Advancing child welfare practices that heal rather than harm.
Our Mission & Vision
Our vision for the Bridging Families™ Institute (BFI) is to be a leader in changing how children, families, and young adults families experience foster care. We do so by:
- Developing innovative, research-based strategies for family reunification and permanency
- Coaching and collaborating with our child welfare partners
- Championing system change that promotes family and young adult resilience
What We Do
The Bridging Families™ Institute (BFI), created by and in partnership with Crossnore Communities for Children—nationally renowned for its trauma-informed work—advances systems change in child welfare through three core approaches: Innovation, by developing and implementing research-informed models such as Bridging Families™ and Bridging Futures™; Collaboration, by partnering with public and private agencies to build capacity and sustain professional foster parenting within their service arrays; and Championing, by advocating for policies and practices that improve how children, families, and young adults experience foster care, with a focus on connection, stability, and lasting permanency.
Our Approach
The Institute’s work expanding both Bridging Families™ and Bridging Futures™ is grounded in the same core pillars, ensuring consistent, trauma-informed approaches across the foster care continuum.
The Institute was instrumental in the development and implementation of these groundbreaking programs:
Bridging Families™
Bridging Families is a family-focused, team-based model designed to directly address the barriers to reunification for children and adolescents in foster care. The program centers professional foster parents (known as Bridge Parents) as full-time, salaried members of a multidisciplinary team working intensively with families toward safe and timely reunification. The model prioritizes keeping sibling groups together, reducing time in out-of-home care, and restoring hope and stability for families navigating the child welfare system.
Bridging Futures™
Bridging Futures is an adaptation of the Bridging Families model designed to meet the unique permanency and developmental needs of young adults ages 17-21 who are transitioning out of foster care. Using the same professional foster parenting and team-based structure, Bridging Futures focuses on independent living skills, educational and vocational readiness, long-term social supports, and trauma-informed care to help young adults transition into adulthood with stability and community connection.
BFI is committed to the scientific process required to demonstrate these programs as evidence-based interventions. We are engaged in multiple research projects to support this goal and will share all findings with the community.
The Institute’s primary focus is the expansion of the Bridge programs in North Carolina and beyond. BFI works alongside agencies to assess readiness, build internal capacity, and support high-fidelity implementation of Bridging Families and Bridging Futures. Through training, consultation, and ongoing technical assistance, the Institute helps partners navigate licensing, staffing, funding, and sustainability while centering the real-world needs of children, families, and young adults. BFI has been awarded financial support from generous donors to temporarily cover the costs of consultation.
BFI is also committed to championing system changes that will improve the way that children, families, and young adults experience foster care. The years of work that went into creating the innovative Bridging Families program led to its recognition as the only professional foster parenting model endorsed by the state of North Carolina. The positive outcomes from Bridging Families led to the adaptation of this model—called Bridging Futures—to meet the needs of young adults transitioning out of foster care.
We continue to work toward legislative and program initiatives that support children, family, and young adult reunification and resilience.
Why This Work Matters
Children, families, and young adults in foster care are navigating increasingly complex trauma while systems struggle to keep pace. By supporting agencies in adopting models that prioritize relationships, clinical support, and permanency, the Bridging Families Institute is helping build a child welfare system where families are supported, young adults are not abandoned, and better outcomes are possible.
Learn More – Get in Touch
Complete the Bridging Families™ Inquiry Form and set up an individual meeting.