Foster Care Overview

Families are Needed!!
Thousands of children in North Carolina enter the foster care system each year, and range in age from infants to 18 years old. All foster children have unique backgrounds, experiences, personalities, strengths and needs. Some children in foster care require extensive care for physical or emotional handicaps and disabilities. Sometimes it becomes necessary to remove children from their homes. Maybe the home is not safe, maybe the caregiver could not care for them, or maybe they were abandoned... it does happen.

We need families who can provide one or more of the following options when a child comes into care:

Foster Homes
A temporary living arrangement for children, who has been abused, neglected or abandoned. It's a place where a child can feel safe, grow and develop, while enabling the child's parents to learn to cope with family difficulties. Length of stay varies with each unique situation. Foster parents can choose to care for one or more children.

Respite Care
When the primary foster family needs temporary relief for vacations, short-term illness, family emergency and/or self-care, then another licensed foster family will step in briefly.

Adoptive Homes
If reunification is not successful for children in foster care, then the goal for the child may change to adoption or custody given to another caretaker. Foster parents may be considered as adoptive parents if their foster child becomes available for adoption.

For further information, contact:

Tina Morgan, Social Work Supervisor, Email: tinamorgan@hendersoncountync.gov, 828-694-6249