Holt International

Mission Statement

Holt is dedicated to carrying out God\'s plan for every child to have a permanent loving home through family preservation, in-country adoption, and international adoption.

Overview of Ministry Activity

For 50 years, Holt International Children’s Services\' child welfare programs have worked to prevent child abandonment, reunify children with their birth or extended families, ensure that vulnerable children are cared for in safe and loving environments, and find permanent homes for the world’s orphans through domestic and international adoption. Holt\'s work includes innovative care programs for children affected by HIV/AIDS.

Holt accomplishes its mission through its international headquarters in Eugene, Oregon, six US branch offices, collaborative efforts with over 200 US-based cooperating social service agencies, and overseas Holt offices and partner agencies.

Holt International Children\'s Services is an accredited child welfare agency and a member of the Child Welfare League of America. Holt is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, Children\'s Charities of America and the Independent Charities of America. Holt qualifies as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization under IRS code 501(c)(3), and is registered with USAID as a PVO.

Holt is recognized as a world leader in child welfare and permanency planning, having provided technical assistance in many child welfare arenas and forums, including The Hague Convention on Private International Law in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, and the Policy Committee of the Child Welfare League of America. Holt was instrumental in drafting the Code of Ethics of the U.S. Joint Council on International Children\'s Services. Holt also provides training and technical assistance to caregivers, orphanage directors, and government officials around the world to encourage child welfare change at a systemic level.

Holt believes that, first, children should be in safe and secure families, and secondly, if a child’s own family is not safe and secure, the child should be provided care in a family-like environment while their family is rehabilitated, or if that is not possible, to provide nurturing family-like care until a permanent family placement can be found. This philosophy has led Holt to create programs that work to improve the health and well-being of children and families in crisis through a variety of interventions that ensure families have the support they need to achieve stability, and that vulnerable children have adequate shelter, nutritious food, medical therapies, counseling, and quality childcare.

Plans and Goals

Holt’s programs target system entry points for children and families in crisis—hospitals, family crisis centers, orphanages and shelters—connecting children and families with services providing counseling, medical and nutritional support, parenting training, income generation and other supports to insure that children remain with families and avoid institutionalization. Recognizing that programs are most effective with local input and involvement, Holt establishes long-term, collaborative relationships based upon mutual trust and respect within host countries, specifically designing programs to meet the particular needs of children and families in their countries. This enables culturally appropriate services, improves prospects for reforming child welfare structures and better enables sustainability of services. Holt encourages our partner agencies to develop into independent agencies, operating under control of a local, volunteer Board of Directors with local, national staff.

Holt’s child welfare model, in order of priority:

1. maintains the child with, or returns the child to, his/her birth family, if possible and appropriate;

2. places the child with an alternate family in his/her birth culture, if possible;

3. and if not, places the child with a family in another country.

This article, which appeared in the New Yorker in early May, 2010 tells the true story of a family whose adoption of a Haitian girl through Holt International was processed in the aftermath of the January earthquake. While specifically a story about Haiti, this thought-provoking article contains many important themes about international adoption. To...