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Our Programs

Extreme Recruitment®

A 12- to 20-week intensive adoption or guardianship recruitment for older youth or sibling groups, driven by the need to avoid youth aging out of foster care.

For a Lifelong, Permanent Family

We are driven to avoid youth aging out of foster care. Extreme Recruitment® advances permanency through a 12- to 20-week intensive adoption or guardianship recruitment for older youth and sibling groups.

  • As a foster care case manager and now as an adoption specialist, I have referred many kids to Extreme Recruitment® and have found their program to be a great support with a child’s journey toward permanency. The focus on identifying family and other important connections is critical and something often overlooked in foster care. Their staff also takes the time to bring attention to any unmet needs the child has and will assist in locating resources. More importantly, their workers become an ally for the child. They will spend hours preparing the child and the team for adoption and work tirelessly to ensure the child reaches their goal.”
    – Adoption Specialist

How Does It Work?

The Coalition’s Extreme Recruiters are experts in project management, adoption recruitment, detective work, and preparing children and their family placement for adoption.

The program is effective because the child’s entire professional team is 100% dedicated to adoption recruitment for the 12- to 20-week period. During weekly team meetings, the Extreme Recruiter reviews action items, including family finding, other recruitment activities, and support services for the child.

The Extreme Recruiter helps prepare both the child and future family for adoption or guardianship; this work is rooted in an understanding of trauma, attachment theory, and the adoption lifecycle. A wraparound plan is created for each child and caregiver. This plan includes the procedural steps needed to achieve adoption or guardianship and establishes supports the family will need for success, including formal and informal resources.

What Makes It Unique?

We move with deliberate speed, as youth served by Extreme Recruitment® have been in foster care too long. All methods of adoption recruitment are deployed simultaneously, including family finding and media outreach, such as KSDK 5 On Your Side’s “A Place to Call Home.”

The focus is to achieve adoption or guardianship, but just as importantly, we reconnect children with relatives/kin. All kids deserve to know their family of origin, and we see incredible change when they are reunited with kin.

Who is Eligible?

A child who:

  • Is in foster care in St. Louis City or the counties of Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles, St. Louis, or Warren
  • Is age 8 or older. Exceptions are made for those meeting specific criteria such as being part of a sibling group or has medical or mental health needs
  • Has no identified permanent resource for adoption or guardianship

Measuring Impact

Relatives/kin are identified monthly and annually on average

Youth are reconnected with a safe, appropriate relative

Children are matched with an adoptive or guardianship home

A federally-funded, independent study of the program found that Extreme Recruitment® was superior in achieving adoption or guardianship, compared to traditional adoption recruitment methods.

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