How do foster children come into the care of a private agency?

HI there! I am also a licensed foster parent with a private agency. Most agencies specialize in kids that are "hard to place" per say. The county with place their easier kids with "their" foster homes, and the ones they are unable to place in traditional homes, get passed on to all private agencies. Hard to place kids are usually either behavioral kids, teens or medically needy/fragile kids. I hope to care for medically needy kids. All foster kids are labeled on a scale of 1-5 with how intense their needs are. 1-2 are "normal" kids. 3 is therapeutic and 4-5 are the very high level kids that are normally in RTC. My agency gives TONS of support, because they are a christian agency. But also because their kids are higher needs, and therefore the fosterparents require more support, interaction, respite etc. My agency is VERY helpful, supportive and great advocates for their foster parents. Counties can be difficult to work with, but they typically have the more "desirable" kids. Just depends on what you can handle I guess. Hope this info helps. PM me if you want more info.

in our experience, those that ended up with our private agency were those that were harder to place. sometimes that just meant it was the middle of the night and the county worker was tired of calling people, and sometimes it meant the child had some issues that made it difficult to place them- emotional, physical, multiple placements, etc. we got 2 that were hard to place due to age, behavior, and placement history, one due to the scary medical history of his birth sibling, and two during a time that so many children were coming into care that the county just couldn't place them all fast enough.

If the kids are with a threraputic care facility you can bet your bottom dollar these are kids with significant special needs in the area of behavior issues and other significant issues such as mental illness etc.

For those that have done therapeutic care, what is the average age of the child placed with you? We are really leaning towards wanting children younger than our youngest who is 7 to help keep them safe from children with potential predatory behavior.

In our experience as an agency foster home, the kids have come to us when the county has no beds through their homes. They aren't any higher needs than average. We have had some really, really interesting kids coming in as basic level, though! As far as younger being less "predatory" I can't say, but I do know that a 6, 7, and 8 yr old sib set we had was very dangerous to my 11 year old. It wasn't SA. It was the level of violence. Please understand that not all kids are a threat, but some kids are, regardless of their ages. How long do they stay? I think that's an "it depends" answer. The kids in my home were transferred after a couple of months because ours is only a basic home. They stayed in their therapeutic placements a couple of months, returned to a relative, and came back into care. At basic level again. My guess is that it's an individual thing. Our son and daughter came to us as basic level, but he had a GAF score of 50 when he was tested. Apparently most of us operate in the 90th percentile. He also has mild RAD, PTSD, and ADHD. He remained a basic level care kid until we adopted the children. Now he's just my kid! By the way, I love being associated with my agency. I feel like the level of support we get is awesome.

Every state may have a different way of doing it and each agency may then have their own rules about what kids they will take, so it depends on many factors. In Texas all kids that are taken into care are placed through an office called Central Placing. The CW can request CP ask a particular home first and this is how CPS families may get a child before those licensed with an agency. We are licensed with an agency that calls itself a Therapeutic Agency, but they place all levels of kids, because once the child is in care, CP will put out a bulletin about them to find an appropriate home. This means that all the agencies and CPS homes in the available area could be a potential placement. If the child is known to CPS and has problems(medical or otherwise) then they would be looking for a home that has the skills to care for a child and that info is included in the bulletin. Some agencies specialize in placing those kids who need extra care or a special home that can deal with extreme behaviors and those kids usually have a history of foster care. Our trainer told us that the average time a child is in care is 6 months. That was based on her experience in the field. I assume when I get a placement that they will be here for 6 months because unless there has been a previous case, it is unlikely that the kids would be there for a shorter time due to how the court system and working plans is set up. So little is known when a child is taken into care, so I assume the longer time frame. Obviously, sometimes the stay is much longer.

