Roxy Tines is the Chapter Director of Safe Families for Children Northern Colorado, a nonprofit that surrounds families in crisis with caring support networks. Based in Fort Collins, Roxy draws on her extensive background in child protection, social work, and her personal experience as a single mom. She previously worked for Larimer County Child Protection for eight years, where she saw the need for preventative intervention and relational support. Her leadership is driven by faith, empathy, and a lifelong passion for helping families thrive before they fall into crisis.
The U.S. child welfare system often reacts after trauma occurs, leaving families with few options for proactive support. Many at-risk parents are loving and committed, but lack the relational network to weather crises without losing custody of their children. How can communities offer relational, preventative solutions that protect children without breaking up families?
According to Roxene Tines, who leads Safe Families for Children in Northern Colorado, the answer lies in mobilizing the faith community to become extended family for those in need. Safe Families offers host homes, mentorship, and resource support before the foster system must intervene—helping families regain stability while preserving bonds. Roxy’s own journey from single motherhood to child protection work deeply informs her belief that early intervention is both possible and necessary.
On this episode of the Love FoCo Show, Jeff Faust welcomes Roxene Tines for a conversation about faith, family, and the community-driven movement keeping children safe and families together. She shares the origin of Safe Families in Colorado, her inspiring career journey, and how others can get involved.
Narrator: This is the Love FoCo Show.
Roxene Tines: We have a lot of resources. That's another beautiful thing about Fort Collins, another beautiful thing about our area. I can resource families with housing needs, with furniture, with Christmas gifts, with Thanksgiving. I mean, look at the snap issues that we had and how many people across Fort Collins, it was beautiful to see, that would step up and offer resources to these families. But what we noticed is, like, how are our nine-to-five families getting to that resource during nine-to-five hours?
Narrator: Welcome to the Love FoCo Show. Our podcast highlights the incredible people who make Fort Collins the place we're proud to call home. Each week, your host, Jeff Faust, sits down with local leaders, community champions, and change makers to share their stories, what they love about our city, and how they're helping it thrive. So whether you're out on the trail, at a brewery, or walking through Old Town, thanks for tuning in.
Jeff Faust: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Love FoCo Show. I'm your host, Jeff Faust. Excited to share a conversation with you today from Safe Families for Colorado. Sitting down with the chapter leader, Roxy, this morning.
She's an incredible woman. She's been on a a wild journey from small town South Dakota, through a different few different stops all the way here to Fort Collins. And the work she is doing to care for children and keep families together is incredible. I can't wait to share this conversation with you. And my hope is that as you hear her story and the work that she is doing, you'll be compelled to get involved in one way or another. With that, let's jump into the conversation for this morning.
Well, Roxy, thank you so much for being willing to spend time on the Love FoCo Show, our new podcast where we're just interviewing all kinds of different folks who are making a difference in our city. I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing. Really looking forward to kind of digging into that a bit together and and and allowing you to share your story with whoever's listening. But we start every podcast the same way.
I just wanna ask you kind of how you found Fort Collins. What's your origin story? I mean, were you born and raised here? Did you transplant in? Like, where did you, where'd you come from and and what are you up to?
Roxene Tines: Yeah. So first of all, thank you for having me here. It's always an honor to be able to share primarily my passion and the work that I'm doing, and get get the word out there. So I'm really thankful that you invited me here this morning. Thankful for the work you're doing to to share what's going on in Fort Collins with everybody.
So my origin story, that's so I'm not originally from Colorado at all. So I came from Mitchell, South Dakota. And I always kind of
Jeff Faust: You say Mitchell, South Dakota. Like, people know where Mitchell is. I think you could just probably say South Dakota. Well, always like I'm not exactly I mean, I'm trying to, like, rub it in or anything, but I think South Dakota is fine. Where's Mitchell at? I have no idea.
Roxene Tines: I always like to make a little joke after that because it's home of the we call it the largest bird feeder. It's a palace they decorate with corn.
Jeff Faust: That sounds like something a Midwest state. Yeah.
Roxene Tines: I wanted to give you a visualization to to view to listeners. So, yeah, that's where I'm from. It's a smaller community, lived rural most of my life, grew up riding horses, pretty quiet life. Parents, both very, very hard workers. Dad usually worked during the day.
Mom worked at night. So, you know, we were kinda, what do they call them, latchkey kids, you know, pretty much parents were really, really hard workers. And then I moved to Colorado when I was in my twenties in the nineties. I always joke that I started south and I'm moving north, and if it wasn't for the Wyoming wind, I'd probably be there.
Jeff Faust: Yeah.
Roxene Tines: But so I started I lived down Florence, Cañon City, that area, because my brother was in the military.
Jeff Faust: Okay.
Roxene Tines: And kind of moved here to be closer to him, closer to family, kind of spread my wings a little bit. Wasn't ready to go to college right after high school, kind of, to be honest, was kinda testing out being independent and where I wanted to be in my life. So started there, moved to Colorado Springs.
Jeff Faust: Was there something, like like, from growing up in Mitchell, South Dakota to Colorado. Was there something that like was the unction to was it just graduating and now I'm an adult so I'm gonna move or was there
Roxene Tines: I really didn't like the rural communities, the the smaller communities with not a lot to do. Even today, I have to be pretty active. My husband says I don't allow for much downtime. Yeah. But so I ended up first going to Minnesota and then Colorado, kinda checked out Minneapolis, The Twin Cities for a while.
Worked as a nurse's aide in the Twin Cities at a Jewish nursing home, Shalom Home, and then moved to Southern Colorado, stayed down there for a while, moved to Colorado Springs, spent a few years there, moved to Denver, spent a few years there. When I went to go to college for my bachelor's degree, I transferred from Denver Community College up to the University of Northern Colorado. So that which lands me up north and got my degree in psychology from UNC. And after that, I always had a heart, even when I was a little kid, my dad told me not too long ago he goes, you always wanted to help other kids and other families.
