What is Foster Care?
Foster care is the temporary placement of children outside their own homes. It becomes necessary when the children have experienced abuse, neglect or abandonment from their own families.
Often the goal is to reunite the child with his/her birth family in a healthy atmosphere, when and if that becomes possible, meanwhile caring for and nurturing the child in a safe environment. If reunification is not possible, or desirable, other options for permanency for the child may include kinship care (living with birth relatives), adoption, or (after age 18) independent living. Foster care is a steppingstone toward one of these goals.
The focus and primary concern must always be on and for the child, considering his/her welfare above all other considerations.
How long is temporary?
It may be as brief as a night or two, but is usually of indeterminate length, meaning: As long as it takes to achieve a permanent placement for the child. Some children in the Treatment Homes’ program have been with us longer, but the ‘typical’ length of therapeutic foster care is one to two years.