A farmer’s daughter from Woodstock, Ontario, alumna Jennifer Ranter Hook ’06 never thought she would start her own nonprofit organization, let alone get a university education. Now, she is the winner of Redeemer University’s 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award.

After some encouragement from high school teachers, she decided to enrol at Redeemer. She chose kinesiology as her major and joined the Royals women’s basketball team as a post player, eventually becoming the team’s captain. For Hook, Redeemer was a place where she found belonging, made lifelong friendships, developed leadership skills, and made the “best memories.”

“Nobody in my family has done post-secondary education, so it was foreign to me to even go to a university,” says Hook. “It felt intimidating. But Redeemer felt [like an easy choice], I knew some people that were going, and it felt safe … It just felt like a fun, great atmosphere where I could nurture my faith, be with other like-minded people and get a good education.”

Finding Gaps in Church Support

While initially she selected psychology as a minor, over time she developed a deep interest in the subject. She largely credits the trajectory of her journey to the many supportive and accessible Redeemer professors who believed in her academic abilities. After earning a bachelor of arts in kinesiology from Redeemer, she took some extra courses at McMaster to achieve a double major in psychology. Hook then pursued a master of arts in clinical psychology from Wheaton College in Illinois, US.

[Redeemer] just felt like a fun, great atmosphere where I could nurture my faith, be with other like-minded people and get a good education.

After she graduated, she landed a job providing trauma counselling to children in the foster care system as young as three years old, as well as birth parents who wanted to reunify with their children. She describes this as an “eye-opening” experience and she began to recognize the gaps in support from church communities.

“The church is good at teaching people that the call to care for the orphan is deeply biblical. This message is consistent throughout Scripture. And what I saw was a lot of churches encouraging families to foster and adopt as something noble and important to the heart of God, [but] rarely did I see churches showing up to support families when they said yes. I think it’s because few people really understood how hard the journey was going to be. There’s just a lot of uniqueness to the foster and adoptive journey.”

As her work visa was about to expire, Hook was discerning whether to return to Canada or apply to stay in the US. She then encountered a series of incredible events that revealed God’s plan for her to stay put, including what she calls a prophetic vision from a stranger and a merciful border officer. “I feel very seen by God and appointed to do this work.”

I started to think about what it would look like for a church to say, ‘We love you so much. We’re going to do whatever it takes to support you.’ And part of that is becoming a trauma-informed church.

Supporting Foster and Adoptive Families

Shortly after, at her church in Wheaton, Hook’s ministry began to take root. What began in 2012 as small support meetings for foster and adoptive families grew quickly, expanding into what is known today as Replanted Ministry. 

“I saw a lot of adoptive and foster parents feeling way in over their heads. Friends, family and churches had good intentions and wanted to support them but didn’t know what to do. I started to think about what it would look like for a church to say, ‘We love you so much. We’re going to do whatever it takes to support you.’ And part of that is becoming a trauma-informed church.”

Replanted’s mission is to help foster and adoptive families heal, connect and thrive. Replanted engaged 555 parents and nearly 700 children across the US and Canada in 2024 and is currently in the process of expanding internationally. The organization operates more than 45 active support groups for both parents and children, offering families tangible, ongoing assistance. Replanted also supports more than 1200 adoptive and foster parents through an annual conference, now simulcast to multiple sites across North America and beyond, including Ireland, the UK, South Africa and India.

Being able to connect people together in a shared experience, in community, is changing outcomes for families.

“My favourite testimonials [are] hearing about our kids finding a sense of belonging, being pointed to Jesus in their pain. We don’t take away the pain, we can’t, but we come alongside families while they are in it … Being able to connect people together in a shared experience, in community, is changing outcomes for families.”

Resourcing God’s People

Hook argues that the church has mistakenly believed two unhelpful narratives. The first is that a foster child’s greatest need is to be rescued, and the second is that it is okay to dismiss foster and adoptive kids as problem children. Instead, Hook suggests a posture of selflessness and compassion.

“All children who have been impacted by adoption or foster care have experienced trauma. They’ve experienced grief and loss … These trauma experiences can lead to behavioural and emotional challenges [for] children. They’re going through something really hard.”

To help equip Christians with truth and hope, Hook has developed support group curriculum and co-published two books: Replanted: Faith-Based Support for Adoptive and Foster Families (2019) and Thriving Families: A Trauma-Informed Guidebook for the Foster and Adoptive Journey (2023).

According to research, Hook says, support is the number one predictor of positive family outcomes. This is especially evident in the US, where a lack of support leads about 50 per cent of foster parents to quit after the first year. By providing spaces of connection and support, Hook is equipping foster and adoptive parents to reflect Christ’s love in challenging circumstances.

Jennifer Ranter Hook is the 12th annual recipient of Redeemer University’s Distinguished Alumni Award and will be receiving the award at Redeemer’s Alumni Award Reception on September 29, 2025. Learn more about the award and past winners on the award website.