About WARE

WARE is a password protected site featuring youth in foster care in Washington State and families who are looking to adopt. WARE empowers social workers and featured families to make important connections that lead to permanency.

If you are a family in Washington State with a current home study or foster license, you are eligible to register with WARE. While using WARE, you are able to connect with social workers to discover if your family may be a good match for a featured youth.

Most social workers in Washington State are eligible to create an account with WARE in order to register youth in foster care, peruse featured families, learn about upcoming recruitment events, and connect with families in Washington State.

Our Approach

At WARE, we focus on three main values: youth empowerment, community building, and making connections. We search for innovative ways for youth to tell their stories to potential adoptive families. We work directly with social workers, state partners, and when appropriate youth themselves, to find the right family for every child. When a family in Washington State submits interest on a featured youth’s story, we connect the family with the youth’s social worker.

The Washington Adoption Resource Exchange is a program of Northwest Resource Associates.

Our Staff

Tyler Helbach (he/him), M.P.A., Director

Brandon Adams (he/him), In-Depth Profiles Project Manager

Nick Baumgartner (he/him), Youth Engagement Specialist

Thea Carter (she/her), Information and Support Specialist

Naomi Kolb-Untinen (they/them), Youth Engagement Specialist

Jessica Tholmer (she/her), Northwest Adoption Exchange Program Manager

Lori Woodbury (she/her), WARE Program Assistant