Volunteer Today!
Find the unique ways you are gifted to serve and care for vulnerable children and families.
Meet a Need with OCA Gateway
Give goods and service to kids and families in need in your community.
Family Support
The Family Support Ministry focuses on the family choosing foster or adoption. We walk with you from learning about your options until you have children in your home. And that is when the journey begins. Raising children from a traumatic background is very different and the Family Support Ministry is with you along the way offering support groups, individual support, resources, and training.
OCA’s Family Support ministry is here for foster/adoptive families, kinship families, or families bringing children permanently or temporarily into their homes. We offer adoption loans and grants, Foster Parent Trainings, OCA Connect groups for support/community, and scholarships for children that have been through trauma to go to therapy of different kinds.
If families are just beginning the adoption process, we also host Adoption Option classes. For families that are already in the trenches of foster/adoptive parenting, we offer trauma training to walk families through raising children who deal with trauma day in and day out.
Interested in getting involved? See our descriptions of different volunteer roles you can step into!
Care Closet Coordinator
Are you looking for a way to serve behind the scenes and help vulnerable children and teens? Become a Care Closet Coordinator in our Lawrenceburg office. You will manage inventory of the care closet including donated items and items given to clients, fill special DCBS needs as requested, and plan events to help gather items for the care closet when needed.
Family Preservation
The Family Preservation Ministry focuses on keeping biological families together. Most times, other organizations refer families on the verge of foster care to our Family Preservation ministry, where we have a variety of options from temporary care of children in one of our approved homes to walking beside mom and dad to acquire the needed resources to regain stability.
OCA Family Preservation is about partnering with believers to support hurting families in crisis and reduce the number of children entering foster care.
All of the families we serve in Family Preservation are isolated and facing difficult circumstances with little support or encouragement. Who better to respond to their needs than the body of Christ!
Matthew 25:35-36,40 (NIV) God wants our lives to overflow with mercy, love, and compassion the marks of His Kingdom. As followers of Jesus, we have a choice: respond to unsettling realities in fear and withdrawal, or follow Him in responding to the greatest needs of our day with love and hope.
Family Care
Family Care is designed to assist families who have been identified by social services as needing temporary extra support to assure a stable environment to promote the health and wellbeing of their children. Volunteers in this ministry work alongside Family Care staff to provide guidance, resources and encouragement to these families in a difficult season of life.
Restore Volunteer
Restore is a respite care ministry, designed to bring restorative care to struggling vulnerable families. Volunteers in this ministry provide respite in their homes one weekend a month for six months for isolated families in need of respite.
Life Coaching
For children in the foster care system who are 12 and older, adoption and a forever family becomes less of a reality. OCA's Life Coaching ministry pairs a Life Coach with a child, 12 years old and up, currently or previously in foster care. Life Coaching is also available for adopted children, age 12 and up. A Life Coach is a trusted adult in a child's life who works to prepare them for transition to adulthood. Statistics show that a child has a better outcome when they have a Life Coach.
Regional Ministry
In the back drop of these serving ministries, OCA has regional ministry leaders whose primary objective is to meet with churches and understand how their current activities and passion intersect care for vulnerable families and children in their communities. Our work is fueled by churches and church members throughout the state. OCA's goal is to help the church be the hands and feet of Christ to vulnerable children and that the body of Christ creates a meaningful and lasting impact for these families and their children. The second goal of regional ministry leaders is to meet individuals and organizations interested in working with us and find a place of need to grow the number we serve.