learn at Esther's House to not only restore their own lives personally, but those of their families and communities as well. 

In order to qualify as a candidate for a substitute family home, each child must be living in an at-risk environment where their parents are unable to care for their basic needs and/or have abandoned them, and are between the ages of four and ten.  However, special consideration will be given to children up to age twelve if they have younger siblings in the program in an effort to keep the family together.  Once a child is enrolled in the program, they can remain with us until they are ready to gradually be integrated into an independent life.  In the event that a child is reunited with their family, we will remain involved in this child's life by continuing to provide the resources for a private school education as well as ongoing counseling with the child and their family.

Although we are a legal guardian and provide for the total care of each child involved in this part of our project, we do not have custody of the children nor are parental rights terminated.  Therefore, it is possible that the parent of any child in our care could request that their child return home.

Each substitute family home is gender specific and consists of one set of social parents, a house assistant, and no more than twelve children, including those of the social parents.  In order to model and create a normal family environment for the children, the social father has a job outside of the house, and the social mother works full-time with the children.  The house assistant helps the social mother with house keeping, cooking, and caring for the children, but lives outside of the house.

The social parents have one day off a week when volunteers come to help care for the children.

We currently have one substitute family home with eleven girls and room for one more.