Jeff Faust: Where do you think that came from? Because I heard I mean, just a quick recap. I mean, correct me if I'm missing a piece, but you said nursing Yeah. In Minnesota and then a psychology degree
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: In your twenties. So as you trace that I mean, like, where did those early seeds come from, you think?
Roxene Tines: So my grandparents were both said laid a good foundation of faith for me.
Jeff Faust: Okay.
Roxene Tines: And I think I always joke. It was something my my one of my grandmothers said my maternal grandmother said to me when I was in kind of around my teen years, like, Roxy, you can't be kind to everybody. And I'm like, but grandma, that's what God told us to do. Yeah. She's like, but, you know, like, those teenage no boundaries, I'm gonna be kind to even, you know, be she's like but you gotta reign it in a little bit.
So I always kinda had this heart to wanna care for others, this passion to
Jeff Faust: Did that ever burn you growing up?
Roxene Tines: Oh, yeah.
Jeff Faust: Like Oh, yeah. Overextend yourself or get taken advantage of? Or because this is like this is always the common pushback that you hear when you're in compassionate space. Like, don't overextend yourself. Don't help too much.
And it's like, this is part of the territory. Like, you give and you give and you give and yeah. You're sometimes you're gonna get hit.
Roxene Tines: But I would say as a younger adult, yeah, burn me a lot because I didn't have a lot of great resilience or boundaries or, you know, I'm I was just a natural empath to wanna help. And the people that I would pick would be the ones that needed me the most, and sometimes you can get burnt even even younger. But I never really wanted to stop helping others. That's kind of what at the core of who I was.
I also see it in my little 12 year old. Like, I always worry about her heart knowing what I went through growing up being that way, this last year. And not to digress from the main question, but this last year, we took in three three little boys and my daughter's heart. I'm like, oh my. She's got the same heart I did and I pray, Lord protect your little heart. Yeah.
Because as you're younger, you know, if you're you're born with that heart and you you know, our foundation is from that heart to care for others and love others. You just pray that Lord the Lord's
Jeff Faust: gonna have seem to be like a really sweet temperament and personality that God just bestows on some people who are gonna operate in this space. Right? I mean, I I think it's interesting to me though because I I'm sure you know people the same way. You maybe overextended, maybe you got burned a few times, and you stayed in that space. We probably both know people who have been burned and have then stepped away from that space.
And so that's always really interesting to me. I mean, you might not have a great answer. I'm just I'm curious if you know Well, know sound like there's a core piece of your identity that kept you
Roxene Tines: There was a pivot in my life in in my 20 later twenties into thirties. I did sales for a long time. I'm really, really good at it. Yeah. Because one one, I'm a galvanizer and I also am really personable.
Jeff Faust: What did you sell?
Roxene Tines: It was interesting. So I was a single mom for a while. Yeah. Story to that is I needed a job that was really flexible. I was also going to school at the same time.
So single mom with two boys. And I started working for my best friend's brothers. He did door to door meat sales. Mhmm. His business was.
And so I started doing that down in Colorado Springs.
Jeff Faust: That's a tough gig.
Roxene Tines: It is a tough gig. It's hard to knock on somebody's door blindly and ask them
Jeff Faust: knocking on a door, and it's like a fifty fifty shot. They don't want you there. Yeah. Maybe it's worse than fifty fifty.
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: Actually, I mean, don't
Roxene Tines: think a lot of times, and then, you know, you're you're trying to sell like, remember, do you like steak? And they'd be like, oh, slammed the door in your face. And the first time I did it, was like, I don't know about all this.
Jeff Faust: Roxy, I love this so much. I, like, I because I was in sales for a little while too. I I sold doors and windows. Okay. From Pella Corporation, small little town in Iowa.
Again, you know, you have to put it on the map because people don't know where it's at, but Pella doors and windows are made in Pella, Iowa. I worked for them for a while
Roxene Tines: I know that.
Jeff Faust: Between ministry jobs. I found out a couple of things. One, the paychecks when you are in a commission sales position are a lot better than nonprofit paychecks. I remember that distinctly.
Roxene Tines: Yep.
Jeff Faust: And two, I remember walking away thinking, I want every one of my kids to be a salesperson for at least twelve months. Yeah. Just to learn, how do I have conversations? How do I handle rejection? How do I ask for referrals?
How do I navigate in these different social space? Because it just it shapes you in a different kind of way.
Roxene Tines: It does.
Jeff Faust: Prepares you for fundraising if you ever have to fundraise.
Roxene Tines: Oh, You have had to do some of that too. Yeah. Know. But yeah. So I pivoted to sales for a little bit.
Started my actually, out of his business, I started my own business while I was going to school. So that left it to where I could basically work on the weekends, go to school during the week, be home with my kids. Yep. And so that was a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Jeff Faust: Single moms just know how do it, don't they? Yeah. They just know how to my mom was a single mom for a while, and the story she tells about the way she figured out how to kind of grind out a living, take care of kids while she's still trying to be promoted. I mean, shout out to all the single parents out there. And not just moms, single single dads too, but there is a different kind of grit that you Yeah. That you have to make it work.
Roxene Tines: Mhmm. And it just like sales, it teaches you a lot. Like in my career now, I'm able to truly empathize and wear the shoes that that are some of our single dads that we work with, our single moms that we work with that understand what it feels like. I, you know, I can feel that PTSD sometimes of like, oh, what if I can't make this bill this month? What do I cut out?
And so that was also another I always always give credit to God through those things because I think you know, the valleys that he took me through grew me to where I'm at today, and gave me the ability to really be present and understand what I'm doing today. Yeah. So I'm always really thankful for some of those struggles. So after the sales career, I was late bloomer, I graduated from college at UNC in 2014, got my psychology degree, had just welcomed my youngest daughter to the world. Me and my husband have a blended family, have six kids altogether.
Nine, if you count the three we just fostered. Yeah. So we've got our own baseball team.
Jeff Faust: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about a different kind of vehicle at this point. Yeah. I mean, you gotta buy you gotta buy one of the big vans.
