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Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™

Stronger Schools. Skilled Educators. Students Who Thrive.

If a child with a complex family story walked into your school tomorrow,
what would tell them, without words, that they belong here?

In every school, there are children from adoptive, foster, and kinship families. When educators understand their stories, including the lifelong impact of early loss and disrupted attachment, they unlock something powerful: classrooms where every student can learn, connect, and truly feel safe.

Schools can be powerful places of stability, healing, and hope when educators are equipped and families are valued as partners.

Students in adoptive, foster, and kinship families are in every school. With the right skills and commitment, every school can be a place where those students feel known, supported, and ready to learn.

Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™ is iCARE’s school-based Movement. We are building a network of schools and community Champions across Illinois and beyond, aligned around one commitment: every student belongs here.

Become a Founding School
Become a Champion

Every School Has These Students. 
Not Every School Knows It.

Adopted, foster, and kinship students are in classrooms across every district, every grade level, and every school. Their stories are as different as they are. But many share a common experience: the adults around them want to help and don’t always have the tools to do it well.

That’s exactly what Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™ changes. Not by adding more to educators’ plates, but because giving them a framework that makes their existing care more effective. When schools have the skills, the language, and the shared commitment, something shifts. Students feel it. Families feel it. And the whole school community becomes stronger.

Diverse elementary school students and a teacher waving in a school entrance.

What Is an Adoption & Foster Friendly School™?

By joining iCARE as a Founding School, your school commits to four steps to better support adopted, foster, and kinship students in your community.

An Adoption & Foster Friendly School™ is a school that has made a formal, visible commitment to supporting students in adoptive, foster, and kinship families, and followed through on it.

These are not schools that simply declare good intentions. They are schools that have built a team, completed training, integrated supportive practices into daily life, and earned their official designation from iCARE.

When your school joins, you become part of the Founding Schools, the first to join the Movement. You’ll receive exclusive benefits, access to iCARE resources, and recognition as leaders in this work.

The First 200 Schools Get Something Special

Graphic card with a blue bar header featuring white text that reads "Schools. 1 Commitment. Schools. Skilled Educators. Students Thrive."

When your school joins as a Founding School, you receive complimentary access to the Beyond the Family Tree™ training, a one-hour asynchronous video course designed for every member of your staff.

Beyond the Family Tree™ helps educators understand and support students with complex family stories, using resiliency-oriented, strengths-based approaches. It can be watched by your school team together or shared with your full staff.

After completing the training, all attendees receive a link to the free Connection Kit™ Digital Implementation Guide, a practical resource designed to help your school integrate Connection Kits™ into daily use.

Spots are limited. The first 200 Founding Schools receive this benefit at no cost.

Founding School Bonus

Free access to the Beyond the Family Tree™ video training for the first 200 schools to join. 

After completion, attendees receive a free Connection Kit™ Digital Implementation Guide to support daily practice.

Claim Your Founding School Spot

Four Steps to Become a Founding School

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Form a School Team

Bring together three or more key staff members, including a school leader, a mental health professional, and a teacher or additional staff member. This team becomes the foundation of your school's commitment.

Watch the Beyond the Family Tree™ Training

Your team, or your full staff, watches the one-hour Beyond the Family Tree™ video. This self-paced, asynchronous training is designed for everyone in your building. Founding Schools receive access at no cost. Registration is required. You will receive your access link after signing up. After completing the training, all attendees receive a free Connection Kit™ Digital Implementation Guide to support next steps in your school.

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Use Supportive Practices​

Integrate the Connection Kits™ into daily practice. Create safe, welcoming classrooms where every student has a place. Apply resiliency-oriented, strengths-based strategies that build belonging and confidence for all students.

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Earn Your Designation

At least one school-based mental health professional completes the NTI School-based Mental Health Professionals Training (C.A.S.E.) within six months of joining. This self-paced, asynchronous course is designed to fit around your schedule and can be completed in short segments.

Submit your certificate of completion to iCARE and receive your official Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™ designation.​

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Sign Up to Become a Founding School

Together, We Can...

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Minimalist blue and white line art illustration of two hands gently holding a small plant with sprouting leaves, with the text "Strengthen Support for all Students" written underneath.
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Let’s create schools where every student feels welcome and thrives.

What Is an Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™ Champion?

Champions are the individuals and organizations standing alongside our Founding Schools. They are the advocates, systems leaders, and community partners who believe schools are essential partners in the well-being of children and families, and who use their voice and influence to make that a reality.

Champions do not work inside schools. They work around and with them, creating the conditions and awareness that make this Movement possible.

Who Can Be a Champion?

Champions come from every corner of the systems and community that surround children and families:

  • Individuals
  • Policymakers and systems leaders
  • Child welfare and placement agencies
  • Education institutions and regional offices of education
  • Mental health providers and professional organizations

What Do Champions Do?

Champions make a three-part commitment. They advocate that schools are essential partners for child and family well-being. They encourage adoption and foster-informed practices in the schools and systems they work with. And they support shared language, professional learning, and family-centered partnership across their networks.

In practice, that looks like sharing trusted resources such as Connection Kits™ and Connected We Thrive™ professional development, amplifying hope-focused, family-centered approaches, and encouraging school mental health teams to pursue adoption-competency pathways.

When systems align around schools, schools become a stronger circle of care, supporting children, strengthening families, and improving outcomes from pre-K through 12th grade.

Easy to Join. Three simple commitments: Commit. Communicate. Champion.

Sign Up to Be a Champion

Our Founding Schools

These schools have made the commitment. They are building the skills, using the tools, and showing up for every student in their community.

  1. Rondout School
  2. The Center for Educational Opportunities
  3. Center Street School
  4. West Carroll High School
  5. Kewanee High School
  6. Robert Abbott Middle School
  7. Lexington School District
  8. Southwest Cook County Cooperative – Transition
  9. Mackeben Elementary School
  10. St. Margaret Mary
  11. St. Margaret Mary
  12. Memorial Elementary School
  13. Clinton Junior High School
  14. River Trail School
  15. Richmond Grade School
  16. Momence Junior High School
  17. Legacy Middle School
  18. Dewey Elementary School
Join These Schools — Become a Founding School

Our Champions

These individuals and organizations are amplifying the Movement, advocating for schools, and standing alongside the families and students who need them most.

Individual Champions

  • Beth Rieger
  • Brianne Kennedy-Brooks
  • Laura Adams
  • Nikki Rhomberg
  • Ross Arneson

Organizational Champions

  • Center for Excellence in Child Welfare
  • Illinois Association of School Social Workers
  • Illinois Collaboration on Youth
  • Let It Be Us
  • Professional Family Solutions
  • Proviso East High School
  • ROE4
  • ROE4 & Summit Academy
  • Second Nurture
  • The Center for Youth and Family Solutions
Become a Champion

Ready to Join the Movement?

Whether you lead a school or champion one from the outside, there is a place for you in this work. Every Founding School and every Champion brings us closer to the goal: schools across Illinois and beyond where every adopted, foster, and kinship student feels they belong.

For Schools

The first 200 Founding Schools receive complimentary access to the Beyond the Family Tree™ training. Take the four steps. Earn your designation. Join a growing community of schools leading the way.

Sign Up as a Founding School

For Champions

Three simple commitments: Commit. Communicate. Champion. 

Add your name or your organization to the growing list of advocates making this Movement possible.

Sign Up as a Champion