Courage Community Foster care
Courage is a leader in realizing positive outcomes for foster children, foster families and biological families. Learn more about us.
Foster Care
Courage Community is a private child placement agency licensed by Colorado Department of Human Services. We work to certify families for foster care and adoption in the Denver metro area, El Paso County and surrounding areas, and the rural communities of Eagle, Lake and Summit counties. Kerri and Megan work as a team to walk each family through the certification process, and will be with you every step of the way as your family decides which children might be the best match for you. You will never be pressured to accept a child you are uncomfortable with; we are steered by your preferences and strengths as a family.
We will provide supervision and guidance, act as advocates for your family and be a liaison between you and the Department of Human Services, who will retain legal custody of the children you care for. We receive referrals for up to 20 children each business day, from various counties in Colorado. Children needing placement are from newborn to 20 years of age. There are many sibling groups who need to be placed together. Though we are a smaller agency, we receive the same quantity of referrals as the larger agencies.
Adoption
Courage Community is also licensed as a public adoption agency, which allows us to facilitate adoptive placements for children who were, or are in foster care and will, or have become legally freed for adoption. Most of our adoptions have occurred as a process; the children were initially placed on an emergency basis in foster care status, and after more than a year, the court determined that the child or children were not able to return home or live with relatives. In those cases, our foster families opted to become an adoptive family for the child or children, and once the child became legally free (parental rights were terminated in court), plans were made to adopt!
We charge no extra fees for adoption, and the process of becoming a family licensed for foster/adoption is essentially the same as for foster care.
There are two types of adoption your family can pursue: legal risk and straight adoption. A legal risk adoption means that you agree to foster a child who still has parental rights intact, with an intent to adopt if and when the child becomes legally free. A straight adoption would result in your family accepting a legally free child (parental rights have been terminated) for placement; after fostering for 6 months, adoption planning can begin.
There are many things to consider if your family is only hoping to adopt from foster care, and not interested in working toward reunification with birth family. We encourage you to call and speak to Kerri or Megan about this process and how it might impact your family.
Courage is an equal opportunity agency! We encourage families of all ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations and economic statuses to apply.
Mission Statement
Courage Community Foster Care, through community-based, personalized and focused service, is committed to bringing forth the qualities of strength and perseverance in each member of the foster care triad: the child, the family of origin, and the foster family.
In Loving Memory
Our work is dedicated to the memory of our girl, Heather Perry, and a wonderful man, Thomas Kohones.
November, 1998-May, 2020
May your light shine eternal.
May, 1980 – January, 2022
Husband, Foster & Adoptive Father.
OUR Gallery
We are dedicated to our foster families, and help them to commit to their foster children until permanency can be reached.
We believe that foster children prosper when they are allowed to live with ONE family until they can be returned home, live with relatives, or adopted by a foster family.
We are PROUD of our families!
Meet Our Families
Colorado has many foster children needing placement, and too few foster homes to care for them
On any given business day, we receive referrals from five to twenty children needing to be placed in a foster home. Children of every age, ethnicity and circumstance are referred, from newborn to 20 years old. Most of our children are referred along with their siblings. All of the children referred for foster care are removed from their family’s care for reasons of abuse and/or neglect.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR FOSTER FAMILIES:
What People Are Saying
We love working with Kerri and are thankful to be part of Courage Community!
Courage Community is the second foster agency that we have worked within our years as foster parents, and it has been a fantastic experience. Kerri keeps in much better contact with us and provides exceptional support and encouragement. She is very wise and knowledgeable about working with traumatized kids, and she shares her experience and suggestions in ways that are positive and helpful. She is always available when we have questions or needs. Her paperwork and other requirements are straightforward and less time-consuming than in our last agency. Above all, Kerri cares deeply about the kids and foster families and is a strong advocate for us.
We love working with Kerri and are thankful to be part of Courage Community!
We can’t express how glad we are to be working with Kerri!
My husband and I are just now becoming certified with Courage Community Foster Care, but already we’ve been amazed at what a difference it’s made to work with Kerri Hankin. We had worked with a different agency last year in the hopes of an adoption, but encountered countless obstacles with the agency’s lack of integrity, honesty, and sense of justice that ultimately ended in our heartbreak. We had such a horrible experience with the bad caseworkers last year that even trying again this year felt like a big risk to us. But Kerri has given us a completely different experience – she’s truthful, trustworthy, she backs her families up, she’s supportive and encouraging, and she always has our best interests in mind. Not only do we trust Kerri’s great competence, but we also find it a joy to work with her – she’s all heart!
We can’t express how glad we are to be working with Kerri!
Courage Foster Community has been one of the biggest blessings to our family.
Since we were very young both my husband and myself wanted to be foster parents. Once we got married he joined the military and that brought us to Colorado. Once we got here we started doing our research on foster care in the state and decided we’d start meeting child placement agencies. After meeting with more than a half a dozen different agencies we both kind of just said, “well none of these seem fitting, we don’t get that wholehearted vibe we are searching for, so I suppose we’ll hold off until the time is right!”
Little did we know God had Kerri waiting for us right around the corner. From the moment we met her we knew that we were ready to get licensed and embark on our journey as foster parents with her at our side!
And here we are one year later, what a whirlwind of love it has been!
Being a foster parent with Kerri on board has been incredible, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Everybody has different ideas of how they want to parent, but I’ll say, no matter what joyous or scary thing we are going through – knowing Kerri is a phone call away has helped us to be the best parents possible to these beautiful little humans! My husband and I always joke “If we could clone Kerri that would make it complete!”
Finding people that want to change foster care, well that is just rare. She isn’t just someone that says this, she is a go-getter!
Courage Foster Community has been one of the biggest blessings to our family.
I cannot recommend Courage highly enough. I’m blessed to be in this with Kerri.
Our experience with Courage has been and is a wonderful journey. Working with Kerri is easy and smooth. She puts her heart into every case and that was apparent upon meeting her. My husband and I trust her, as she has wisdom, compassion and experience in the broken world of the Foster care system.
I cannot recommend Courage highly enough. I’m blessed to be in this with Kerri.
We could not recommend them enough!
My wife and I were close to hopeless and debating putting our foster-to-adopt journey on hold. We did not feel supported by the agency we were with and decided to leave. We happened to stumble across Courage via a third-party resource. From our first interaction with Kerri, to every conversation thereafter with her and Megan, we knew this was different. Fast-forward to today, we have had our daughter for almost nine months and are looking forward to adoption day! We have felt nothing but support from Courage along the way. We could not recommend them enough! – Derek and Kathy Mason