You can't all fit in the
Roxene Tines: Honda Pilot. Yeah. Biggest we could find. Anyway, so so when I welcomed her, I also started I started reaching out to different places to kinda dabble in. Where did I wanna be involved?
I knew I wanted to work with families. I knew I wanted to work, impact the lives of children. Even when I did sales, I had a connection with the families that I'd built relationship with and their children. I'd bring their children little gifts, we'd hang out, you know. It was just this relationship that I was building even in the sales world.
And so I carried that over, and the first job I got, actually, this is my Fort Collins story. Yeah. So the first job I got was right here in Fort Collins with Larmer County Child Protection.
Jeff Faust: Okay.
Roxene Tines: So I started out in their hub, what they call their hub, Midpoint Drive, taking the referrals that come into child protection with concerns. And it wasn't too long. It started in September 2014 and in that December, got promoted or did a different job in what they call after hours casework. And so what I would do was go out nights and weekends, when the day shift workers have gone home, and go out to those referrals that we get that either can't wait till the next morning because of safety concerns, or over the weekend, they can't wait till Monday. And so that's really where I started my career and my calling, where where God started working on what my purpose was to all these things that led up to it.
Yep. Wonderful people at Larimer County, I still have a lot of wonderful relationships there, and I think that's another thing God put into place for where we're at, where I'm at, where Safe Families is right now. But worked there for eight years in total. After hours team, I did full time daytime intake for a while, Realized that was a little bit that job is, like, to give Larimer County Child Protection workers a lot of credit. It is it is a hard job.
Jeff Faust: Well, I mean, that's what's I it's just interesting to me. I mean, I have so many questions over even just that last little time I I wanna talk about two of them.
Roxene Tines: Okay.
Jeff Faust: If we can. One, because you've referenced faith in your relationship with God a few different times. I I'd love to I'd love to talk about how faith has maybe impacted Mhmm. Your identity and and what you're doing in our community. We'll we'll talk about that in a moment.
The first question I have is a similar question that I asked chief Swoboda when I interviewed him and talking about police services. Because when you're in this space, you see things that the average human maybe doesn't see or encounter on a daily basis. Tragedy, pain, things that can make you cry and things that can make you rage all in the same day. How do you care for yourself in the midst of that? Because you can also have, like, prolonged, trauma exposure that can do things to your mind and your heart.
So when you were in that space and seeing cases and clients and what did you do to keep your heart tender and compassionate? Because you, you know, by your own court, like, still have that alive and in you. How did that not get jaded or even like a little crusty on the outside, I guess?
Roxene Tines: A little crusty is what we called it. It's Yeah. You know, you get a little burnt. Interesting enough, got into that work. I remember the supervisor that I had, she was amazing.
And I remember asking her after something that I went on on that I mean most Fort Collins people are like not in our town. It didn't happen in our town.
Jeff Faust: You just don't think it happens right.
Roxene Tines: And the hard thing is as a caseworker like Chief Samoda, you can't really go out and share it all. So it is eye opening so other people see what you're seeing and wanna get involved. But I remember telling her, I said, you know, how how when I go home in the middle of the night at three, 04:00 in the morning after doing that, do I go to sleep?
Jeff Faust: Right.
Roxene Tines: Like like the the body experience that I was having, like cold and I can't warm up and you know, I would start praying, but my mind was all over the place, you know, and and she goes, sometimes I just have to turn on golf if you can find some golf. Hey. Yeah. Something. And and
Jeff Faust: Something about it.
Roxene Tines: Sorry all the golf fans in the world, but but it was just something to kinda calm your brain. Right. For me, a lot of prayer in the middle of the night. A lot of times when we did have to go out in the middle of the night, that me meant you were removing somebody's child from them.
Jeff Faust: Okay.
Roxene Tines: Which is probably the toughest conversation you could imagine having because it doesn't mean that that child doesn't love mom or dad, and it doesn't mean mom and dad don't love them. It just means that there's a concern that we can't mitigate. And for me, it broke me, broke my heart in the moment, and then I had to imagine what it did to the child and to the family. And those things were were really, really hard. And in those situations, my prayer was always, Lord, please bring somebody that can step in for these kids.
Please have this, know, because come Monday or come the next morning, I would share that and we would talk about what that step looked like. Whether that's long term foster care, which the stats from foster care, I don't know if you know them, but 400,000 kids in the system. 70% are thought to be there because of neglect, A 100,000 kids waiting to be adopted. Nobody, for my heart, I didn't want kids to go into care. I wanted to see if we could find somebody to step in and mitigate the circumstances so they didn't have to go that route. Another stat that I share that's pretty powerful is I think the nationwide statistic for foster care return home rates.
So kids going back into homes with parents is about 47%. I think Colorado's a bit higher at fifty two or fifty seven, somewhere in there. But for me, that's like a fifty-fifty shot, you're gonna go back home. Yeah. And for me, like, for a lot of these families, like, we talk single parents.
Right? For a lot of these families that were in crisis to get my phone call, you know, to for me to show up, they were already struggling to keep the roof over their heads, the car under you know, the car back and forth to work, the bill's paid, and now they have a whole court date and additional treatment plan of steps they have to complete to get and then have their kids return home. And once that process has started, it's hard to slow it down. And so for me, that's kinda where God started to grow my heart on, you know, what and I didn't even know it. You know, sometimes God's working on things we don't even have any clue he's gonna ask us to step into.
And that's where that's where that started coming.
Jeff Faust: Where did where'd your faith come from originally? I mean, was this something that happened later in life or it sounded you alluded to your grandparents establishing a good foundation?
Roxene Tines: My grandparents were my both my grandparents were very, very planted that foundation for me. I as a little girl, I remember spending a summer with my grandmother and sitting on her front porch. I had took a picture of her house not too long ago in the church right next door, Methodist church right next door. And I remember her teaching me the Lord's Prayer on the front step. And my other grandmother, you know, sending us to she was she was Lutheran, she'd send us to all our, you know, VBS camps and bible camps.
