Operation Open Arms

The mission of Operation Open Arms is to improve the lives of vulnerable children and allow them to thrive by providing a loving, nurturing, and stable home environment. OOA provides private foster care and adoption services to families in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Our former mission was to provide loving, caring, and nurturing foster homes for incarcerated mothers. We continue to serve the incarcerated population and have expanded to serve families in need of private foster care. Our founders, Cathy and Irv Bailey, were approached regarding a need in our community, a need for loving homes for children whose mothers were incarcerated and in the re-entry process. Since 1990, the female prisoner population in the U.S. has more than doubled, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. An estimated 70% of women in state prisons and 59% of women in federal prisons have young children. The need remains.

In addition, according to the United States Census Bureau, almost one-quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults. Many of these families need support, short-term and potentially long term as they work to improve their situation. OOA expanded its services to address this need.