The benefits of family for severely challenged children
Therapeutic Foster Care serves severely emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children and teens, ages 4 to 21. Typically, these children have had multiple placements and significant mental health and/or medical challenges. Therapeutic Foster Care helps children and teens through individualized, highly structured, intensive treatment services, while offering them the opportunity to live in a nurturing, family environment.
Unique needs
These children and youth have unique needs, many of which are the result of previous experiences. They may be fire-starters or sexual offenders. They may exhibit severe aggression or self-destructive tendencies, or they may suffer from chemical dependency.
Therapeutic Foster Care can:
- Offer a family-based treatment alternative for children and teens who have difficulties functioning in group-living environments and who do not require placement in a more restrictive setting.
- Facilitate positive emotional and behavioral adjustments and strengthen the child's ability to function in the community.
- Help the teen who has lived in a more restrictive setting readjust to family and community living.
- Provide long-term placement for children who are unlikely to return home.
- Help teens learn to set goals, maintain stability, and master the skills needed to live independently.
What do therapeutic foster families need to succeed?
Bellefaire takes special care to place each child in a home especially adapted to his or her needs. In many therapeutic foster families, at least one parent has a background in social or mental health work. Therapeutic foster families must:
- Involve every member of the family in the foster child's treatment.
- Be licensed by the state of Ohio.
- Commit to taking ongoing training.
- Have experience with children and/or youth.
Regular care of children
A Bellefaire JCB case manager has primary responsibility for defining and implementing each child's treatment plan. He or she meets with the child at least once per month and links him or her to needed mental health, medical, academic, and community-based services. These can include any combination of the following:
- Mental health counseling
- Medication monitoring
- Medical and dental care
- After-school programs
- Tutoring
- Appropriate social activities
- 24-hour crisis intervention