And I remember her being playing the piano at church. My dad went back and forth. He struggled. Right now his faith is really, really solid, which is great because he's struggling with a cancer diagnosis. And kind of my story plays into where he's at with his faith.
So that foundation was always planted. My mom was big at having us do VBS and things like that. I would say honestly though, it ebb and flowed. Like when I left and went to Minnesota, angry with God, my parents had just gotten divorced. I was upset at them. I was upset at God.
You you're at that age where you're like, no, I'm not upset, but you're upset. Yep. And so that starts to play out. Like like even for me, like like I dabbled in partying and, you know, other avenues to try to find joy and happiness, but always I would be pulled back to that foundation.
Always. Like in every hard point of my life, my parents divorce. I you know, when I moved to Denver and struggling there and being on my own, you know, graduating college, God was always there with me.
Jeff Faust: It's just a very human story. You know? I mean, this is like so many of our stories, ups and downs, being drawn towards God, and then us, you know, sometimes receiving our love, sometimes rejecting it.
Roxene Tines: Mhmm.
Jeff Faust: I think a lot about how often God receives our misdirected anger. And and yet he still loves, and yet he still welcomes us, and yet he still invites us to the table. And we can be angry and frustrated about all kinds of things that are even worth being angry about.
Roxene Tines: Mhmm.
Jeff Faust: And we can often misdirect that at the one who is trying to shower us with his unfailing love. Yeah. And he's just so good at managing our tantrums I guess and still showing us his unending grace.
Roxene Tines: Well it kind of freezes too because it shows us how we can be in relationship with others.
Jeff Faust: Right.
Roxene Tines: It's okay. You know? I I thought of that as you were saying that the Josiah Queen song, it's stuck in my head the last few days. “Watch your mouth, boy.” You know?
Because he's getting angry with God and he's like, don't you remember what I did for you?
Jeff Faust: Yeah.
Roxene Tines: And and so yeah.
Jeff Faust: It's good. Sounds like a modern day Psalm.
Roxene Tines: Yes.
Jeff Faust: You know? It's like being able to pen out your frustrations and then hear from the Lord. Like
Roxene Tines: Yeah. Yeah. And and nowadays, we have a you know, I I Me and my friend, one of my friends that I I had two good, good friends during my single mom era that were also single moms. And I remember me and her talking early on into when I started working for Safe Families, and we don't stay as connected as we used to, but we were talking about how God took us through all these valleys and really realizing the things he taught us in each one of those moments, and really reflecting on how God equipped us to be now as adults. And and, granted in those moments it felt like I remember standing in the line at the Medicaid office and then going to the next place and not knowing if my car breaks down, how are you going to get to work, What took me into my sales gig with my friend's brother was actually getting sick as I was waiting to be promoted at a job that was really strict on attendance.
Actually, I didn't get sick. My son got sick And not being able to take him to day care and losing my job.
Jeff Faust: Right.
Roxene Tines: And thinking the world's gonna end, but then reflecting back on all those things and what God had and where he took it. You know, you just never know.
Jeff Faust: Oh, so good. Thank you for sharing.
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: Thank you for sharing part of that journey with me and
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: And with all of our listeners. I I find myself, you know, I just fascinated by everyone's story and how it just kind of meanders us through life. And then we Mhmm. We, I mean, least this podcast, we're all talking with folks in in Fort Collins and Northern Colorado area. You were here and you had expressed, an eight year career at Larimer County.
Is that right?
Roxene Tines: Two of them overlapped with Safe Families.
Jeff Faust: Okay.
Roxene Tines: Mhmm.
Jeff Faust: And while you're on that journey, I always like to ask people, what helped you fall in love with this city? Because you I mean, you're being exposed to a lot of even tragic things and things that, you know, when you close your eyes at night, keep you awake and and hard to kind of even neurologically slow down and your nervous system to calm down. There had to be other things that were happening, to keep you here this long. So, like, what what how'd you start falling in love with this? What do you love about Fort Collins?
Roxene Tines: So, when I moved up this way, I could make a Greeley joke. We're in the Greeley neighborhood and there you know, I remember being like, [sniff, sniff] what am I Yeah.
Jeff Faust: That wind blows direction.
Roxene Tines: So I seem to be husband being like, welcome welcome to the North. Yes. But I remember when I landed in Fort Collins, started my career at Larimer County, just reflecting on how wonderful people were. Like, even even the county, like, that that call, like, oh, you're sick or the, you know, there was no punishment.
Jeff Faust: Know? There was Still a little bit like Mitchell, South Dakota.
Roxene Tines: It did.
Jeff Faust: Just a a little hometown
Roxene Tines: Like, and and especially as I grew in the community, like, will say after the county work, really doing Safe Families, like you we we're in a bigger area, but you feel so connected. And and I tell this, Safe Families is a national organization. I talk about Northern Colorado all the time in this area about how people watch out and take care of each other. I said this on another another podcast I was on. The thing that is, like, beautiful, and and I think we take for granted about where we live and and the community we're in is the partnerships.
I mean, at look at, you know, you'd I know Love FoCo is the resource center's coming about, and that is so awesome. I told you earlier about the life center that our office is in in Loveland. Just the community impact that we can all have and the heart behind what we do. I have so many beautiful relationships with people that are resourcing families throughout Fort Collins and what they do, and they're just wonderful, beautiful people that are everyday pulling up their bootstraps to care for their people and their community.
Yeah. The churches that I that I I mean, I get blessed that I get to go out and and my partners in this work are churches and community agencies that are serving youth and family because what a beautiful world. I mean, always feel like I we set in this beautiful circle of individuals that volunteer to show radical hospitality, intentional compassion, and disruptive generosity and what better people to surround yourself with. It is just a joy. To give you a little bit of a picture of that, I recently, when I was doing kinship certification for the county to be able to take care of the boys we took care of for the last year and a half, I remember sending in the training, and one of the questions they asked was like, how much support do you have?
Make a list. And some of the people in that class had really made some of their family mad by taking in kids, You know? And they've gotten kind of like they they didn't have a lot of support. They had people mad at them because they took kids away from, you know, that type of situation. And I'm listing churches.
