Foster care ministry leader calls on Catholics to open their homes to foster children

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 29, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

A Catholic foster care ministry leader is calling for Catholic families to support vulnerable children and families by becoming foster parents.

Springs of Love ministry founder Kimberly Henkel said many Catholics are unaware of the “huge crisis in our country” surrounding foster care, and people of faith are in a unique position to bring love to children in need of foster care.

Henkel, who is a foster and adoptive mother herself, launched Springs of Love as a ministry to help other Catholic couples navigate the process of fostering. Henkel described the foster system as “very cyclical” and “difficult to break out of,” with children often passing from home to home. In the end, she said, children who age out of foster care with no family connections are often left increasingly prone to addiction, homelessness, and even trafficking.

“We have the answer,” Henkel said in an “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly” interview with host Abi Galvan on Tuesday. “We can help these children to heal by loving them … We have Jesus, the healer, the divine physician who can heal all of our wounds.”

According to Henkel, who founded Springs of Love in 2022, there are some 400,000 children in the foster care system. Approximately 20,000 will age out every year with no solid family foundation from which to embark on adulthood.

“As my husband and I … started fostering and adopting, as we continued down the path, we just saw this need,” Henkel recalled. “So we started [Springs of Love] and are trying to No. 1, raise awareness, because so many Catholics have no idea” of the great need for foster families.

Springs of Love is currently working on releasing a new curriculum for prospective foster parents later this summer, Henkel said, noting that while much of it will touch on fostering from a pro-life perspective and the “joy of adoption,” it will also delve into more difficult aspects.

“A lot of the times when these kids are aging out,” she said, “they have no connections, they have nobody to look out for them.” Henkel noted that about 70% of young women who age out of the foster care system become pregnant within the first couple of years and either go on to “repeat the cycle” they experienced in their own lives or have an abortion.

“We’re really going in and trying to educate people,” Henkel said, “and doing it through the light of the Gospel to give people that hope that Christ can truly come into our hearts and bring the healing that we need.”

Springs of Love has a video series on EWTN on Demand that tells the stories of foster families. The point, according to Henkel, is not only to raise awareness of the process of fostering a child but also to show that the aim of fostering is ultimately family reunification.

“The goal of foster care is reunification, so if it is safe for a child to go back home, then we want to continue being a support to that family,” Henkel said.

“This is how we can see a huge change, because when we’re dealing with these massive issues of homelessness, poverty, addictions, and trafficking, in order for people to break out of that, they need to be poured into,” she continued. “They need to know the love of Jesus [and] to have people to come alongside them and accompany them.”

Springs of Love is the sister organization of a ministry Henkel previously helped co-found called Springs in the Desert, which accompanies Catholic couples struggling with infertility and loss, “by offering a place of respite and solidarity,” as stated on its website.