Child Welfare Services

Foster care is a planned way to support children and families who cannot live together.

Foster parents provide care and supervision while the family works towards living together again. Children in foster care may live with unrelated foster parents, with relatives, with families who plan to adopt them, or in group homes or residential treatment centers. It is generally expected that children will return to their parents as soon as possible, or will be provided with safe, stable and loving families through placement with relatives or adoption. Some children, however, remain in foster care for long periods of time.

It is understandable that the children needing foster care are often afraid, angry, confused, and heart-broken. Some foster children have special needs, such as emotional, behavioral, physical, or developmental problems.