Abstract
Christian churches across the nation are rising to meet the needs of children and families involved in the child welfare system. This research aims to establish a common framework of strengths, barriers, and recommendations for beneficial church responses to child welfare issues in order to inform an improved collaborative strategy between stakeholders in the Greater Sacramento Area. Qualitative grounded theory research methods were used to conduct this study, including fourteen semi-structured interviews with church ministry leaders and county child welfare social workers from four counties in the region. Based on the key findings, collaboration was desired by all stakeholders. Churches are currently successfully engaging in foster family recruitment and retention, providing social workers and agencies with support and helping meet tangible needs of the children in care. These collaborative efforts, however, have been hindered by an overall lack of trust, communication, and personal relationships between the two groups. A significant disconnect was identified between the priority of churches towards adoption, and county social workers’ towards family reunification. Recommendations for enhancing future collaboration include relationship-building, creating opportunities for needs to be expressed and met, and establishing unified goals.