Whenever someone hears about Louie for the first time, they perk up.

Really? You use him in therapy with foster and adoptive families? That’s so cool.

We usually talk a bit about the whole training process and how I got interested in all this to begin with. And, then I’m usually asked something to the effect of…

So, what exactly does he do?

Louie and I were invited last week to visit a camp session at Paws & Affection where kids were spending their days with service dogs in training and learning about the field. The staff sent me a list of questions and prompts they hoped I’d address as I talked about my experience as a facility dog handler and having Louie as a co-therapist. Of course, in that list was a question like the one that nearly always is asked—what exactly does he do? How does he make a difference?

I wish I could create a scene where Louie and I could sit with a whole bunch of you circled around us, and I could tell you how having him for a short time already has made a difference and let you experience it yourselves even if just a little.

So, circle up. This isn’t the same, but it’s still an opportunity to be together in a way. And, I’m taking it.

A couple months into Project Puppy Love, I’ve noticed some distinct ways Louie is making a difference everyday on the job.

• • He is fun – therapy should be fun. It shouldn’t be something that makes families’ hearts sink when they see it on their calendars. It’s work, yes, but it should be something that smiles families into smiling too. I try to be fun, but I’m not nearly as fun as a puppy (and I’m okay with that). Being greeted with a classic golden-retriever smile and tail wag and starting with a game of hide-and-seek just makes the work we do here fun and makes kids and parents alike more likely to want to come and come again.
  • He makes hard things easier – A few weeks ago, an upset tummy earned Louie a sick day. A little girl who came with her dad that day was disappointed to not see him and beautifully articulated a reason why: “Louie helps me focus because he keeps my hands busy.” The fancy way to say that is that he promotes self-regulation in the repeated motion of petting and the sensory input of long soft fur and of deep pressure when he lays his head or whole body on people’s laps. But, there are other ways he makes hard things easier. For example, I’ve noticed how much easier it is for kids—particularly teenagers—to talk about hard things when they are able to focus attention on Louie and have their parents and me gazing at him too instead of at them. He seems to bring more words and feelings out, and that’s important.
  • He magnifies our soft sides – Puppies bring out our high-pitch baby voice and gentleness. It’s science. And, I’ve witnessed that here. I’ve seen parents’ eyes grow wide as they see softness in their child that they didn’t know was there. And, I’ve seen children’s jaws drop as they see softness in their parents that they didn’t notice before. And, that’s been a good thing because it shows them both that it’s in there and that with a little bit of watering and intention, we can grow it to be seen more and more (and directed towards people!).
  • He gives us opportunities to work on what we’re working on – His fun tricks to show his expression of our feeling words (mad, sad, glad, and scared) does seem to encourage kids to be brave and express their own. But, what I’ve noticed as more meaningful than his performance is a families’ mutual enjoyment of his performance. The shared experience of ooo-ing and ahhh-ing and giggling together in response when Louie closes himself in the bathroom to show mad builds connection between moms, dads, and kids. And, building connection is a big deal around here. Beyond mutual enjoyment, Louie gives us lots to talk about that always seems to align well with what we (both kids and parents) need to talk about—things like impulse control, giving and receiving affection, asking for and getting what we need, letting someone else be in charge, making compromises, understanding others by noticing body language, navigating choices, and handling mistakes.

It still feels new to have Louie on The Sparrow Fund team joining me in the therapy room and joining us during events here at the office. I’m still learning how to do my job and help him do his. And, he’s still learning how to do his job and help me do mine. That’s a good thing. We’re learning together. As we do, it feels really good to have people circling up around us—campers, donors, families, and cheerleaders.

– Kelly (and Louie)

---

Louie has a voice on Instagram.
Check it out. Have your kids check it out.
@ProjectPuppyLove

---

Project Puppy Love is the first attachment-based canine-assisted therapy program for foster and adopted kids in the Philly area. In order to launch the program, we have been raising designated funds and borrowed funds from our other programs’s funds. We are currently running at a significant deficit. If you want to help so we can get back in black AND fund a training this Spring so we can do this work better, we invite you to click the little yellow button below to give. It’ll take you right to our PayPal account.

