Foster Care - What Is It?

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What is Foster Care?

When families and children are in crisis, child welfare agencies have a legal and moral obligation to intervene. Successful intervention requires a partnership at the point of intervention. This partnership must provide ways to manage risks to children and assure their safety while building, rather than destroying family reunification. Therefore, foster care is meant to be a temporary living arrangement for children while their birth families work on safety issues. The length of foster care can range from a few days to sometimes a year or more. Many children in foster care do return to their birth families, but if safety continues to be an ongoing concern then they will be placed for adoption.

Henderson County Department of Social Services is committed to finding safe and loving homes to care for these children. We are currently in need of culturally and/or ethnically diverse foster homes to temporarily care for children.

Myths about Foster Care and Adoption

MYTH: You have to be a saint to be a foster or adoptive parent.
FACT: You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.

MYTH: You have to own a home to foster or adopt.
FACT: You can own or rent a home, trailer, or apartment.

MYTH: You have to be married to foster or adopt.
FACT: You can be single, married, divorced, or widowed.

MYTH: You have to be rich to be a foster/adoptive parent.
FACT: You don't have to be rich, but you must have some kind of income

MYTH: My well must be 25 feet from my house.
FACT: This rule is no longer true.

MYTH: It is expensive to adopt a child from a county agency.
FACT: The cost of adopting a foster child is provided by the agency.

Factors Leading to
Placement in Foster Care
Usually, there is not any one reason a child comes into foster care but a combination of factors may lead to placement such as:

  • Abuse or neglect
  • Abandonment
  • Family Stress caused by addiction, divorce/separation, mental illness
  • Illness or death of a parent
  • Child's behavior due to physical and/ or emotional handicap