CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The 4th annual All In Foster Care Summit hosted by Chestnut Mountain Village Ministry is coming up on May 7.
The event is dedicated to helping churches and communities to come together to transform the lives of children and families in foster care.
Greg Clutter
Greg Clutter, Director, Foster Care Initiatives & Chestnut Mountain Village Ministry was on 580Live by Dave Allen to talk more about the event.
West Virginia continues to face a foster care crisis. The state has the highest foster care rates per capita in the country and the highest removal rate of children from their primary families.
Chestnut Mountain Village is dedicated to guiding and equipping churches with proven step-by-step method to care for vulnerable children and families.
“We are going throughout the state and we are guiding and equipping local churches in terms of how to care for foster adoptive kinship and other vulnerable children and families that may be tethering on the edge, and we are doing that using some very proven Christ centered methods, that have been used all over the country, we are not recreating things. the foster care summit comes out of that spirit.” said Clutter.
This year’s summit theme is “A Shared Vision for Foster Care,” it encourages attendees to envision, explore and equip a foster friendly environment in West Virginia.
The summit will offer training workshops and presentations from speakers nationwide who are involved in this work, along with networking opportunities to connect with with local non profits and social workers.
“Not only do we need more foster families, we need to keep the ones we have, it is one of the hardest jobs in the entire world, they turn over at staggering rate, 50% of them do it for about one year or less.” said Clutter.
Foster parents often quit because they feel frustrated, exhausted or isolated. The organization and summit’s goal is to ensure that foster families don’t feel isolated or overwhelmed.
“When local church comes around and supports a family in very practical ways, that number goes from 50% of them leave in one year to only 10%, if we can keep more of them and keep them healthy we have a lot better out comes.” said Clutter.
They ministry encourages churches to focus on helping their own communities.
“First of all when they focus on their own communities it is not this overwhelming number of 6000 kids in total, it ends up being a few hundred, it ends up being something that is more manageable.” said Clutter.
“We are going throughout the state, rallying, guiding and equipping churches to get involved in this space.”
The 4th annual All In Foster Care Summit will be held on May 7, 2025 at the River Ridge Church in Charleston, WV from 8:15 am to 4:30pm.
For more information please visit https://2025allinfostercaresummit.rsvpify.com/?securityToken=6idsDb8TsZvy6bH2ZLmTVlMuEwnCBKLj
Story by Ananya Rautela