Lutheran Family Services often provides help to families when they have nowhere else to turn – that could be providing emergency childcare, helping refugees and asylum seekers find new homes in Colorado or helping families with adoption or foster care.

The Denver-based nonprofit, which provides services in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Utah, operates the KPC Respite Center and Nursery in Colorado Springs, which provides free childcare to parents while the attend court hearings or for any family emergency, said Margo Hatton, vice president of development in the agency’s Denver office. KPC is the only emergency childcare center in Colorado and one of just a handful of similar centers nationwide, she said.

“Parents are referred to us by the courts, so they don’t have to bring their kids to court. It is meant for emergency use, so can be used for family emergency” such as medical or behavioral health incidents, Hatton said. “We have a strong partnership with Ascension Lutheran Church – we pay only nominal rent so all the funding we get for the center goes into operating it. We would like to see this center replicated across the state.”

The center last year provided nearly 8,200 hours of care to 244 children up to age 5 whose families are in crisis, Hatton said. The agency spent $200,000 last year completing a 15-month remodeling project that gutted the former single-family home after a pipe burst in mid-2021 and caused extensive damage. Ascension Lutheran Church housed the center during the renovation. Lutheran Family Services uses funds from the Empty Stocking Fund to support the KPC Center.

The agency’s largest program helped 1,137 refugees and asylum seekers resettle in the Colorado Springs area last year, about half of the previous year’s total that had largely come from refugees fleeing the 2021 collapse of the previous Afghanistan government. Hatton said many of the refugees Lutheran Family Services helped last year came from Cuba and Venezuela, where the economies of both nations are collapsing, and a smaller amount fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lutheran Family Services assigns a case manager and a volunteer to every refugee and asylum seeker to help them get identification documents, find jobs and help children get settled into a new school once they have arrived in the four-state region. A new care management program refers refugees and asylum seekers solve issues to other agencies to solve issues ranging from housing and federal nutrition programs to family therapy and counseling.

The agency also operates a full-service adoption agency, including international adoption; foster care services for children unable to live with their birth families; the Anchor House program in Denver for teens who have aged out of the foster care system and still need support; the SafeCare Colorado program that provides in-home services to parents to train them how to provide a safe home, address child health needs and other services.

Other programs operated by Lutheran Family Services include cultural mentorship for refugees and asylum seekers, free mental health services and trauma-informed care for refugees, fire victims and others who have survived disasters and other traumas as well as its Pregnancy Options Colorado program for unplanned pregnancy counseling and the Lifework Aging Solutions program that offers guardianship services for seniors with cognitive issues.

The agency also has restructured its annual holiday drive from collecting toys to collecting pots, pans and food so refugees can cook their own holiday meal that fits with their culture as well as practical items like coats, blankets and sheets that fill an immediate need for refugees. All donated items must be new.

Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains was started in 1948 as an adoption agency and has added other programs and expanded into nearby states during the past 75 years. The agency, which employs 220 people and has nearly 3,000 volunteers, has an annual budget of $37 million.

To learn more visit: www.lfsrm.org.

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