Fostercare

Foster care is a safety service for children when they are unable to remain safely at home. Children are provided with a substitute or supplemental family life experience in an HHS System approved or licensed home for a planned, temporary period of time. The parents of these children receive support in working toward reunifying their family or an alternate permanent plan for their child.

The primary goal for children in foster care is to return them to their families. Foster parents have the responsibility of helping children and their parents achieve this goal. Foster parenting, then, is not a lifetime commitment to a child, but a commitment to be meaningful to a child’s lifetime. Foster family care often means families helping families.

The Department of Health and Human Services is committed to permanency for all the children in its custody. We believe that all children have a right to continuity in parenting and to a permanent family that is able to provide for their individual needs. Therefore, we try to help children remain with birth families whenever possible. When this is not possible, we try to help the child find security in an alternative permanent family, preferably through adoption or guardianship.

The caseworker is responsible for providing services that will help the child have a permanent family. The worker helps the birth family find ways to remedy the problems that resulted in the foster care placement. If these problems can't be resolved, the worker must then take steps to provide the child with an alternative permanent family. This often requires action by the court and the attorneys involved with that court.

Foster parents, play a critical role in helping a child achieve a permanent living situation by participating as a team member on the child’s case, working with the child’s parent(s) or helping prepare the child to move into another permanent living arrangement

Who to Call for More Information

Each area of the state has a foster care worker whose primary focus is on working with foster families. Contact your local Health and Human Services Office for the name of the foster care worker in your area.

1-800-7PARENT
(1-800-772-7368)