Treatment Foster Care
The UMFS Treatment Foster Care Program was developed in 1980 in Richmond. This program provides for a therapeutic structured environment that allows us to place emotionally, behaviorally, physically, or medically challenged youth in the community. Treatment foster parents are trained to be part of a professionally supervised team model based in the home and serving children and adolescents with certain emotional, behavioral, psychiatric, and psychological problems.
Treatment foster parents and a treatment foster care team work together to create a home environment that is not only healthy and supportive, but also intensely structured in ways that are beneficial to those with special needs, who can include:
- Sibling groups
- Youth transitioning from more restrictive treatment environments
- Developmentally delayed or medically fragile youth
- Youth who have experienced adoption disruptions and those in need of planning for permanent care arrangements
- Pregnant youth
Treatment foster parents are given extensive training before being accepted into our Treatment Foster Care program. (See our News/Events listing for upcoming training dates.) When a child or adolescent is placed in a foster home, we continue to support the family with:
- Visits to the foster home by UMFS social workers
- Monthly support group meetings
- Ongoing training
- Behavioral management consultation
- 24-hour crisis intervention services
- Respite services
The average number of cases assigned to a UMFS Treatment Care worker is just eight, assuring that he or she can be actively involved in every aspect of our young client’s treatment plan.