And churches are providing us food and meal trains and grocery gift cards. And I have staff bringing me clothes and I know of other resources for parents that are stepping into foster care and kinship care that I can get pretty much whatever I need. I have a bunch of volunteers offering to take the kids and do things with them almost every day. I could have been, like, resourced for childcare every single day.
Jeff Faust: Well, this is the best part of the faith community.
Roxene Tines: This is this is the community.
Jeff Faust: People who can make a difference in one another's lives. And, yeah, those stories aren't always told. Yeah. Because sometimes the churches haven't always
Roxene Tines: Mhmm.
Jeff Faust: Been as vocal or haven't always been kind of in that space representing that kind of of love. And so I'm I'm super glad that's
Roxene Tines: really, yeah,
Jeff Faust: part of your testimony and and the testimony of the greater Fort Collins area. I I am amazed. Every week, I meet people. This kind of interdependence, collaborative approach to solving problems, I think, gonna set our community up for some real long term success and not only keeping our city amazing and helping people fall in love with it, but really impacting and and changing lives. And so I would definitely resonate with that too.
Roxene Tines: That's been my prayer.
Jeff Faust: Well, I wanna talk a lot about, Safe Families. So you are the the chapter leader or is that the
Roxene Tines: Yep.
Jeff Faust: Yep. Chapter leader. Is that the right title? And you had mentioned that this is part of a larger and national organization as well. So just, like, take a few minutes and and inform me and anyone listening about what Safe Families is and and then we'll follow some rabbit trails on Yeah.
The work that you're doing right now Northern Colorado.
Roxene Tines: Safe Families, the national story, started in 2003 in Chicago with our founder, Dr. Dave Anderson. And his story and I always say I always hate to tell somebody else's story because I don't want to discredit or butcher it is what I've referenced before. But his story was he was similar to me, definitely far more educated, but he was a child psychologist that worked with abused and neglected children. And he oftentimes would see things like I've seen. You know, children…
Jeff Faust: another hard profession. Because you're again, these are untold stories. Mhmm. Because children don't have power. Mhmm.
You know? And and so parents can cover those stories up. They can ignore those stories. Stories aren't always even seen maybe as reliable or credible
Roxene Tines: Well, I mean
Jeff Faust: and dismissed. And so
Roxene Tines: For the general public, sometimes we don't wanna see it. We don't wanna see those stories. We don't wanna believe that that's happening in our community. Kind of like a protective measure. Like not everybody wants to work in child welfare or child psychologists, working with abusive and neglected children.
But his story, his like light bulb was a couple different things. So the first one was this child that had been severely abused. I think blown retinas, just some severe abuse. And he was really honest when he told it one of the first times I met him that he was mad. He was upset at what happened.
And I think, you know, for anybody in child protection, you can go out with that heart. And then your job is to find out what is the truth, what really did happen. And he he went out and met with a mom. And it was again that single mom story that a lot of single parents struggle. We were naturally meant to parent too.
And sometimes we just aren't. And so she told him, I had to get to work. I had to go to work. And so I called an ex boyfriend and he watched my child and this is what happened. And he thought he's I think that was his first light bulb moment where he thought, wow.
Why are we waiting? And that was my that wasn't along with my story. Why are we waiting until something really bad happens to step in? Like, why can't we prevent this?
Jeff Faust: Right.
Roxene Tines: Me as a single mom, I had I had two other partners, other also single moms, lots of great family. I had a daycare provider that traded me daycare for me filling in for her. I mean, we just had these I I God gave me these great relationships.
Jeff Faust: You had that relational network and still, you know Still struggle. Still hard because when when your son or daughter gets sick, do I stay home and care for my child who can't go to daycare? Now I'm not at work. I mean, there's constant trades that a single parent is having to make Mhmm. Every day.
And that yeah. I I love even just, what can we do in terms of preventative measures instead of always responding to crisis moments?
Roxene Tines: Mhmm.
Jeff Faust: It sounds like you guys are are in that prevention space. Is that right?
Roxene Tines: Yep. “Keep children safe and families together” is kind of our one liner.
Jeff Faust: Can you say that again?
Roxene Tines: “Keep children safe and families together.”
Jeff Faust: “Keep children safe and families together.”
Roxene Tines: Yep. And kinda another story that goes along with Dave's is his really big light bulb moment was a mother coming to him at Lydia home in Chicago where he worked and saying, can you please take my kids? I need some help. And it's like, we can't just take your kids. There was no avenue for that yet.
Yep. And so when he went out and and started to think, well, can I how can I do something about this? He he jokes that Chicago started it because they wanted to do it before New York. The mayor was like, yeah. Let's get it done before New York catches on kind of this…
Jeff Faust: A little friendly competition,
Roxene Tines: you know, You to make a difference. Could see that sometimes in our communities. Like, we wanna we wanna you know? And so and then the head of DHS at the time said, well
Jeff Faust: What's a what's a VHS?
Roxene Tines: DHS. So Department of Human Services. So like child protection. Sorry to
Jeff Faust: Okay.
Roxene Tines: Sorry. Acronyms we get when we've lived in that world. But they told him, well, good luck. Well, because we can't pay people enough to do you know, we're we're struggling in foster care. So more power to you.
I think that's great. You think the church is gonna rally and do that. And so his model was to reach the faith communities because, right, our core values are the biblical values, love God, love others. Right? Love your neighbor.
Those core values, that core that greatest commandment, is he wanted to work from that. That's what the church was called to do. The government was not called to do it. And that's why sometimes when it's the government, there's a lot of red tape and not a lot of love. And I say that with all due respect because I worked for I worked for the county.
But so he started working in the faith community, and we are now up to 1,200,000 nights of children in safe home, safe care, called Safe Nights of Care, over 70,000 hostings, 100 chapters across The United States. This is over twenty years ago now. We're working to work in Uganda, Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Canada, The UK. And, I mean, just unbelievable that that's twenty years.