---

Kelly Raudenbush founded The Sparrow Fund along with her husband Mark in 2011. In addition to serving families through The Sparrow Fund, Kelly works part time as a therapist at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA. Kelly has a particular interest in (a) encouraging and empowering parents who are struggling to attach with their children, (b) helping parents walk with their children as they process their stories, (c) helping couples continue to pursue each other and grow together while they parent their children as a team, and (d) training and empowering orphanage staff in China to build relationships with children and each other. Kelly and Mark have been married since 1998 and have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their journey on Kelly’s personal blog. You can contact Kelly directly at kraudenbush@sparrow-fund.org.

Our team of three has grown by one more—one with four furry feet! After over a year of effort and several months of intensive training with Paws & Affection, a nonprofit in the Philadelphia area that trains and places service, companion, and facility dogs, we have officially launched Project Puppy Love, an attachment-based canine-assisted therapy program for foster and adoptive families, with LOUIE.

Having Louie on our team allows us to serve families in a new, innovative way. We invite children and their parents who find connection to be a challenge to safely connect with him and then transfer those connection skills to each other. He also provides lots of opportunities for us to talk to kiddos and their parents about things like self-control, when it’s right to give and receive affection, letting parents be in charge, and recognizing and expressing our feelings. There’s a pretty neat opportunity even for kids and parents who won’t have the chance to meet him in person—Louie “speaks” on Instagram (@ProjectPuppyLove) about all those same issues and challenges in way that kids from hard starts can relate to and that can invite productive conversations for families. Make sure to follow him there!

---

Do you believe in Puppy Love? We’re raising $7,000 for the first year to cover the placement fee, training, and start up costs and an estimated $2,000 annually to maintain and grow the impact of Project Puppy Love.

Wanna learn more about it? Email us. Ready to donate? Click the little yellow button below. It’ll take you right to our PayPal. Louie says he’s also open to treats and toys for very strong chewers.  He’s quite gifted in chewing.

The Sparrow Fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization. All gifts to The Sparrow Fund are tax-deductible as allowed by law. If you would like a copy of our 501(c)(3) ruling letter from the IRS, please contact us; we will be happy to provide you a copy.

We have been partnering and brainstorming with Mazi Adoption & Family Services for a little while now, wanting to connect in new ways with you! We are excited to begin Casual Conversations where we hope to open up space for families to share experiences, hear stories, and go deeper with others walking a similar path or serving families who are.

 

Our first Casual Conversations will be starting at the very beginning, opening the floor for those just thinking about or starting the process. It’s for those who are asking things like when, which program, and which agency? Join us next Thursday morning at 9:30am at Panera Bread in Exton. Hear from a couple women who have been there and get some perspectives from a few professionals in the field. Ask questions. Drink coffee. Feel supported.

Can’t wait to see you there.

We started The Sparrow Fund with the specific purpose of encouraging and supporting families in the adventure of adoption. We did that exclusively through a grant program for families adopting internationally that covered their cost to enroll in programs that would give them preadoption support, counsel, and medical reviews of referrals. Those grants allowed us to meet a real need for families who might not get this type of support otherwise.

For nearly 7 years, we’ve been pressing on, continuing that original vision and growing as we’ve been led. We started offering training and connecting opportunities for foster and adoptive families including a marriage retreat Together Called to care for and fill up husbands and wives so that they can keep pouring themselves out and loving well. We also started leading teams to serve in orphanages in China with the primarily goal of building relationships and helping both children and staff more deeply experience relationships.

As our team grew in 2017, it was the right time to pause and ask if all we’re doing is consistent and reflects who we are and where we believe we should be. As we considered the grant program and our retreats and trainings both here and in China, the words caring for caregivers were imprinted on our hearts. That’s what we want to be about. We want to care for caregivers–caregivers who have committed to caring for life and caregivers who stand in the gap for a season. While the 101 grants we gave to families absolutely met a need and did real good for children and families, our team agreed that we could do a better job aligning those grants with the vision of caring for caregivers.

And, that’s how we arrived at our new Sparrow Services grants. We’re still going to help families pay the cost for those programs that will give them access to specialized medical professionals who will review their referral with them. But, we’re going to offer our grant families more than just that. We’re going to walk with them, cheer them on, offer individualized support including but not limited to marriage support, coaching to line up resources they may need once home, personalized suggestions for building attachment. There’s no itemized list of all that Sparrow Services grants will or could include because we don’t want there to be a list; we want to be more personal than that; we want to care for caregivers and help them become the caregivers they are meant to be.

