What is Therapeutic Foster Care?
Potential Foster Care Provider Qualifications
Becoming a foster/adoptive parent
The Role and Responsibilities of foster/adoptive parents
What is Therapeutic Foster Care?
Therapeutic foster care is specially designed to handle the demands of children who have experienced various types of abuse and neglect. Their emotional or behavioral problems require special attention and intervention. Therapeutic foster/adoptive parents are people who have the ability to parent the more challenging child. Therapeutic foster/adoptive parents get specialized training to help them work with these children. They also receive support and other services from Circles of Care to aid them in caring for these children. These will be explained below.
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Foster/adoptive parent Qualifications
In order to become a foster/adoptive parent with Circles
of Care, a household must have all of the following minimum qualifications:
1. Be a United States Citizen or US Resident
2. Be at least 21 years of age if married, and at least 25 if single
3. If married, must be married for at least one year
4. If divorced or widowed, must have been for at least one year
5. Have a highschool diploma or GEB or demonstrate equivelant
6. Have no criminal history violating state standards
7. Have no history of abuse or neglect
8. Have at least 40 square feet of space if child will be sharing a bedroom
9. Home/apartment equipped with heat and air conditioning
10. Have reliable transportation (own a vehicle)
11. Available hopsital or emergency services with 40 miles
12. Available public schools
Becoming a foster/adoptive parent
There are 5 main steps to becoming a foster/adoptive parent with Circles of Care:
- Contact COC office to arrange for an orientation meeting
- Complete an application, and criminal background check
- Complete a home study interview with COC social worker
- Attend pre-service training, including training in CPR and First Aid, Preventative Management of Aggressive Behavior, Behavior Management, Communication, Abuse & Neglect, and Separation and Loss
- Obtain inspections to include Health, Fire, TB test for every household member, and rabies vaccinations for all family pets.
Support / Services Provided
There are services and support for all foster/adoptive parents within the COC system, including:
1. 24 hour Case Management support
2. Reimbursement; rates per day, per child:
| Basic Care | $20.60 | Levels of Care are based on child/youth needs and degree of emotional or behavioral problems. |
| Moderate Care | $36.00 | |
| Specialized Care | $46.30 | |
3. Initial clothing allowance
4. Training money provided to obtain annual continuing education training
requirements
5. Foster family appreciation events
6. Agency events/outings for children
An overview of the role and responsibilities of foster/adoptive parents
The role of foster/adoptive parents as defined by COC is outlined as such:
- Provide a safe environment for children
- Provide food, clothing, school supplies, personal hygiene needs, and recreation
- Transport children to and from necessary medical and mental health appointments, biological parent / child visits, court appointments and other necessary appointments
- Provide positive role modeling, support, structure and discipline
- Participate in the development of child / youth service/treatment plan
- Participate in child/youth education to include attending ARD meetings, parent/teacher conferences as necessary and aid child in schoolwork as needed.