Foster Care
Every child deserves a loving home
about our foster care PROGRAM
We take a whole-family approach to foster care.
The primary goal of foster care is ensuring the safety and well-being of the children served by the program. When children cannot live with their parents due to abuse, neglect, extreme poverty, mental health issues, or substance dependency – Caritas helps provide a loving foster home. If there is a difficult home situation that does not present a danger to the child, our Intact Family Services team intervenes while keeping the family together.
Our goal is always to first ensure the safety and well-being of the children, while we help the parents correct their situation. Our case managers work to heal the whole family so they can be reunited whenever possible. When returning children home is not an option, we provide alternative permanency placement through adoption or guardianship.
Caritas provides three types of foster care:
Fictive Kin Foster Care
Whenever possible, we look for a relative of the child or close friend of the family to provide foster care.
Traditional Foster Care
If a relative placement is not available, we place the child with one of our trained foster families to provide a temporary loving and supportive home.
Specialized Foster Care
Some children have emotional, behavioral, or medical needs that require specialized care. Specialized foster families are trained to provide the extra care these children require. We need foster families open to accepting placement of youth moving from therapeutic residential or psychiatric hospital settings to provide specialized foster care.
The Caritas foster care team provides support to families to meet their needs so they can reunify. We strive to help families build their own network of support systems to manage future challenges without becoming involved with the child welfare system again. Our approach is based on the Model of Care, family-focused, strength-based, and trauma informed.
Inquire about becoming a foster parent here: fosterparentresources@
CURRENT FOSTER PARENTS
Becoming A Foster Parent
Inquire about becoming a foster parent here: fosterparentresources@caritasfamily.org
Learn what foster
care is really about and how it strengthens our community.
Success Stories
Jocelynn Wiggins
Jocelynn and her younger brothers were in foster care, and spent much of their youth packing bags and moving between relatives’ homes and foster care placements. Jocelynn always wanted to take care of her brothers and said the hardest part was watching her younger brothers go through all the moves with her. After she began building a life for herself, the possibility of her brothers getting separated became very real, so she knew what she had to do.
MORE WAYS WE HELP CHILDREN IN NEED OF LOVING HOMES