We’ve updated our website and are ready to run with this. Do us a favor and spread the word. Our team and our Board can’t wait to see who we get to serve in 2018.

You can find general Sparrow Services Grant information here >>

You can find answers to frequently asked questions here >>

Black Friday’s been around for 56 years; Cyber Monday for 12. Only 5 years ago, another day joined the others, a day with a very different purpose, Giving Tuesday. Last year, on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, through worldwide efforts to promote giving to help others, $177,000,000 was raised on that day alone!

Since the start of The Sparrow Fund in 2011, we’ve never done Giving Tuesday. But, 2017 is different, because 2018 is going to be different. We want to care for caregivers in deeper ways, bigger ways, world-changing ways. So, this year, we’re doing it; we’re joining the Giving Tuesday movement. Because we know that in order for us to give generously, we need others to give generously.

We’ve looked long and hard at where we are headed and long and hard at our projected and actual budget. All that has led us to the Giving Tuesday goal of raising $5,000 on Tuesday alone and $8,000 over the week following. Of every dollar that comes in, 2/3 will go directly to our new grant program for adoptive families and 1/3 will go to training.

We want to give too. After all, we’re about caring for caregivers. And, all of you who give are kinda our caregivers too.

So, we’ve put together what very well may be our special-est gift ever that we will be sending out to every donor who gives $50 or more.

For every donation of $50 or more, we will send you the gift of this notecard set . Each one of the 6 designs professionally printed on linen patterned cards (size 4.25″x5.5″) features artwork from a child at one of the orphanages in China where we serve. On the back of each card is a photo of the artist with a little information about him or her.

You may fall so in love with them that you want to keep them for yourself rather than give them away.

Don’t worry. Just in case you can’t part with the notecards, we put this together.

For every donation of $100 or more, the donor will receive the notecard set above as well as an exclusive invitation to join artists and Christian entrepreneurs Cassie and PJ Upton of Blush Design Co. in an online lesson in integrating prayer and art, specifically to create a gift like no other perfect to give to a child, spouse, or loved one this Christmas.

Every single donor, regardless of amount donated, will also be entered into a giveaway, just for fun because we like fun. We’ve got the Seeds of Christmas cd, Seeds of Christmas DVD, Seeds of Christmas worship guide, Seeds of Christmas Bible memory cards, Seeds Christmas tee, a personal note from Seeds Family worship, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp, 2 signed copies of 25 Days of Thriving Through Christmas: An Advent Devotional for Adoptive and Foster and Parents, a 2018 calendar from Rachel Kick at MiniPress, a one-of-a-kind sea green geode necklace from Guangzhou, China, and two nativity paper cuttings handmade in Beijing by a Christian artist–a giveaway worth well over $160!

Go ahead. Let’s start giving. Together. And, let’s make Giving Tuesday 2017 and our year of giving in 2018 more than we ever imagined.

Donate online by clicking the cute little yellow button below. It’ll take you right to our PayPal where you can decide how much you want to give via credit card and simply click to make it happen.

Wanna go all old-school on us and give via check? Make it payable to The Sparrow Fund and mail it to:

The Sparrow Fund
124 3rd Ave
Phoenixville, PA 19460

The Sparrow Fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization. What that means is that all gifts to The Sparrow Fund are tax-deductible as allowed by law. If you would like a copy of our 501(c)(3) ruling letter from the IRS, please contact us; we will be happy to provide you a copy.

If you are interested in donating stock, property, or other gifts in kind, please email us to discuss all the how-tos. The bottom line is that we’re all for it.

The trees are full of color, and the air is crisp. It’s the perfect day to start recharging. Tonight, about 25 guys will be gathering around a campfire. Whether they are sitting on these benches enjoying the warmth of the fire, taking a walk around camp thinking about the message they just heard about knowing and experiencing God’s love for them, simply enjoying some rare quiet moments, sharing stories and laughing with new friends about whatever it is guys talk about, or roasting marshmallows (one never outgrows s’mores), we trust that every single one of those men will be blessed and recharged to be the man, husband, and father God wants them to be.

Trauma and the way children handle sensory experiences are intimately connected. Simply put, traumatic experiences are primarily handled in the same parts of the brain that process sensory input. And, when that part of the brain is affected by trauma, sensory processing can be affected too. As we support children in the context of relationship to navigate trauma, we can see significant changes in what had been challenging in terms of sensory processing. Likewise, as we support our children’s sensory processing, we can also set them up to better learn, meet expectations, and connect, mitigating significant symptoms of their trauma.

