Click here for larger images of the front view and rear view (opens a new window).

The Counseling and Resource Center is part of Shelter of Care's ongoing vision for bringing hope and a future to Romania's abandoned children. Please keep reading this page for a fuller explanation of this vision.

Once the orphanages are closed, there will be no easy way of contacting abandoned children, since they will be scattered among widely differing foster care placements. We will no longer be able to provide a centralized system of care and support through our contacts in the orphanages.

Yet these children will still be in need of counseling and transitional support. The difficulties of young people leaving the foster care system are likely to be very similar to those leaving the orphanage. Once these young people come out of 'the system', they will once more be alone, beginning adult life without family support. While children were previously able to stay at the orphanage until their education was complete, it is likely that children in foster care placements will be forced out of the system at the age of 18, making it impossible to complete their education, and limiting their options for the future.

In addition, we will need to provide support for those children who cannot be placed in foster care because they are too old, or difficult to place for another reason, e.g. a medical problem, behavioral difficulty, or disability.

Shelter of Care's aim of reaching young people with the gospel will also have to be achieved in a different way. The activities that currently take place in the institutions will need to be moved to a permanent base, and the young people will need to come to us. In addition to our current activities, a new permanent base would enable us to expand our work into the areas of career counseling and therapy, and the development of the commercial potential of the center will provide sustainable funding for Shelter of Care's future work with abandoned children and young people.

Our vision is for a purpose-built counseling and resource center which will be a resource for abandoned children from all over Iasi, regardless of their childhood experiences.

Shelter of Care's counseling and resource center will benefit abandoned children and young people as well as adults who spent their childhoods in institutions. In addition, through our commercial activities we will provide a valuable resource for the corporate market, as well as Christian organisations and churches, and fund the continuing work of Shelter of Care with abandoned children. Finally, we will also be able to benefit the local community in Barnova by providing real employment and bringing in money through the visitors to the center.

The center will accommodate a range of activities, both commercial and charitable.

Non-Commercial Activities:

• Residential ‘respite care’ activity holidays for children and young people living in institutions, projects or foster care placements. These holidays will benefit around 100 children each summer.
• Counselling center for adults who have grown up in institutions or foster care placements—including individual counseling and weekly counseling groups with a trained Christian counselor.
• Careers counseling and legal advice for young people and adults whose background is in institutions and foster care. Many young people from institutions are actively discriminated against in the workplace, and are unaware of their legal rights.
• Use of the center for events specifically aimed at adults from institutionalized backgrounds, e.g. retreats, Christian teaching conferences, etc. (including accommodation and meals).
• Weekly children’s club focusing on younger children living in institutions, projects or foster care placements.

These non-commercial activities will be provided at no charge to the user, with finance being provided by existing funders in the US and UK, as well as new funding contacts, and profits generated by the commercial activities at the center.Over time, the proportions of these funding sources will change so that the commercial activities at the center (listed below) become the main source of funding for the non-commercial activities.

Commercial Activities:

• Hire of the center to businesses, churches and organisations.
• Hire of the center for single-evening events such as weddings etc.
• Holiday and short break accommodation.
• A small shop selling convenience products and relevant resource material (books, DVDs etc.)
• A café facility to operate six days per week for visitors to the center.
• Hire of the sports facilities at the center to the local community.

The profits generated by these commercial activities will provide the funding for the non-profit activities, allowing the work of Shelter of Care to become self-sustaining over time.

The Shelter of Care Counseling & Resource Center will be a positive, sustainable resource for abandoned young people, local churches and the community around it.

After a long search, we have now located the right piece of land (click here for photos) in Barnova, a village on the outskirts of Iasi, priced at an excellent 8.6 euros per square meter. The recent sale of our transition apartment has enabled us to pay the outstanding balance on the land, but we still need to raise over 500,000 euros for the building project.

We are currently financially supported by organizations in the U.S. and Britain which are already exploring ways of raising the necessary funds. However, if you would like to donate towards the cost of the center, please click here for details of how you can give.