Since it was founded, the Palmer Home has never strayed from its original mission according to David Foster, vice president and senior advior for the Palmer Home. He said it has followed the Christian principles mandated in James 1:27 which states, “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
According to the Christian Alliance for Orphans, there are approximately 402,378 children in foster care in the United States, of which 101,840 are waiting to be adopted; however, only around half of those children end up being adopted. On average, the age of children waiting to be adopted, is eight years old. Those children spend nearly 22 months in the foster care system. 
Originally an orphanage, the Palmer Home has transitioned and oriented itself more toward foster care, housing six to eight children living in cottages with a foster mother and father. 
The original orphanage building, Lindamood, built in 1898, now serves as an administration building for staff.
Lynn Atkins, vice president, residential, manages the daily operations for the Columbus campus interacting with foster parents and troubleshooting issues whenever they may arise. 
Carol Wright, vice president of business affairs, said the Palmer Home has gone through many changes over the course of her 23 years, though the fundamental principle has remained constant: caring for children. 
 With the Palmer Home’s new program, Whole Child Initiative, the potential to help more children is within reach. The Palmer Home, with its two locations in Hernando and Columbus, serves only 112 children. On the other hand, new and emerging opportunities with technology, such as the internet, have the possibility to reach millions. 
“The exciting thing about now is to really be able to serve more children,” Wright said.
Foster said it is an “exciting time,” referring to the launch of the new program he authored.
“We’re getting requests literally from all around the globe for these materials,” Foster said. 
In the past year, Foster has traveled extensively from Ghana to the Philippines to Helena, Montana, and Washington, D.C. 
At a recent conference in Accra, Ghana, he was the keynote speaker presenting the Whole Child Initiative with Ghana’s first lady and 16 African countries in attendance. While in Ghana, he helped launch Ghana Without Orphans an offshoot of World Without Orphans, which seeks adoption and foster care.
A month later, he headed to the Philippines, to train orphanage staff for a week. When he came back stateside, he headed to Helena, Montana, with his wife where he led training of the staff for the opening of a new children’s home called “The Little Children’s Home” modeled after, but not affiliated with, the Palmer Home and the Whole Child Initiative. 
As a keynote speaker for the Council on Residential Excellence (CORE) in Washington, D.C., he addressed different agencies who have residential programs for children.
One of the biggest differences between the United States and other countries, Foster said, is the concept of foster care. In Africa, the concept of taking a child into your home is still in its infancy. Compounding the problem are the sharp divisions that exist among tribes. Taking in a child from a different tribe, Foster said, is comparable to taking in a child from a different racial group which has now become common in America. In spite of the deep divisions, beliefs and attitudes are slowly beginning to change allowing more children the opportunity to receive a home.
As defined by UNICEF and its partners, an orphan refers to a child who is absent one or two parents. For most people who live in industrialized countries this may sound odd, but the AIDS crisis has left millions of children without a parent. Others have parents who currently live with the disease.
Worldwide, the Christian Alliance for Orphans estimates there are 150 million orphans. Of those 150 million orphans, 34.5 million have lost a mother, 101 million have lost a father, and 17.6 million have lost both mother and father becoming “double orphans.” 
No matter where Foster has gone in Africa, whether Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, or Uganda, he said the picture is nearly identical. The smell of charcoal fires everywhere, smog fills the air causing people to choke, and poverty exists on every corner. Children all over Africa sleep on sidewalks and stand in doorways of shops and markets, struggling daily just to survive. Many survive by stealing or selling things while others become trafficked for sex.
Foster’s background in ministry led him to his current career. The change occurred gradually, he said. While working as a church minister, he noticed there were members of his congregation who needed help, but which his ministry education and training had not prepared him. As a result, he decided to return to school and get training in psychology at Wheaton College so he could help them.
During his early time with Palmer Home, Foster said he was tasked with finding a way to assess children and help them in essential areas of their lives. This idea would become the basis for the Whole Child Initiative. 
Foster said the initial idea came from the current president and CEO of the Palmer Home, Drake Bassett. 
The Whole Child Initiative program labels itself as a “comprehensive approach,” and works by examining each child’s individual needs. What it gives those who care for children, is the training and insight needed to address the spiritual, emotional, physical and educational areas of a child’s life. Foster said his task involved writing a curriculum for online and on-site training addressing these needs. 
So far, Foster has written 26 lessons with nine lessons now available online. 
What Foster said he found in his 40 years of clinical experience working with children’s homes is that agencies focus only on one or two of those areas not all four. He said each of the four areas impacts the other in some way or another. 
Poor nutrition (physical) will affect a child’s emotional and educational abilities while abused and neglected children suffer emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Foster said he sees the future of the program constantly evolving from the contributions of others as well as the online resources continually expanding on the topics and issues the Whole Child Initiative covers. 
Although quickly approaching retirement, Foster and his wife, who teaches at the Palmer Home’s school, want to remain active participants with the Palmer Home continuing in some capacity for as long as they can. 
When the times does arrive for him to retire, Foster knows others will take up the task he started with the Whole Child Initiative, and continue to follow the Palmer Home’s mandate to help children in need.