Foster Care >

We appreciate your interest in becoming a foster parent. Please read about the specific types of parenting that you may experience by becoming part of Kinship Center's foster care programs. In each type of foster parenting, you will receive lots of education and ongoing support from Kinship Center staff.

Kinship Center provides a number of services in support of foster care.
Select a service or just scroll down:

• Therapeutic Foster Care
  
  Therapeutic foster parents are specially trained and continually supported to provide foster family care for children of any age. Children enter this program with identified emotional or physical problems that require a specific plan with both short and long term goals for their emotional, physical, developmental, and educational needs. The therapeutic foster parents works with the Kinship Center social worker to develop a treatment plan and carry it out. The goal for the child could be preparation for adoptive placement, long-term placement in the treatment foster home, or emancipation into adulthood. Each child's plan is individual and unique. Foster parents participate as part of a treatment team that may include the social worker, a therapist, the school, and other community resources.
  
  Foster parents in this program are paid an enhanced treatment rate for each child in their care that is determined by the age of the child.

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• Caring for the Medically Fragile or Developmentally Disabled Child
  
  Kinship Center is approved by Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled to care for children with special medical and/or developmental needs. Foster parents working in this program should have some medical training, such as Certified Nursing Assistant, Home Health Aide, RN, or have experience in caring for children with special medical or developmental needs. Qualified medical personnel provide additional training pertaining to the care of the particular child being placed in your home. The goals for each placement include medical management and a case plan geared toward healthy emotional development and life skills development to enable the child to participate at his/her optimal level in family life and community settings.
  
  Foster parents will work closely with the Kinship Center social worker and the Individualized Health Care Plan Team. Additional funds are available to purchase services to support the child's successfully living in a family: respite, school support, extracurricular activities, therapy, and specialized equipment. One parent must be at home full time to provide care. In this program, no more than two children may be in any foster home at one time. Foster parents are paid at an elevated treatment rate.

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• Pre-Adoptive Foster Care
  
  Kinship Center certifies a few foster parents to provide care to infants and toddlers whose birth parents may be considering adoptive placement. This is short-term care of no more than a few days to possibly six months. The primary goal of this program is to provide care, assess a child's development, and to prepare the child to move into an adoptive home or to return to his/her birth parent. Contact with birth parents may be an important part of the placement plan. Foster parents in this program are paid the standard County foster care rate.

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If you would like to learn more about foster care, we welcome your call or email. 1-800-4-KINSHIP or info@kinshipcenter.org or fill out our  foster care inquiry form.