Our Mission:

• Welcomed exists to surround vulnerable children and the families who support them with caring communities.

Our Vision:

• To ignite a movement within the church to embrace the command to care for vulnerable children, and to see a robust network of Christian churches serving vulnerable children and their families through the formation of Family Advocacy Ministries, which utilize the Care Community Model.

Our Core Values:

Equip but never supplant the local church

• Our aim is to serve by equipping and empowering local churches to establish sustainable family advocacy ministries utilizing the Family Advocacy Ministry Model. 

Pray regularly for God’s direction and trust Him to control the details and results.

• We will seek to honor God in all we do, recognizing that no measure of success is worth compromising biblical truth or our integrity. We commit to seeking God’s direction and holding Welcomed with open hands, trusting God to control the details and impact.  (1 Cor. 3:6 “I [Paul] planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”)

Be a force in the midst of a decentralized movement, not the central arm of a campaign.

• How we communicate about our partnership matters. Welcomed’s role is to serve and support local churches as they develop and lead their own Family Advocacy Ministries. The ministry belongs to the church, and we want to honor the leadership, ownership, and investment each church brings to this work.

• We will celebrate and recognize the churches and organizations who are serving families in their communities and give credit where it is due. As a ministry, we are also committed to being agency-neutral and serving all foster, adoptive, and kinship families, regardless of their licensing agency.

Do our work with respect and understanding of the work that is already being done within the Christian Community.

• We commit to approaching relationships with humility, curiosity, and gratitude. We recognize and celebrate the work already being done in the name of Christ to care for vulnerable children and families. We value every connection and trust God to lead and guide each relationship, allowing future partnerships to develop in His timing and according to His direction.

Our Core Beliefs:

Organizational

• We believe in passionately following Jesus and mobilizing others to serve in his kingdom.

• We believe that adoption and Foster Care are callings. We will never coerce anyone in this effort.

• We believe that the quality and impact of our work is more important than our brand.

• We believe that making a difference for one child is always worth the effort.

• We believe that not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but that everyone can do something.

Church

• We believe the Church is the answer to sustainable foster care and adoption placements.

• We believe in empowering local churches to care for children and families in crisis.

• We believe we must engage the whole Church, regardless of denomination, that holds to the historical Christian faith as defined in the Nicene Creed.

• We believe care communities keep families fostering longer, and encourage others to become foster parents when they see that broad Church involvement and support.

• We believe the full congregation at every church in Wisconsin can be involved in mitigating disrupted placements and provider burnout.

• We believe christians are uniquely called and equipped to care for vulnerable foster youth in our communities.

Families

• We believe individuals and families can be empowered to support foster and adoptive families, even if they are not actively providing in-home foster or adoptive care.

• We believe that families, as defined by the biblical standard of husband and wife, are God's ideal setting for children.

• We believe every child, regardless of their circumstances, deserves the love of family and Jesus.