No matter who walks through our doors, the heart of our work will always be about helping human beings recover from deep trauma, or intervening to prevent and minimize trauma in the first place.
When unaccompanied children first reach safety in the United States, the U.S. Border Patrol takes them into temporary custody. The Department of Health and Human Services in partnership the Office of Refugee Resettlement then places the children in short term care in programs with organizations like Abbott House that are skilled at meeting the emotional and medical needs of the children.
Since these children started to arrive at Abbott House, we have cared for thousands of children and have successfully reunited them with their family or sponsor. Some stay in our program for only a short time, and some, who are unable to be reunited for a variety of reasons, are with bi-lingual foster families who we hope will adopt them.
We named our program Transitional Resources for Children (TRC) because we know how important it is for these children to be reunited with their parents and family members. We are but one step on their journey and we want the children to know that is our aim to provide the most nurturing care and support possible.
The circumstances of each child and family is different. Sometimes, we are able to reunite them with their family in just a few weeks. For others it takes longer. We have already been in contact with the majority of the families. We work with the families to honor their plans and preferences for the children. We also vet every single member or sponsor to ensure the children can safely be reunited. This can sometimes take a little longer, but we want to make sure that the children will not be in harm's way.
