What Is Foster Care?
Foster Care: Temporary care for children and youth in crisis. Permanency through reunification is the first goal.
The word ”foster” means to help someone (or something) to grow and develop. It means to take care of someone’s needs.
Foster parents are people, other than the child’s parents, who give a child a safe place to live and grow. Foster parents take children or youth into their homes and take care of them for as long as the youth needs.
The first goal of foster care is to help the child and the family get the help and support they need for reunification. The goal is always permanency through reunification, and when that is not possible, kinship options would come next.
Kinship (traditional or non-traditional)
Kinship care is when a child/youth is placed in the home of someone they knew before they entered care. This could be a family member, family friend, neighbor, teacher, coach, etc. Intake workers will always try to place youth with kinship when possible.
Traditional
Traditional care is when a youth is placed in the home of someone they didn’t know when a crisis arises. Foster care can be emergency (in the middle of the night), short-term (until they find kinship), or long-term placements that are in the home until the case plan is worked out.
Therapeutic/Treatment:
These types of foster care are for children and youth who have high levels of emotional, behavioral or mental health needs and receive treatment from a highly trained foster parent in a home. Both therapeutic and treatment foster care parents are highly trained to provide intensive caregiving and support the treatment plan.
Respite Care:
Respite care is when a licensed home cares for a youth for a few days to a month. This is in place of the current foster home when they need time away for work, travel, personal needs, etc.
Emergency Care:
This is a short-term placement that looks different depending on the situation. Some areas have on-call providers who take in placements that come in after hours. Other areas will call foster parents for emergencies (after hours, something has happened that needs immediate assistance, but is not a long-term placement, etc).
When a case is brought to protective services, they first try to provide support to keep children in their homes. When that is not possible and a child enters kinship or foster care, the primary and first goal is always reunification.
When a case goes to foster care, the caregivers from whom the child(ren) were removed are given a case plan to follow for reunification to happen. This case plan is monitored throughout the case and will be discussed in court (see below). When it is safe and viable for the child(ren) to return home, it will be ruled that they are reunified.
It is important to understand that adoption is never the goal or a guaranteed outcome of fostering. You should not enter fostering with the hope of adopting a child placed with you.
1
Dependency and Neglect, Petition
2
Preliminary Protection Proceeding
3
Regularly Schedule Review Hearings
&
Permanency Plan
Hearings
Scheduled Throughout the Court Process
4
Reunification
or
Least drastic permanency option
(kinship, guardianship, adoption, etc)
1. When a child or sibling group is removed from their home, a petition is sent to the courts, and then there’s a preliminary protective hearing. This first hearing must take place within 72 hours and is when the judge decides if the child should be temporarily removed from the home.
2. Within the first few months, the adjudicatory hearing happens. This is when the court decides if the child was neglected or abused. If the court finds they were, a case treatment plan will go into effect.
3. That treatment plan is checked on during regularly scheduled review hearings (typically every 90 days). The plan is case-specific, and the goal of the treatment plan is reunification. In addition to the regularly scheduled hearings to check on the case plan, there are also permanency hearings. Throughout a case, concurrent planning is happening. This means they start looking at the least drastic permanent option if the parents cannot reunify.
4. The child(ren) will return home once the court decides reunification is safe and viable. If they cannot return home, the least drastic permanency option will be decided upon by the team. Those options could include: kinship placement, guardianship, adoption, etc.
After the intake workers have deemed the necessity of a child/youth to be placed in foster care, they will first look for kinship options. If kinship isn’t quickly found, they will start the process of placing the child in foster care. This entails looking at the licensed families in the area, seeing which ones are open, and then calling or emailing the open families to see if they can take the child.
When foster families receive a call or email, it will include information such as: how many children, ages, reason for removal, any background information they may know about the children, and if/where they are enrolled in school.
Once a foster placement is made, the child is placed with the chosen family, and regular visits from caseworkers ensure the child’s well-being and progress.
**Some states have county or state-run foster care programs, some use private child placing agencies (CPAs), and some use both. In areas where both county programs and CPAs exist, the county will always look at the families licensed through them before placing a child/youth with a family licensed through a CPA. The aim is to keep children as close to their “home base” as possible.
Foster care can be overwhelming on so many levels. New kids in the home, involved in the court system, AND all the people involved that can make for a full schedule!
These are some of the people involved when a family does foster care:
- The child or children in care come with a caseworker assigned to them. He or she has the job of providing and coordinating services on the case and keeping the family in contact. The caseworker does a home visit at least once a month.
- Then we have the biological family. This is typically the mom and/or dad but sometimes includes other family members as well. Many foster parents try to foster a relationship with the bio families.
- All kids in care are assigned a GAL (Guardian ad Litem) or CFY (Council for Youth). The GAL/CFY are attorneys assigned to the case to represent the child’s best interests.
- Other attorneys involved include the county attorney and the respondent parent’s counsel.
- When a child goes to visit their birth parents, there is typically a visitation supervisor who sits in for all or some of the visit to be sure things are going well.
- CASAS (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) are trained community volunteers who are appointed to advocate for the best interests and safety of your child(ren).
- Then there are therapists, teachers, medical providers, coaches, and other important people who help the child thrive.
- Helpers are individuals who provide support to the foster parents.
- Transporters are people hired by the state/county or volunteers who help transport kids to visitations, appointments, etc.
As you can see, there are a lot of people, a lot of appointments, and a lot of time that goes into fostering!