Shelter

Shelter Homes in Cebu

CSC has three homes on our main campus. The children living in each home range in age from newborns to teenagers and will live in the same home they are welcomed into on their first day until they are adopted, reunited with their birth parents, or move into the Teen Home.

Each home is unique, but they are all places of laughter, community, and health. Kids sleep in their own beds in a room shared with a couple of other children, enjoy regular meals, do homework, play, and celebrate birthdays together. The home is where the nutritional, emotional, and spiritual needs of each child are met.

Leading each home is a Filipino house mother and house father, a married couple living in an adjoining apartment. As a key part of the Child Development team, houseparents provide the core support and guidance children need. The children can often be found participating in the basic functions of a house, but CSC also employs over 75 people to manage cooking, safety, laundry, cleanliness, and childcare. To ensure the safety of the kids, each house is staffed 24 hours a day, every day. Those childcare workers are assigned to one home so bonds can develop between children and staff.

CSC also operates an off-campus residence. The Wally Johnson Teen Home exists to serve our young adults who were not adopted. Here, young people continue their education to prepare them for entry into mainstream Philippine life. All of these young men and women are in high school, trade school, or college, or are beginning their careers. They do not move out until they are ready to; we maintain no arbitrary age maximums.

Medical

Almost all children come to us with lice and parasites. Many of them are struggling to overcome diseases or malnutrition. 25-50% of CSC's children have special needs, including cerebral palsy, blindness, or brain damage. Upon arriving at CSC, children are usually isolated in our infirmary while our medical personnel care for them, helping them regain their health. As children grow, CSC ensures that each child receives necessary medical care, including examinations, medicines, hospitalization, tests, and surgery.

Counseling

CSC provides counseling services to the children in their care. This is done individually or in sibling groups or age groups as needed. Our Filipino staff is fluent in communicating in whichever language the children feel most comfortable expressing themselves in (typically Cebuano, but also Tagalog and English). By having access to this service, the children are able to talk through feelings of confusion, abandonment, anger, and shame. Counseling also gives children the chance to discuss the possibility of their adoption, allowing them to safely express their hopes and fears.

Adoption Prep

If children are not able to return to their birth families, CSC makes sure that each child becomes eligible for adoption. This can be a long process of collecting vital documents and tracking child development. The team of social workers and child development staff diligently builds a file on each child, doing everything possible to promote entire sibling groups as the adoptable unit. CSC is not an adoption agency, and CCSSC is not an appropriate contact point for families looking to adopt. We exist to serve the children living in the Philippines. If you are interested in adopting a child from the Philippines, please your local adoption agency.