After surviving 14 years of the worst abuse seen within England’s foster care system, Angie has dedicated her life to helping underprivileged children and supporting foster families here in Champaign County and throughout the States of Illinois and Indiana. Using the money awarded to her in a lawsuit against England’s Social Services, Angie has developed NCUL to meet the individualized needs of th
e local community. Since its inception, NCUL has partnered with School Districts such as Champaign, Urbana, Angie serves as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and as a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) in Illinois and Indiana. She is a certified Child/Youth Mentor and Coach, specializing in Child Abuse, autism spectrum disorder (AUD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She is also an award-winning author for her book Surviving the Devil: An Account of Adoption and Abuse, which is used in her workshops to promote abuse awareness. Angie remains a highly sought motivational speaker and in 2016 was inducted by Oxford’s Who’s Who into the highest Professional Distinction "Top Tier of Excellence Lifetime Achievement Recognition” due to her outstanding contributions and achievements in the Non-Profit Arena. Programs and Services. No Child Unloved continues to develop meaningful programs and services to support children involved in the foster care system and their families. Current programs include, but are not limited to:
Bright Night, Sleep Tight Care Package Distribution Program – This program is designed for the most disadvantaged youth in foster care -- those youth who have disabilities ranging from minor developmental delays to significant mental and physical disabilities. Evidence suggests that these children experience worse outcomes than other children in foster care such as more placement insecurity, longer lengths of stay within the foster care system, lower rates of permanency and reunification with birth families/guardians, higher rates of reentry into care and higher rates of maltreatment and abuse. Founder, Angie Cox, personally meets each of these children and remains as a point of contact throughout their foster care stay. During her first meeting, she distributes a much needed and appreciated care package filled with carefully selected items that bring comfort to the youth and help mitigate some of the stress for these children and their foster families. Packages include items such as: the weighted blankets that help calm people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); scented stuffed animals used to alleviate odor-connected traumatic flashbacks by children with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); audio bedtime stories recorded by Angie to give children a familiar presence at night when they are most afraid; and new pajamas to help children feel shiny and new during bedtime, which many have experienced as the time when bad things happen. Moving Forward – Educational workshop for foster families that teaches child abuse awareness, including the signs, symptoms and types of abuse and trauma. The workshop, which is delivered in both an individual and a group format, is administered in six 90-minute sessions focusing on building the communication skills of foster families and cultivating empathy for abuse victims. Moving Forward uses a combination of lecture, role play, and take-home assignments to help families better understand the children they bring into their homes. The goal of the program is to support the families’ attempts to create a nurturing, stable home environment by preparing them for the child’s response to stress and helping them understand the importance of and challenges to establishing a child’s attachment to caregivers. The workshop is delivered in partnership with Cunningham Children’s Home, Generations of Hope etc. Inspire Kindness and Purpose – School-based educational workshop for teens that fosters socio-emotional skill-building among youth that are vulnerable to violence. This two-hour workshop promotes peer-to-peer awareness of the signs, symptoms and types of abuse with a particular emphasis on bullying and dating violence. Through team-building exercises, teens practice identifying peers who are dealing with major stressors, work to overcome roadblocks to empathy, learn the importance of peer mentoring, deepen their self-respect and develop a greater sense of purpose within their peer group. Victim Advocacy Services. Angie assists children and non-offending caregivers in being informed and prepared for investigations, prosecutions and treatment. NCUL is currently mentoring 32 youth in foster care with histories of severe abuse, and remains a site for student service-learning projects for several youth in both high school and college who have completed the school-based workshop.
