When we take in children at CSC we become important advocates for them. We advocate for them in government offices, courtrooms and with social workers and others who have the power to decide whether they will be given the chance to be adopted. We attend meetings, write letters and affadavits and travel all around the Philippines in support of the children under our care. Our social workers, in handling the case management for them, are equal parts lawyers, counselors, writers and interveners. They work with the birth families, solicit support and cooperation from officials in the communities where they live, gather information, file birth registrations, write social case studies and letters, and attend many, many meetings.

We recently hired two new workers for our social work department. Neither Catherine nor Mardie came to us with exerience in our type of cases. Very few agencies do pre-adoptive case management, so there has been much for them to learn about the legal and procedural requirements in preparing our children's papers for legal adoption. Luckily, we have two veteran social workers, Carmelita and Chris, who have many years of experience advocating for CSC children. Carmelita is soon to retire so it becomes very important for CSC that she spend time mentoring our young and inexperienced social workers in the "tricks of the trade."

The head of our Social Work Department is Klaris, who is also new to CSC, though she has lots of experience as a social worker. She is learning very fast, and does much of the editing of case studies, serves as the liaison with government offices and assigns cases to our social workers.

Please pray for our Social Work team as they advocate for our children in many different ways and settings. They are on the front lines of service to our children and represent all of us with the people who have a lot of influence over their lives. They need perseverance, insight, tact, commitment, patience and lots of compassion for the needs of our precious kids.