Foster Care / Kinship Care
Are You Ready to Become a Foster Parent?
Do You Want to Help Children in Your Community?
Loftus-Vergari and Associates is actively recruiting foster parents for children and teens in your community and surrounding areas. A foster parent needs to be committed to providing a safe and nurturing family environment for a child until he or she can return home to live with their biological family.
Supporting Pennsylvania’s Children
Loving families, much like yours, play a pivotal role in the success of Pennsylvania’s child welfare system. Presently, there are approximately 15,000 children in temporary foster care across the state. As a foster parent, you have a unique opportunity to make a profound and enduring impact on the lives of these children.
Taking the First Step
Individuals interested in becoming foster parents must be at least 21 years old. Becoming a foster family involves a thorough background check to ensure the child’s safety. The agency conducts criminal background checks and child abuse clearances for everyone in your home aged 14 and older. While financial wealth is not a prerequisite for foster families, the approval process involves a comprehensive assessment of your overall family situation and history, including financial stability. The physical aspects of your home are also evaluated to ensure it offers adequate space and meets all safety standards for a child.
Several other factors are considered:
- Your ability to provide care, nurturing, and supervision.
- Maintaining an emotionally stable environment.
- Community connections with family, friends, and neighbors.
- Your relationship with your own children (if applicable).
- Capability to meet the unique needs of the child.
In addition to receiving training and support, foster parents are reimbursed for the expenses associated with caring for a foster child, and healthcare costs are typically covered.
A Special Calling
Foster parenting demands a unique type of person who can provide stability to children in crisis when their own homes are temporarily unsuitable. These children still require the fundamental elements all kids need: security, nurturing, and guidance. Foster parents step in to provide these essential elements on a temporary basis.
Embracing Change
Most children remain in foster care for a brief period, with the majority eventually returning to their biological families. A foster home becomes a vital sanctuary, safeguarding children, helping them cope with their grief and loss, and preparing them for their eventual reunion with their families. This role demands special individuals—those who can welcome children into their homes knowing that, when the time is right, they will lovingly let them go.
While most foster children reunite with their biological families, if the court determines that it is not in the child’s best interest, parental rights may be terminated, leading to potential adoption. Foster parents can play a crucial role in helping the child transition to an adoptive family, or they may choose to adopt the child into their own home.
Depending on the duration of a child’s stay in foster care, foster parents often have the most insight into the child’s needs and preferences. Their valuable input is acknowledged and appreciated in any decisions concerning the child’s future. Adoptive parents need not feel threatened by the bond and affection shared between the child and their foster family. This attachment does not diminish the love the child can develop for their adoptive parents. By forming strong bonds with their foster families, children are better prepared to navigate life’s challenges because they experienced love and care from everyone involved in their upbringing.
Transitioning to Adoption
If a foster family decides to adopt their foster child, they will undergo an adoptive family profile or home study. This process includes training, coaching, and interviews regarding the lifelong commitment to adoption, distinct from the temporary nature of foster care. Even though foster parents have cared for the child and undergone previous foster home studies, the same legal requirements apply to them as to any adoptive parent.
What is Kinship Care
Kinship care occurs when grandparents, other relatives, or in some cases a fictive family member (someone who is close to the family and has a strong emotional relationship with the child but is not related through blood) assumes care of a child who has been removed from their parents by Children and Youth Services. There are two forms of kinship care that exist, that is both formal and informal care.
Formal Kinship Care
When children are removed from their biological parents’ homes and placed into the legal custody of the County Children and Youth agency, they enter the foster care system. For grandparents or other family members wishing to assume the role of a formal kinship caregiver for a child in care, a specific process must be followed: becoming a licensed foster home. This process typically spans a minimum of 60 days and includes various essential steps, such as criminal background checks, child-abuse clearances, FBI fingerprinting and clearance checks, home studies, training, and ongoing collaboration with a children and youth caseworker and other mandated service providers, as directed by the county children and youth agency. It’s essential to note that all decisions regarding the child’s legal status, including custody arrangements, are determined through legal proceedings in the courts.
Informal Kinship Care
Informal kinship care occurs when a grandparent or another relative takes on the responsibility of caring for a relative child without involving family court proceedings and without receiving financial support from the child welfare system. To provide care for these children, the kinship caregiver may opt to request that the biological parents create and sign a note affirming that their children are under the relative’s care, which can be either notarized or un-notarized. This document can be instrumental when applying for benefits like food stamps, health insurance, and child-only temporary assistance through the county assistance office. It’s essential to note that this note does not hold legal weight. If the caregiver desires a legally binding document, they have the option to pursue custody or guardianship through the family court system.