Ampersand Families Contact Info:
Main Office Address:
1751 County Road B West
Suite 300
Roseville, MN, Minnesota 55113
612-605-1904
General Contact Email:
info@ampersandfamilies.org
Website:
https://ampersandfamilies.org/
Minnesota Heart Gallery Contact Info:
Main Office Address:
c/o Ampersand Families
1751 County Rd B West, Suite 300
Roseville, Minnesota 55113
612-605-1904
General Contact Email:
heartgallery@ampersandfamilies.org
Ampersand Families is a small, private agency which specializes in permanency for older youth and teens, ages ten and up, as well as sibling groups of all ages (but often with at least one child age 10 or older in the group). We prioritize family preservation and connection with relatives and kin, and we help relatives/kin overcome barriers to adopting a relative child when possible. When relatives/kin are not an option for permanency, we prepare non-relative families for the complex and critical role they will play in youths’ lives. Part of our mission for permanency includes only licensing for foster care temporarily, for the purpose of adoption. We do not license families for traditional foster care. Since we are a small agency, we are proud of our ability to provide a lot of support to our relative and adoptive families during the permanency process and after placement.
Communities Served:
Prospective/current foster parents
Prospective/current adoptive parents
Prospective/current kinship caregivers
Foster or adopted children/teens
Regions Served:
All Regions in Minnesota
Wait or Response Times:
Response time for general inquiries: 1-4 business days
Wait time for non-relative home study assessments: 3 months
Wait time for Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics: 2 months
Services Provided
- Agency specific education
- Home studies
- Child-specific recruitment
- Post-adoption services
- Innovative relative search and engagement
- Kin Link Services
- Outreach and engagement
- Child-specific home studies and home study updates
- Intensive relative licensing support
- Placement support services and concurrent permanency support services
- MN Heart Gallery
- Family check-in retreats and youth activities
- Caregiver Roundtables
- Minnesota Youth Voice Program (MYVoice)
- Training for kinship, foster, and adoptive parents
- Permanency Task Force coordination
- Buddy Family program
- Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics Assessments
- Parent consultation supports
OUR MISSION
The Minnesota Heart Gallery provides children and youth awaiting adoptive families in Minnesota the chance to see themselves as they never have before, and invites the community to learn more about the right of every child to a permanent family.
WHAT WE DO
- Recruit and support some of Minnesota’s finest portrait/on site photographers to ensure that every child or teen who is waiting in foster care for an adoptive family to be found has access to a professional photo shoot experience designed specifically for them.
- Provide the high quality images created from the photo shoots to the youth for his or her personal use and to the professionals responsible for creating materials used to recruit an adoptive family for that youth.
- Promote the right of every child whose life has been disrupted by abuse, neglect and subsequent child welfare intervention to be restored to a permanent family.
Because Minnesota Heart Gallery photos capture the extraordinary spirit of young people, and give real faces to the statistics about adoption and foster care, they inspire families to consider how they might help.