Jeff Faust: So how did you get connected with the national office then? I mean, I know you're in Larimer County, and you're and you're doing your work there. When did the switch get flipped for you of I've got a did you start the chapter here?
Roxene Tines: I did.
Jeff Faust: So when did that when did you say, look. Someone's gotta do something. I got this holy discontent. I don't know what to do with it. This is what I'm gonna like, tell me a little bit about that.
Roxene Tines: So, it was about it was before COVID, a family navigator from House and Neighborly Services, so Loveland, came over to, you know, talk about resources with our after hours team. We would have Monday meetings. We'd invite, you know, different community resources in. As caseworkers, we would know about these things. And he just kinda off the cuff, like, what resource would help you guys?
And kind of the general consensus among my team was we'd love host homes. So when we're out at 03:00 in the morning and we don't have aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa to step in and say, I'm gonna help out, or we can't find a you know, nobody's picking up the phone at 03:00 in the morning, even foster families. One, we have a stop gap. Know, two, if it's we don't know if foster care is really needed, is there a stop gap? Like, could there be a host family that could say yes so we could sort out the details and take some time to figure out where is maybe aunt and uncle, where is grandma, grandpa without having to open a court case?
And it's almost like swing once it's once that door is open, it's hard to close it again, once that process has started. And so ironically enough, I am not like I think I am not one of those people that start things, but I did feel it on my heart enough, God placed it on my heart enough to follow the HHS navigator over to his office that next week and ask him, like, were you serious? Like, what do you think about creating something like that? And I, of course, ran with, okay, I want homes to take in single moms that don't know how to parent and help mentor them. And I want this and I want this.
He's like, let's narrow it. Slow it down, sis. You know? And I always call him an instigator, maybe an inspirator, somewhere in there. Because he really drove my my heart of wonder, and he's like, well, let's think it through.
You know? Let's meet again. Let's talk again. And I got home that day, and I Google searched host homes near me and found Safe Families in Denver and started reading up on it. And I was like, wow.
This this exists. I've been doing casework for six years and this exists already. Like, what what will we do if we brought could we bring it here? And he called the director at the time, Marci, and she came up, I think it was 2019. It was right before COVID.
And she presented to all our leadership. I you know, we did a present presentation to foster kinship director, DDMs, which is deputy division managers of child welfare. And that's great. I think it's going to start. I'm kind of ironically thinking, all right, well, I did something good.
Maybe I'll be the liaison. Maybe I'll get a raise. That'd be cool. You know, brought this resource, done. You know, kind of, thinking I thinking everything was all set, and nothing happened.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened. COVID happened. So we walk into COVID. I've almost really forgotten about it.
I had done throughout my career a lot of tough things, and, got called out to do do a removal. And it was evident because we did research at our desks before going to a hospital because we weren't allowed to stay at a hospital during COVID. It was evident that there was a lot of stuff for this mom and a lot of lot of hardship, a lot of trauma, a lot of stuff she didn't deserve as a kid. And she I just remember being that the point that God changed my heart. Just seeing her fear of me and the love she had for her child.
And that was the moment I I I mean, I went home, and I did the praying like I told you about earlier. And and I thought, God put it on me. That's not enough this time. And the next morning, called the state director again, I'm like, where is this at? You know, where where are we going with this?
Where did the county you know, where is it at? And what would this look like if I if I had this type of situation? And she goes, well, in Denver, we probably have five people that would say yes. And so I'm like, alright. Maybe not for this, but maybe for all the others that are gonna come down because I knew my job wasn't I knew that that was gonna happen over and over again.
How could I resource us? And so during COVID, I I joke that she must have been like, well, good luck reaching out to the churches that are all closed. Maybe she wasn't. She's this wonderful individual. She's like, you find a church to partner with you. I'll find us the money. So kind of, what do they call it? Cart before the horse type of situation. And I went out, calling and Zoom meeting with every church, you know, emailing. I I remember one one church telling me, our foster care program isn't even up. I mean, we're not doing that ministry right now. Like, not right now. And then finally landed with a small church that was in the House of Neighborly Services Building that Greg, the instigator, connected me to. And we went out on a Wednesday night, September 2020, presented to their Wednesday night team. And small church, 12 people said yes.
We launched Safe Families. I got asked to be the family coach supervisor at the time, which is code for you're gonna do everything.
Jeff Faust: Yeah. Yeah.
Roxene Tines: And so that's kind of where our story landed.
Jeff Faust: Nothing like starting a new chapter in the midst of COVID.
Roxene Tines: Oh, it was tough, but you know what? I saw it. And I don't maybe you see this here in Fort Collins. A lot of beautiful things started during COVID.
Jeff Faust: Yeah.
Roxene Tines: People were
Jeff Faust: Well, when you have that downtime, you can think about innovative ways. You can think about the kinds of change that need to be brought to a space. I know my own leadership journey started here in Fort Collins slightly before COVID. And although you would never wish like a global pandemic on anyone No.
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: The the aftermath of that was a whole bunch of new beginnings. Yeah. And so that is kind of it is kind of a there are redemption stories in the midst of, you know, some really hard couple of years for sure. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about, then if you're trying to keep kids safe and families together, what does that look like? I mean, how I know you've talked a lot about preventative measures, but how like, if you were to imagine a a situation or a family that you would interact with as an organization, what would all, like, play into that? Well, how would that how would that play out on a on kind of an anecdotal basis?
Roxene Tines: So we get referrals from all our community partners, the county. That was a beautiful blessing to have already built a career there and have that relationship already built because nationally, you know, those relationships need to be built. So they're one of our biggest referral sources. We're now starting that in Weld too.
Jeff Faust: And when would they refer? Like, because to your own point, right, you're you're trying to respond before there's a crisis.
Roxene Tines: Mhmm.
Jeff Faust: So they're, like, seeing some rumblings or they're, like, hey. This could. If this doesn't go, if this gets unchecked, know, like, it could lead to something else. So this is the time and then they would reach out to you.
