One Church One Child (OCOC) is a special adoption recruitment program. Initially designed to reach out to the African American community to recruit families for children in foster care, OCOC has evolved into a complete child placing agency that serves the entire community. Working primarily through churches, we identify, train, and license families for children in need of permanent homes.
One Church One Child was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1980, by Father George Clements, former pastor of Holy Angels Catholic Church.
Historically, families with children could depend on the greater community to help during difficult times or whenever necessary in order to remain connected to their children. Today, many children do not have traditional family support and the community lacks the closeness once shared. Consequently, children become caught up in the foster care system.
The basic principle of One Church One Child is to recruit at least one family or single parent from each church to adopt at least one child. We have expanded to include foster care, kinship, bilingual, and support group services.