Stories and News

Amara mourns the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old girl in foster care, who was tragically killed by a police officer in Ohio this month. We are devastated and share in the collective grief of a nation over this senseless loss of life. 

Trey Rabun, Amara's Associate Director of Kinship and Community Services, writes about his professional and personal journey which led him to centering kinship care. He asks the question, "Why weren’t we truly prioritizing these families as placement options and then supporting them at the same level as foster parents?" Read more about why supporting kinship caregivers can transform the child welfare system and how Amara is shifting to meet this need.

That's right! We are looking for our next leader. Could it be you? Amara is celebrating 100 years of commitment to children and families in our community and we need someone to carry us into the future. 

We are proud of our partnership with Pierce County Juvenile Court to provide the Best for Babies program, an innovative, court-based program in Pierce County designed to ensure that infants and toddlers entering foster care receive support and services to promote secure attachment, safety, well-being, and an environment that supports early brain development with the goal to reunify families. It's exciting to see new solutions to child welfare expanding across our state!

Becoming a foster parent with Amara involves going through our home study process. In this episode of the Amara Podcast, we'll talk more in depth about what that actually means. We'll start by exploring why a home study is even needed. Why does the state need so much information about me and my family to become foster parents? What is the point of this long process? We'll also talk about the various components of the home study, including the types of information gathered and the topics you can expect to encounter during a home study process. Finally, we'll explain how Amara’s home study process works and the steps to complete it through our agency.

Thank you to Institute for Family for highlighting the experience of two Amara families; most recently shared in our video Family Connections: King’s Story. The post below is reposted in part from Institute for Family’s blog.  The term “kinship care” describes an experience familiar to 2.7 million families in the United States when relatives step up to raise children

We stand in solidarity with Amara’s Asian-American staff, as well as the children and families with whom we work, and are horrified by the escalating anti-Asian violence in the US. Since the start of the COVID pandemic, there has been a staggering increase in racist and xenophobic attacks against Asian-Americans in the United States and much of it leveled against elderly people. 

Each year, Amara honors people who make a positive impact on the foster care system, with two special awards. We are thrilled to share our 2020 recipients!

By the time Yuvia came to stay with Yvette she had already been in multiple foster homes. But this was different. Yuvia’s mother, Dezaray, and foster parent Yvette developed a support system with and for each other in order to be there for Yuvia. Like Yuvia says, “When we’re all here together, I think: family,