Roxene Tines: Yeah. So trying to trying to keep kids in home. So we we we have what's called the preventative work that we do, like, early on to try to resource and support families that maybe don't have. I mean, you and I, Jeff, could probably think of five people we could call if we needed help right now, but maybe families that don't have that. So they would call us just to offer that support.
I remember going out to the county and presenting safe families when it launched, and somebody on my old team saying, man, everybody needs a family friend. That's one of the roles our volunteers do, which is somebody to just have coffee with and share your successes and also your hardships, and have that person to call when you need somebody. And so, there was that, and then we also do what's nationally called edge of care. Like, okay, that situation I talk about where maybe we need a host family, maybe we don't have to use foster care, to not open that doorway. And so, Edge of Care is like, okay, could we host temporarily?
And while families can focus without the stress of also trying to take care of all their kids, could we host temporarily so they can get back on their feet. The beautiful thing and difference, I think, make clear about us and foster care, is parents never lose custody. They have to choose even when they're with the county to voluntarily work with safe families. It has to be on their it has to be of their heart. We can't force them. We can't make them. If they decide tomorrow they don't wanna work with us, that's that's okay.
At the core of what we do too is build these teams of volunteers within the church because who knows better and who's better gleaned to care for families than the church. And so we build these, what we call circles of support within the church, so the host family that can host temporarily if needed, The family coach who will really work with the parent or the host family to find the resources that are needed to make sure parents are stable and supported. So then that incorporates all our lovely community partners in Larimer County and in Fort Collins.
The family friend that can take a mom to work or take a kiddo to counseling because mom and dad both work nine to five and can't get the kiddo to the 01:00 counseling appointment. And then the resource friends that will provide play pens, diapers, wipes, you know, gas card if we're struggling to pick we fuel up the car. So we build this network for families, you know, and and they wrap around. And then the hope is I think our whole hope is is that, say families will go away and they have this network now. They have their core group of volunteers that'll walk alongside like a family.
And then ultimately, potentially, if they're open to it, maybe they get resourced by the whole church that that we're partnered with. And we've seen that happen, which is a really beautiful thing.
Jeff Faust: Well, this is I mean, this is something we talk a lot about at Love FoCo, that if some of these crisis moments or these situations that we're talking about where where we wanna intervene, just our heart is compelling us to intervene. If all of those things could be solved with money, America would have figured this out a long time ago because there's plenty of money around. I mean, our nation is a incredibly wealthy nation. If it was as simple as just writing a check, these things would be solved, but it's not. Although sometimes there are financial hardships that have to be addressed.
I I hear in the way that you're talking about this, also relational equity and social equity, emotional equity, mentorship, and the ability to build these relationships and have a community, around a family that's struggling. And, again, having to make trades that some people never have to face. And there's just so much more that's needed, than a simple, you know, check or or a dollar amount that it sounds like you guys are doing a really good job of intervening in those in those kind of second and third spaces as well.
Roxene Tines: Well, and for me, I might be biased, but it's the relationship that that is core. Well, It just it just is really, really key. And I think in society nowadays, we get so used to, okay, we have connections, right? We have connections on social media. I remember even searching through a mom's social media account, and her 400 and some friends for possible placement.
Well, they aren't they aren't solid relationships sometimes, you know, that, you know, you've got a lot of friends on there, but will they really show up when you need them? And so building this core group of relationships. It's almost for me, like I remember as a kid, you had those family gatherings for your cousins and your aunts and your, you know, you have these big group of family reunions of people that come and that's kind of not as it doesn't happen as much.
Jeff Faust: Well, it's even your I mean, even your story of when I was a single mom, I met other single moms and we relied on one another. We supported one another, and there's this kind of co-laboring to make it to the next step and the next stage in our life. And not everybody has that. Not everybody has that kind of built in system and and relational network. And, yeah, I mean, social media. Now they're even saying you can be friends with AI. The Gemini can be your whole Gemini is not gonna wash your kids. Okay? So you are in trouble. You need some real humans in your life
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: That you can lean on and that can lean on you Yeah. As well.
Roxene Tines: And and so that that for me that for me was the gap that was missing. I mean, we have a lot of resources. That's another beautiful thing about Fort Collins, another beautiful thing about our area. We have lots of resources. I can resource families with housing needs, with furniture, with Christmas gifts, with Thanksgiving.
I mean, look at the snap issues that we had and how many people across Fort Collins, it was beautiful to see that would step up and offer resources to these families. But what we noticed is like, how are our nine-to-five families getting to that resource during nine-to-five hours? So how could we step in and help them? Or how is the mom that doesn't have a car get to the food bank?
Jeff Faust: Right.
Roxene Tines: So it's still a core the core thing of that is your relationship. If you don't have the relationships, it still could be really, really hard to get
Jeff Faust: When if you're working that nine-to-five, you you need to you need to demonstrate that you are a reliable, hardworking individual. And if you can't make it to work sometimes because of a family emergency, you can be misperceived as not reliable, not hardworking. Even though you have way more grit than the average person, you just there's an emergency. And it's again, you're it's pulling you away from some of these things. And then if you if that stacks up, you could I I guess worst case scenario, lose that job.
But it's hard to even get promoted within that system to the point where now I'm actually getting a little bit ahead. Now I can, you know, I can purchase some things that my family needs. I can get ahead on bills, things like that. And, you know, one promotion is rarely enough, especially living in Northern Colorado because Uh-huh. The cost of living is just it's just tough.
Roxene Tines: Yeah. Even it's just tough. I I had a caseworker tell me as we're trying to figure out housing for a mom one time. I was like, that's unaffordable. And she goes, I can't afford it.
Yeah. And here's somebody with a degree that's working in a profession
Jeff Faust: Professional social.
Roxene Tines: Struggling to make I mean, my kids, when they look for studio apartments, it's starting at, what, $1,300 maybe is the cheapest. So, yeah, it's hard.
Jeff Faust: The price in Mitchell, South Dakota. I can promise you.
Roxene Tines: you.
