How To Become A Foster Parent In Virginia!
Did you know there are over 5,000 children in the VA foster care system?
Why are kids in foster care?
Children enter foster care who are removed from biological parents and legal guardian’s. This is NO fault of their own and factors include abuse and neglect.
Thinking about becoming a foster parent?
Virginias’s children are in need of a nurturing, loving and supportive home when their parents or other relatives are unable to care for them. Foster parents provide a safe and nurturing home until a child or sibling group can be reunified with their prior custodian, placed with a relative or placed for adoption
Different Roles
Approximately one-third of children exiting the foster care system each year return to their parents’ custody. Other outcomes include adoption, the transfer of custody to a relative, and emancipation. Foster parents are a part of a team effort (Social workers, GAL’s, CASA, Therapist) to support the child. Options to support Virginia’s foster care needs include:
Foster Care – Provide temporary, 24-hour care for children and youth placed in foster care
Respite Care – Offer part-time, short-term relief to foster parents as an approved respite provider
Foster-to-Adopt – Foster a child or youth in foster care with the goal of adoption
What is the most important factors in choosing to become a foster parent?
Hands down it’s your willingness and ability to open your heart and home to children. It’s getting attached, it’s advocating for your child and loving them as they are. Kids from hard places needs families who will NOT give up on them. As a foster parent, you provide the critical support these children need as they experience a loss and disruption from their previous home.
Consider if there are a lack of homes in your community, children are being shipped to other areas of Virginia which is NOT in their best interest.
We Need families who are willing to say YES to older children, complex medical needs and sibling groups.
Biological children must be apart of the process and its WORTH IT.
You must be 18 years of age or older to be approved as a foster parent.
Foster parents can be single, married, divorced or widowed.
Individuals and/or couples must have the time and energy to give to a child and must meet all the approval requirements, which include, but are not limited to, the following:
(https://dss.virginia.gov/family/fc/index.cgi)
Approval requirements.
Steps in the approval process Attend a one-time orientation meeting to learn what foster parenting is all about Successfully complete pre-service training Complete a home study Participate in at least three (3) face-to-face interviews Submit a national Fingerprint Criminal Record check, a child abuse and neglect history check, and a DMV check Provide a physician’s report verifying that you are physically and mentally capable of caring for a child Verify that you have enough income to provide for your family Submit the names of three (3) references
Start your journey TODAY by contacting your local DSS agency in Virginia.