Helping a Child Feel Safe
Children entering foster care may have experienced significant disruption or uncertainty. Building trust and a sense of safety can take patience, consistency, and understanding.
SUPPORT FOR THE JOURNEY. CARE FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY.
Foster Care Support
in Oklahoma City
Opening Your Home Takes Heart. You Don’t Have to Navigate Everything That Comes Next Alone.
Foster care can bring moments of connection, growth, uncertainty, joy, and challenge, sometimes all at once.
You may be trying to understand a child's behavior while helping them feel safe. You may be navigating new routines, appointments, transitions, relationships, or questions you never expected to face.
At Open Arms Initiative, we support foster and adoptive families with compassionate guidance, training, counseling, and ongoing support designed to help children and caregivers move forward together.
Request an Appointment
Tell us a bit about your family and we’ll help you find the right support.
Trauma-Informed
Foster Family Focused
Ongoing Guidance
Compassionate Care
You Opened Your Home. That Doesn’t Mean You Have to Have Every Answer.
You may have prepared.
You may have attended training.
You may have read, planned, asked questions, and done everything you could to get ready.
And then a child enters your home with their own story, experiences, fears, needs, and ways of responding to the world.
Suddenly, what seemed simple in theory can feel very different in everyday life.
Needing support does not mean you're unprepared. It means you're navigating something important, and you shouldn't have to navigate it alone.
Foster Families
Can Carry a Lot
Understanding Behavior
Sometimes behaviors that appear difficult on the surface may be connected to experiences, emotions, fear, or unmet needs.
Building Connection
Attachment and trust don’t happen according to a schedule. Caregivers may need support as relationships develop.
Navigating Transitions
Placements, reunification, school changes, family contact, adoption, and other transitions can bring complicated emotions for both children and caregivers.
Supporting the Whole Household
Foster care can affect biological children, partners, extended family members, routines, and relationships throughout the household.
Caring for Yourself
When so much attention is focused on supporting a child, caregivers can forget that they need support too.
UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOR
Behind Every Behavior Is a Story
A child may struggle to trust.
They may test boundaries.
They may withdraw.
They may become overwhelmed by situations that seem ordinary to everyone else.
The question isn't always: “How do we stop this behavior?”
Sometimes a more useful question is: “What might this child be communicating?”
Open Arms emphasizes trauma-informed support for foster children and families, including counseling intended to help families understand and respond to the emotional complexities surrounding foster care.
Understanding doesn't mean removing boundaries. It means responding with greater awareness of what may be happening underneath the behavior.
SUPPORT FOR FOSTER PARENTS & CAREGIVERS
You’re Supporting the Child. We’re Here to Support You.
Open Arms currently states that it provides foster families with training and ongoing guidance, including round-the-clock support for foster parents.
Support can help caregivers better understand:
- Trauma and its potential impact
- Emotional and behavioral responses
- Building safety and trust
- Healthy boundaries and routines
- Communication
- Family adjustment
- Caregiver stress
- Transitions within foster care
- Supporting relationships within the household
- When additional professional support may be appropriate
Caregivers need somewhere to ask questions too.
“A child doesn’t need you to have every answer. They need to know they are not facing everything alone, and neither are you.”
Connect With Open Arms
Our Therapists
Care Starts With People You Can Trust
Behind every session is a real person who's chosen this work, not a call center, not an algorithm.
Meet Our Team
Henri Jo Ball, LPCTherapist
Emeka Nnaka, LPCTherapist
Brenda Mitchell, LPCTherapist
Victori SwinfordTherapist
Jamira AlexanderTherapist
Mattea LearTherapist
Counseling for Children in Foster Care
Children in foster care may be navigating experiences and emotions that are difficult to put into words.
Open Arms currently provides Foster Care & Adoption Counseling and describes its approach as collaborative, involving children, parents, and the wider community where appropriate.
Counseling can provide a supportive environment for children to explore emotions, experiences, relationships, transitions, and concerns at an appropriate pace.
When relevant, families can also explore our Child & Adolescent Counseling services.
Support for the Whole Foster Family
For the Child
A compassionate environment focused on safety, emotional well-being, connection, and development.
For Foster Parents
Training, guidance, resources, and support for navigating the realities of foster parenting.
For Adoptive Parents
Support for adjustment, relationships, emotional concerns, and the unique experiences that can accompany adoption.
For the Family
Help understanding how foster care or adoption may affect relationships, communication, routines, and the household as a whole.
Support for Adoptive Families
Adoption can be deeply meaningful while still bringing questions and adjustments.
Children and parents may be navigating identity, attachment, family relationships, past experiences, expectations, or major transitions.
Open Arms’ existing program specifically supports both foster and adoptive families, so adoption remains part of this page rather than being treated as an unrelated service.
Support isn't about suggesting something is wrong with your family. It's about recognizing that every family's story is different, and sometimes having professional support can make that journey feel less isolating.
How Foster Family Support Works
Connect
Reach out to Open Arms Initiative and tell us what kind of foster or adoptive family support you’re looking for.
Understand
Our team works to understand your family’s circumstances, questions, and current needs.
Find the Right Support
Depending on your circumstances and available programs, appropriate support may involve training, guidance, counseling, placement-related assistance, or other foster-family resources.
Keep Growing
Foster care isn’t a single event. Support can continue as children, caregivers, relationships, and circumstances change.
What support does Open Arms provide for foster families?+
Open Arms Initiative currently describes its foster support as including comprehensive training, 24/7 guidance, child placement support, and trauma-focused counseling for foster families.
Does Open Arms provide counseling for children in foster care?+
Yes. Open Arms provides dedicated Foster Care & Adoption Counseling and also offers Child & Adolescent Counseling using trauma-informed approaches.
Does Open Arms support foster parents too?+
Yes. Open Arms states that it provides ongoing support for foster parents, including foster parent training and 24/7 guidance.
Can adoptive families receive support?+
Yes. Open Arms’ existing Foster Care & Adoption Counseling program specifically supports both foster and adoptive families through the emotional complexities associated with their journeys.
What if our entire family is struggling with the transition?+
Depending on your family’s needs, Foster Care & Adoption Counseling, Family Counseling, Child & Adolescent Counseling, or broader Family Support Services may be appropriate.
How do we get started?+
Contact Open Arms Initiative and explain what kind of foster, adoption, counseling, or family support you’re looking for. The organization can then guide you toward the appropriate available service.
You’re Giving a Child Somewhere to Land. You Deserve Somewhere to Turn.
You don't need to handle every difficult moment perfectly.
You don't need to understand every behavior immediately.
And you don't need to navigate every transition by yourself.
Stronger Support for Children. Stronger Support for Families.
When your family needs guidance, Open Arms Initiative is here to help you explore the next step.