Jeff Faust: Well, one of the things that I'm really excited, even just, like, sitting down and talking with you is because at Love FoCo, we're we're trying to create a a collaborative approach where nonprofits can be connected with one another, and we can use the best resources that each nonprofit has, which, of course, is it's it's physical needs, it's emotional needs, it's spiritual needs, and and it's just the relational networks and the ability to kind of surround one another in that space is what I'm, yeah, excited about what you guys are are doing and the ways that maybe our organizations will be able to serve one another in the future. But for everyone listening, I I we can wrap the conversation up here. I'm just curious how could individuals listening to this support what you're doing? I I'm sure there's volunteer opportunities. I'm sure I mean, you're a nonprofit, which I always tell people doesn't mean there's no money involved.
It just means there's no profit involved. So so tell us a little bit about ways we can give, ways that we can support, and and we'll make sure to link all of this in our…
Roxene Tines: So there's a beautiful thing. When this first started, it was me part time. I worked for the county as well. Low budget. Fantastic.
Also, too much work for one person to do part time. I've now got got more staff. I've got five there's five of us together, so our budget is high. Yep. And we're tasked to raise it ourselves.
So even though we have a national organization that provides oversight, we are we do all our own fundraising here. So of course there's the end of the year ask. You can go to Safe Families Northern Colorado. Just do a simple Google search and donate to our Safe Families chapter here in Northern Colorado. Monthly donors is huge because that provides stability.
So if you feel called to anything I've said today or wanna step in in that way, monthly donor is fantastic even if it's just a cup of coffee a month. You know, $10 at Starbucks. That's That's right. Those add up.
Jeff Faust: Especially like you said, that monthly donation that it allows a nonprofit to kind of rely on and say, okay. This is what we can count on. This is where we can go. Now projections for our annual budget get a little bit easier. I'm not sure people always realize that.
Yeah. The one time gifts are great too. I mean, if you're choosing between nothing and a one time, do a one time, but but the monthlies, they really do help kind of sustain a budget over the long haul, which I have to imagine is really important for you because you're not just meeting with a family once. You're building these relationships and these mentoring networks, and that's gonna take time.
Roxene Tines: Well, and we constantly have to grow. I will say Fort Collins right now, we're skipping a wait list all the time for our families. We need more volunteers. So also on our website. So if you feel called to a volunteer role, please reach out.
Talk to one of us. Even if it's just a cup cup of coffee to see what's out there, we'd love to meet with you. As far as other funding, know, fundraising efforts, I remember a pastor telling me, God will grow you in fundraising. I'm like, oh, I don't want him to grow me in fundraising, but he is.
Jeff Faust: If you can sell steak door to door.
Roxene Tines: I know, but I did not wanna go back to Fundraise. I I I assure people like and and I got to the core of my heart. I'm not asking asking for me. I'm asking for every family that we serve, and we've served a lot of families.
We try to all I mean, the two people that screen referrals, we have a heart to serve. It's really hard to say no. And if we say no, we're trying to connect them with everybody we know in the community to make sure they're served in some way. Anyways, and other fundraising campaigns, because I know we have to wrap up. So we have moved our big gala, it's our fourth annual gala, to February.
So February 27 at the Drake Center, we'll be doing our gala. It is transformational. We had last year a pastor speak. City Light Church was our first partner church here in Fort Collins. They also launched their church plant at the same time as Safe Families, so we watched each other grow together.
So that pastor spoke about how it transformed the church. We also had a host home speak. We had somebody from Larimer County DHS, a supervisor speak about how we needed to build this community for the people they served. And then we also had a mom speak who was actually about to have a baby last year about how it transformed her life, having Safe Families around. So that gala is coming up on the 27th.
We last year so if you're a runner, I'm a runner at heart. It was always on my bucket list even from starting safe families to do a 5k. We moved our annual walk to a 5k this last year. We coined it the hottest 5k in Colorado because it was actually the hottest day in June, not because it was the hottest event. But a way to really acknowledge our community is last year's model for our 5k is we invited as many community partners out to have a booth and share with anybody who came to our 5k, we wanna continue to grow that.
So even, like, where we're at next year with Love FoCo, we'd love for you guys to have a presence there for us to grow it together. And so that's a really, really fun event. We have Well,
Jeff Faust: and, like, I mean, this is one thing Gemini can help people with, our Chat GPT. You could you can literally type in couch to 5k.
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: Give me a training, you know, and they will come up with opportunities for you to to be able to stumble across that finish line.
Roxene Tines: And it was I wanna say it was a 100 degrees, and my biggest worry the day of was how many people we were gonna have to get medical care for. It was hot. Yeah. But we also had Phil Stacy out, who he used to be. He was American Idol alum, and he came out and performed.
And I felt really bad because I'm like, oh, so hot. Not a lot of people showed up, and he wants to come back. He's just like Yeah. Could feel that God was at work. Yeah.
And so that we may not have had thousands of people there, but we had God was at work in the moment. Yeah. All those things help grow what we're all trying to do, and that's to Love FoCo and love it well and take care of the people that I I just wanna see a world where everybody everybody feels like they have community.
Jeff Faust: I love that. Roxy, thank you so much for your time. I mean, a lot of what we're trying to do at Love FoCo, particularly this podcast and show, is celebrate stories, celebrate organizations and lives who are making a difference in our community one life at a time. I hear that in your story. I hear that in your organization.
For everyone listening, we'll put all kinds of links in our show notes, ways that you can get linked up to volunteer, become a monthly donor of your great work, look into the gala or even, you know, put on those running shoes and participate in that 5k. Thank you for that information, and just thanks for what you're doing in our community.
Roxene Tines: Yeah.
Jeff Faust: I know a lot of lives are gonna be changed, and so grateful for your work.
Roxene Tines: Thanks. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Love FoCo Show. If today's conversation inspired you, share it with a friend who loves Fort Collins as much as you do. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review. It helps more people discover us.
To learn more about Love FoCo and find opportunities for loving our city one life at a time, visit lovefoco.com. For now, keep loving Fort Collins well.
