Our Families

We are currently growing our team of volunteers across the Kansas City area. Volunteers serve a variety of roles including hosting children or providing services such as transportation, parent mentoring, and supplying tangible items such as diapers, car seats, and meals.

Our Churches

Churches throughout our network play a significant role with Safe Families. It is through a partnership with local churches that we are able to recruit, train and mobilize volunteers to care for children and their families. Churches of all sizes, denominations, or non-denominational backgrounds partner with Safe Families for Children as either a Partner, Lead or Community Lead church. If your church would like to participate with Safe Families, please let us know!

Churches partnering with Safe Families can range from urban to suburban to rural, and from small to large. Some churches may have many host families, family coaches and family friends; while other churches have just a few but also provide much needed support and resources to our volunteers. We are excited to see more and more churches see the need for helping struggling families and how simple acts of compassion and hospitality can truly impact lives, offer hope and provide a tangible expression of the Gospel.

Our Team

The heart and soul of Safe Families for Children are our volunteers and churches. Without the service and leadership they provide in their local contexts, struggling families will continue to be unsupported. Each Community Lead church has a Ministry Lead who helps organize Safe Families in their church and community. But they can’t do it alone. We also have a team of professionals passionately investing their lives in engaging and supporting churches, community partner (referral source) recruitment, building our base of volunteers, transitioning children, family coach supervision, vetting and training volunteers, fundraising and so much more. Below are some of our key team members, who are both staff, implementers, and volunteers in our chapter.

Russ is the Chapter Director for the KC Metro region and joined Safe Families for Children in March, 2021 where he began work in the areas of Intake, Church & Community Engagement, and Family Coaching. Russ is a K-State graduate and while most of his professional career was in Corporate HR, it was his later roles as a middle school educator, behavioral interventionist, and as a foster / adoptive parent that drew his heart into the vision and mission of Safe Families.  

Russ and his wife, Tiffany, have two (young adult) children they adopted from foster care, and are now grandparents. They live in Shawnee and attend Westside Family Church in Lenexa where they helped plant the seeds and grow a thriving foster & adoption ministry. 

Russ’s happy place is the kitchen where he loves to cook and entertain. He also loves to bring smiles to people’s faces through compassion and humor. And one of his favorite scriptures is Colossians 3:12 – “Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”    

Grant joined Safe Families for Children in October of 2025. He is originally from Overland Park, KS, and is a graduate of Baker University in Baldwin city, KS, where he was a member of the track in cross country team. Grant brings a passion for connecting churches with meaningful opportunities to serve vulnerable children and families. His heart for ministry and community engagement drives his work to build strong partnerships with local volunteers. Grant is committed to be a source of hope, healing, practical support for those in need.

Heather Northrop serves as a family coach in the Kansas City metro area. She spent a decade abroad, engaging the least reached people groups of the Middle East through YWAM. Having grown-up without a father, and an estranged mother, she made it her life mission to fight to have a home that reflected the image of God, with two dedicated parents that loved their children recklessly. She believes that this is her highest call apart from walking with God daily.

Her professional career  when stateside, took her into the public school system to work with the behavioral needs of preteens and through God‘s providence into fostering countless youth. She adores the local church and sees it as a mission field. She has led large group women’s discipleship gatherings, as well as intimate small groups in homes.

She and her husband of 26 years have two beautiful adult daughters and one grandson. One of her favorite lessons learned is “ I must have equal time on my knees, to time on my feet.” She cherishes the global prayer movement and knows that prayer, whether corporate or individual is the most effective strategy for any movements relevance this side of Heaven.

“I pray for them all to be joined together as one even as you and I, Father, are joined together as one. I pray for them to become one with us so that the world will recognize that you sent me.” -Jesus from 
‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭21‬ ‭

The Centralized Kansas Team

Learn More About the Team