Foster Care - What Is It?

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 up to a year or more. Reunification is always the primary goal of foster care.

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

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