Advokids: Current Projects

  • Backpack Project

    Project ADV♥KIDS

    Every year in Marin County, over fifty children enter foster care for the first time and approximately fifty additional children transition from failed placements. Victims of abuse or neglect, these children are removed from their homes and taken into the custody of Marin County Child Protective Services.

    Oftentimes these children are removed from the home or school under crisis circumstances with no personal belongings at all.

     

    Project ADV♥KIDS seeks to provide every child entering foster care with a new pack filled with toiletries, a clean oversized sleep shirt, writing and drawing supplies, a phone card, and a teddy bear. These are the bare essentials! These items bring comfort and dignity to children who are traumatized by entering unfamiliar surroundings. Our Backpack Project will guarantee that no child will face the trauma of foster care without a brand new pack of essentials to call their own.

    Adoption Assistance Negotiation Project

    Advokids is working to encourage and facilitate adoptive placements for children in fostercare. Our Adoption Assistance Negotiation Project will be designed to offer legal counsel and negotiation assistance to families adopting children from the fostercare system.

    Currently, few lawyers or agencies offer direct representation of parents in the negotiation process. There is a very real need for such services and Advokids hopes to have our project up and running this Spring.

    Schoolhouse by Schoolhouse

    Advokids is working to partner with local county Departments of Social Services and school districts to educate parent groups at schools about our foster care population, and the need for school families to step up to the plate when a child in their community must be placed outside the home.

    We see this as a potentially powerful way to boost local recruitment in counties, keep children in their home schools following placement and educate communities about our kids in the system.

    The Advokids Hotline

    Advokids offers telephone assistance and legal advice to any person involved in the dependency system. We do not provide individual representation but offer legal counsel to foster parents, adoptive parents, attorneys and any interested party seeking to protect or secure the safety of a child in foster care.

    The Enrichment Fund

    This fund allows the community to enrich the lives of foster children. Children in foster care oftentimes cannot afford to participate in activities that so many other children take for granted. Lessons, camps, prom expenses, and educational school trips are not always available to our foster children due to financial constraints.

    With your help, Advokids provides for the needs of foster children that would otherwise go unmet.

    The Gift Box

    This month, a generous donor funded 7 private one-half hour gymnastics lessons for an 8 year old foster child who suffers from Downs Syndrome. This beautiful little girl is preparing for the Special Olympics. We wish her great luck!

    Look for the posting of individual needs of foster children in the coming months, and purchase a gift box.

    Christmas Giving Tree 

    Advokids decorated a Christmas tree at Café Arrivedercci in San Rafael with 120 tags bearing the names of all the foster children in Marin County. Local residents came to Café Arrivedercci and pulled tags from the tree and provided their chosen child with Christmas gifts and gift certificates.

    This Christmas tree project provided our children with gifts, but most importantly it gave people in the community the opportunity to learn about the local foster care population and join in a county wide effort to serve them.

    		Click the logo to make a secure, tax-deductible donation through PayPal.
    1. Call us at 415.924.0587 or toll free at 1.877.ADV4KID. We'll be happy to process a credit card payment over the phone.
    2. Mail a check or money order to: 5643 Paradise Dr., Suite 12-B,
      Corte Madera CA 94925. For your convenience, please download and print our Donation Form. Please fill the form in, enclose the top half with your payment, and keep the bottom half for your tax records.