, and secondly, if a child's own family is not safe and secure, the child should be provided care in a family-like environment while their family is rehabilitated, or if that is not possible, to provide nurturing family-like care until a permanent family placement can be found. This philosophy has led Holt to create programs that work to improve the health and well-being of children and families in crisis through a variety of interventions that ensure families have the support they need to achieve stability, and that vulnerable children have adequate shelter, nutritious food, medical therapies, counseling, and quality childcare. Holt's programs target system entry points for children and families in crisis?hospitals, family crisis centers, orphanages and shelters?connecting children and families with services providing counseling, medical and nutritional support, parenting training, income generation and other supports to insure that children remain with families and avoid institutionalization. Recognizing that programs are most effective with local input and involvement, Holt establishes long-term, collaborative relationships based upon mutual trust and respect within host countries, specifically designing programs to meet the particular needs of children and families in their countries. This enables culturally appropriate services, improves prospects for reforming child welfare structures and better enables sustainability of services. Holt encourages our partner agencies to develop into independent agencies, operating under control of a local, volunteer Board of Directors with local, national staff. To ensure that homeless children receive optimum care that fosters child development, Holt developed a widely recognized, best-practice model of temporary foster care to help circumvent developmental delays in children caused by prolonged institutionalization. Single parents and families in crisis benefit from quality family strengthening programs. Holt also provides training and technical assistance to caregivers, orphanage directors, and government officials to encourage child welfare change at a systemic level. Holt assists families in crisis through a variety of intervention programs to prevent child abandonment and works to reunify children with their birth or extended families when they have become separated from them. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, children cannot remain in their families. Working with and through partnering agencies, Holt ensures children have adequate and nutritious food, clothing, proper childcare, medical care, and temporary care within trained foster families (where possible) until children can be placed with adoptive families in their own countries and cultures. When children cannot remain with their birth families and local adoption is not feasible, Holt places children with adoptive families in the United States or through international placements to Europe. Holt accomplishes its mission through its international headquarters in Eugene, Oregon, six US branch offices, collaborative efforts with over 200 US-based cooperating social service agencies, and overseas Holt offices and partner agencies in Bulgaria, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Mongolia, Philippines, Romania, South Korea, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, and Vietnam.