Foster parenting takes many forms and offers many options. Some foster parents provide short-term care, while others provide a home for a child for the long term. Children from infants to teenagers may become foster children, on a short- or long-term basis. Children are placed with foster parents for a variety of reasons.
Being a successful foster parent depends on many things, including patience, responsibility and love. Prospective foster parents are, understandably, thoroughly screened. They must pass a number of health checks, background checks and home safety certification checks. They must also complete a training course and provide letters of reference.
One website for foster parents identifies the levels and types of care providers.
Emergency care and short-term care
Emergency care parents may be called upon at a moment's notice to take a child in need of care. Either the child has been left without a family or the family is experiencing circumstances that threaten the child's safety and well-being.
Short-term care, explains Roger R. Fenton, may arise when a child is removed from the home temporarily. In these cases, there is every expectation that the child will eventually return to his or her home when parents are able to resume their responsibilities. This may be simply a matter of a parent needing medical attention but lacking anyone to care for the child while they are undergoing treatment.
Long-term care
Fenton explains that long-term care comes about through a variety of circumstances. First, older children may resist adoption. Sometime a short-term care situation becomes long-term when it is deemed in the best interest of the child. Fenton explains, too, that in these long-term cases, children often remain in the foster home even after the subsidy ends at age 18. They have become part of the family.
Respite care
Respite care is exactly what it sounds like: short-term care that allows parents a break. These may be children with a high need for intensive care that causes caregivers to burn out. When the parents need a break, respite foster parents provide that time. These foster parents may have special training.
Likewise, therapeutic care may be provided for children who require a great deal of physical or emotional support. In some cases, two parents are needed round the clock to provide care, and they may leave their employment to care for these children. Therapeutic foster parents have a background in caring for these children and it becomes their career. They are compensated accordingly.
Traditional care
Under this arrangement, children are placed in a foster home with the expectation that they will eventually be reunited with their family, but that may be some time in the future. In many cases, the foster parents work closely with social service workers and have frequent contact with the child's parents.
Regardless of the foster parent option, strong emotional ties often develop, and children and foster parents often remain close for a lifetime. Good foster parents are able to set boundaries and maintain a loving yet consistent pattern in dealing with children. Good foster parents also work well with school officials and teachers, social service workers and the child's parents in many cases.
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Guides to foster children including special needs of foster children, becoming a foster parent, birth parents and more. |
With the majority of foster kids being eventually returned to their birth families, foster children who are up for adoption are special cases with unique needs. |
There are differences between foster parenting and adoption, some insignificant and some major. |
Foster adoption sometimes occurs when a foster family decides to adopt a child who has been living with them as a foster child. But whether you are familiar with the child or considering adopting a foster child from another home, adoptive parents need to understand the distinctive needs of a child who has been in the foster care system. |
When a child is taken from his family and placed in foster care, it is a difficult time for the child, the birth parents and the foster family. |
