Statement on Social Media Posts Regarding Lutheran Service Organizations
Topton, PA (Wednesday February 5, 2025)
For over 150 years, Diakon and its predecessors have been helping children in Pennsylvania who have been orphaned by war, disease, parental neglect, or family tragedy find the permanency they miss. Diakon manages Pennsylvania’s award-winning Statewide Adoption Network (SWAN), which has successfully helped thousands of children find loving families, expanding adoption opportunities in the Commonwealth.
In addition to our work in adoption and foster care, Diakon is committed to serving individuals and families across generations. We provide essential programs such as Meals on Wheels, senior centers, behavioral health services, and youth programs, ensuring that people of all ages receive the care and support they need to thrive.
Our commitment to children, individuals of all ages, and families in need is unwavering.
Recently, social media feeds and news outlets have been highly critical of the work done by Lutheran Family Services, a national organization, and their affiliated service providers, like Diakon, who have provided foster care and other services for unaccompanied minors and migrants without legal status who have come to the country from central and south America. They have been highly critical of the Federal government contracts for these services, even going so far as to call it “money laundering.”
This criticism is misplaced and hurtful. Organizations like Diakon, who have long and distinguished records of providing foster care and adoption services in communities across Pennsylvania and the country, are responding to a request for help. Diakon follows the laws in place.
Our organization, staff and foster families are not engaged in “money laundering” or anything illegal or unethical. We help children and families in need, just like our predecessors came together to provide permanency for children orphaned by the Civil War.
Blanket attacks on our services, because they are contracted by the Federal Government, demoralize hard-working staff and make it more challenging to find foster and kinship families who want to help.
