Some foster children can be successful in therapeutic care rather than the basic foster care. Foster children who continually struggle with behavior problems, mental illnesses, mental retardation, and many countless failures and disruptions in basic foster children can end up in a therapeutic foster placement or treatment care.

A high school boy named Patrick was placed in a therapeutic foster home due to his behaviors instead of being placed in a juvenile facility. After finding the right placement for this boy he has improved. Patrick is turning into a teenager that is learning... more

I have been asked about how a family member goes about kinship placement and the laws, can kinship placement go over state lines, etc.

Kinship foster care placement is done differently in every state and in some, it differs with each county. Some states are starting to get laws and guidelines on kinship placements. My advice to anyone thinking of providing kinship placement for a relative is to think about how this might change the family dynamic.

If you are a family member that is in the process or their children are in foster care, do not wait on the biological parents to provide names of family members willing to care for the children. Sadly, some biological... more

More facts are coming to light to the missing toddler in Florida that was found in Wisconsin. One thing that was very interesting was that the “foster parent” was not a licensed foster parent. The toddler was placed with a friend of the mother so this would be kinship placement.

The friend providing care for the toddler says that the mother showed up and took the toddler without permission. She did not report the toddler missing or being taken for ten days to the caseworker. The toddler’s mother says that the friend... more

Some agencies use the term “legal risk placement” while others do not. Some people state it is a made up term. I do hear this term used a lot with agencies, caseworkers, foster parents and child welfare.

A "legal risk placement" goal is usually adoption but there is a “risk” that the child will be returned to the biological parents. In cases where this is not the first time the child has come into care, in prior placement(s) the child was reunited with biological parents. After returning to foster care again it may be decided to look for a foster to adopt placement with the plan being adoption. Children that are more apt be to labeled a “legal risk placement” are... more

Foster parents that have been parenting the foster children while they have be in care in most cases will get the first option to adopt the children. In a lot of cases, the foster parents do not necessarily start fostering a child thinking that they will adopt, but as time goes on the child becomes a part of their family.

In foster care, some children just capture your heart from the beginning and we have to wait to see how things play out with the biological parents. When young foster children are placed into a foster family in most cases people get attached pretty quickly.

When we started our "foster to adopt" journey we were looking for school age children to adopt but... more

There are cases that kinship care works perfectly while others it brings a whole host of problems to the table. Every family has different dynamics.

Kinship care can be a less traumatic experience for some foster children. A number of families are able to provide care short-term and in some cases for the whole childhood. One situation I know about more recently is a grandmother who provided care for three of her grandchildren. While her daughter got off drugs and got her life together. Her mother was unclear if her daughter would be able to do what she needed to do for her children. She was willing to provide long term care for her grandchildren if the courts decided that the children... more

We have used alarms with our foster children to ensure the safety of others and to be able to sleep at night. I have been known to use a handful in one room for one child. Some can and will try to find a way around them, so if you have more than a couple one will sound. You cannot be too careful with your own children in possible harm's way. I also place two alarms on my own children’s bedroom door to ensure that at night no one could harm them.

I woke up one night (because I felt someone in our bedroom) low and behold there was our son (That we later learned was schizophrenic and homicidal) standing at the end of my side of the bed. As you can imagine, I was a little freaked out... more

What is heartbreaking is that the ages of the therapeutic foster child is getting younger. I believe that the drug problem of this country is a factor of this. When moms are so high on “meth”, their parenting and children are not a concern. All they can think about is their next fix (how they are going to get it and pay for it). So the children become part of it by living where drugs are being cooked, men having sex with the children to pay for the drugs, watching mom prostitute herself to pay for the drugs (some cases their children have been in the hotel while the act take places their age does not matter).

Most of these children do not know what a real parent is like. In some... more

This is type of foster care that I am licensed in so I do have more knowledge in this area. In this type of foster care, you will be working with medically fragile and emotionally disturbed children. These children probably are not the best fit with parents that do not have parenting experience. Most therapeutic foster care agencies wants a parent that has experience working or parenting trouble teens, emotionally disturbed children or very difficult children. Therapeutic fostering is also called treatment fostering by different people.

These are not children that have experienced some abuse. Most of these children have lived with severe abuse and some have lived this way for years.... more

Short term foster care can be a few weeks to a few months. When they remove child to do a proper investigation of possible abuse, the children then would be placed in short term foster care. You do not see this wanted a lot, most investigations will take place in the home and the children then will only be removed if there is some form of abuse occurring in the home. In case where the children are removed first and the investigation follows, this tends to involve serious concerns were the death of a child may be present.

Another reason can be a parent is facing a crisis whether it be financial, health, other personal reasons, etc. and they do not have family or others to turn to... more