As you consider the way your child processes sensory input, we recommend Understanding Your Child’s Sensory Signals by Angie Voss as well as all of Carol Kranowitz’s Out of Sync Child titles.

And, given how often we’re asked for recommendations for tools children could use in a classroom to provide opportunity for sensory input and, therefore, increased support for focus and learning, we’ve come up with a list of some of our favorites to share with you.

Stretchy bands for children to put around chair legs so that they can keep those feet moving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bouncy Bands is a brand personally recommended by an OT for how easy it is to take on and off.

 

 

 

 

Adhesive velcro strips to simply stick inside or under a desktop for little fingers to touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boinks marble/mesh toys are great quiet fidgets and our favorites of our teams to take to orphanages.

 

 

 

 

 

Stretchy toys are another quiet option that can meet the needs of some kiddos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A spiky sensory bracelet your kiddo can wear all day long.

 

 

 

 

An inflatable wiggle seat is a good option as long as a teacher doesn’t mind some wobbling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chewigem makes some great chewable necklaces that are incognito and come in oodles of colors and designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These sensory-friendly pencil toppers are moveable and reusable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have a favorite classroom-friendly sensory tool? Let us know what it is so we can share it!

Only a couple weeks ago, the new leadership of the CCCWA, the department in Beijing that handles all adoptions, published changes effective immediately for families applying to adopt from China. This morning, agencies started their work day with another announcement from the CCCWA, this time referring to agencies themselves.

The announcement was distributed in both Mandarin and English. Here is the full English translation.

Announcement
July 18, 2017

Relevant government departments and adoption agencies in receiving countries, Following the enactment of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-Governmental Organizations within the Territory of China (hereinafter referred to as Administration Law) since January 1, we would like to notify as follows on relevant issues about the programs carried out by adoption agencies such as the One-to-One Assistance Program, Journey of Hope Program, and Summer/Winter Hosting Program based on the regulations of the Administrative law and conclusions of competent authorities:
I. All activities concerning the One-to-One program, Journey of Hope Program, and Summer/Winter Hosting Program will be terminated. For children who have been assessed by adoption agencies through the One-to-One program before the enactment of the Administrative Law and whose reports have not been submitted to CCCWA, if their reports are submitted through the provincial department of civil affairs to CCCWA before December 31, 2017 (subjected to the approval date of the provincial department), CCCWA will post these files to the specific list of the original adoption agency. Agencies are requested to look for children within required deadline, otherwise the files will be withdrawn by CCCWA when the deadline is closing.
II. Foreign adoption agencies should abide by the business scope specified in the registration when working in China. No activities with inter-country adoption as the purpose are allowed when agencies work in welfare and charity related activities.
III. Adoption agencies should look for adoptive families according to the requirements outlined in the Review Points for Decision on the Eligibility of Foreigners Adopting from China and avoid hasty placements without discretion within the deadline.

China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption Center

What we know from this announcement is that the 1:1 partnerships between agencies and orphanages that has been established for years will end at the end of this year. Also, group trips to orphanages by agencies for the purpose of advocacy and hosting programs bringing waiting children to the US for advocacy will not be allowed. What we do not know is how agencies will receive files for waiting families once the rush to secure files from their partnership orphanages this fall ends. Agencies have already submitted that question to the CCCWA today as well as suggestions of alternate matching processes to all files going to one shared list as it had been done years ago. What we are also waiting to hear is if agencies will be permitted to “work in welfare and charity related activities” if adoption is not the purpose. Point II seems to make that a distinct possibility which is very good news. Of course, if advocacy is not officially allowed to be part of those efforts, many agencies may not as interested in the work as they have been. We still are. And, we will continue to pursue how we can care for caregivers and the children in their care. Clearly, this is not without challenges; but no significant work is. We’re all putting our heads together as are our friends in China to figure it out.

China remains the largest international adoption program in the world and has been the most stable and predictable for years. We know that any change to a well established program can feel unsettling. However, we are confident that the program will continue and, quite possibly, be managed better than it has been as the new director of the CCCWA and governing leaders work hard to come up with a program that will benefit children and Chinese orphanages and best ensure the long-term success of those children in families.