I live in a big city and people tend to go with private agencies more often than ACS (that's what we call the county here). The reason why is that it is hard for them to read everyone so ACS has contracts with all these agencies. When a child comes into care with ACS they call the different agencies to see who has a home that meets their needs.They have a system as to what order they call agencies for different areas. For example for District #1 the order of calls would be Agency A, then B then C. In district #2 the orders would be Agency B then Agency C then Agency A. In District #3 Agency C Then A then B and so on. They do it this way to make it fair for the agencies as well as find children a good home. ACS has also different "Lists" so it is the responsibility of the private agency to put you on certain lists. For example We have "Babies can't wait program" List for newborns and infants who will have TPR expedited. There is also an Emergencey placement/ middle of the night list. So for these list ACS can call you directly or call your agency asking for you which tends to go like this "ACS: I hear you have a home with a bed available for a 2 year old girl. Private agency: "Yes" then they go from there. Also if a child is considered "hard to place" they may be assigned to an agency since private agencies are more connected to the community and have more time to find a home. The agencies get some sort of compensation for every home that they open that results in a placement so that is also their incentive to recruit families and make sure they are matched. Best of luck!

I disagree with this entirely. My county agency has been PHENOMENAL to work with and offer a ridiculous amount of team and community support. And county agencies also don't typically have more "desirable" kids. Where you'd get that idea is beyond me honestly. Most (almost all?) kids initially taken into care are placed immediately into county homes. Their issues are vastly if not completely unknown at that time having never been in care and evaluated before. So whereas a child being placed into a therapeutic home comes with a plethora of information about them county homes get nada. Having nada information doesn't mean a child doesn't have a massive swirling mess of issues. It just means no one knows yet. A county foster parent never knows if the child they're accepting is delayed, has behavioral or mental health issues, harms animals or other people or children, acts out sexually or starts fires etc. Only AFTER time is spent with that child in a county home does that stuff come to surface and it can then be determined if the foster home has adequate knowledge to help the child deal with those issues or if a more "knowledgeable and prepared"*** therapeutic home is needed. So yeah, I agree with Dreamsofchild when they said "If the kids are with a threraputic care facility you can bet your bottom dollar these are kids with significant special needs in the area of behavior issues and other significant issues such as mental illness etc." Most all of the time that's exactly correct. ***I will say as a "regular ol county foster parent" I've been baffled when after I've had a kiddo here for a few months that I've discovered to be too tough for me to handle with two young children of my own, and they've moved onto a therapeutic agency home, often times the therapeutic agency homes can't handle them either... Four out of my fourteen placements have been moved to therapeutic homes. All four within a matter of days were being bumped elsewhere because the child's behaviors were too much for them to handle. Take that for what it is...I used to think so highly of the "therapeutic" labeling but not so much anymore because of my personal experiences thus far. If they can't handle them and I can? Some therapeutic homes ARE better equipped to handle tough kids than county homes but on the flip side some county homes can obviously be better equipped to handle tougher kids than therapeutic ones.

Thanks for all of the advice and information, it has given me a lot to think about. We did not get much support from our county workers in the past, which is one thing that is appealing to us about the level of support and accessibility to the case workers through the private agency that has been promised. I kind of like the point that was made that you have more history on the kids coming through a therapeutic agency, because I'm quite certain that at least 2 (if not 3) of the 4 boys we have adopted from traditional foster care would have wound up in a therapeutic home or a residential treatment center if we had not stuck it out. I think my biggest concern right now is my young daughter who was not born when we fostered before and my now 2 teen sons (the other two are now adults and don't live at home) who have come so far, but still have a some minor issues, I want them to be the leaders not the followers. And I agree that young children can be predators as well, but I feel like if my children are older they will be better able to protect themselves if needed, report inappropriate behavior and take a role of leadership. What I'd really like to do is care for medically fragile infants, but I'm not sure yet if that will be allowed. I read the state laws allow babies under 2 to share a room with the foster parent (it can be longer than 2 with permission for certain medical conditions), but not sure yet what our specific agency's rules are. I know that the foster kids can't share a room with any other child more than five years difference in age. So to share with my daughter and keep the foster child younger, we'd be looking at gilrs 2-6, and for boys 12-13, but there again, I have to worry about my younger daughter. But I've got more than enough room to set up a small nursery in the sitting area of my bedroom if it would be allowed. Has anyone done this?

"And county agencies also don't typically have more "desirable" kids. Where you'd get that idea is beyond me honestly." Sorry. I think I mis-spoke ( ok, mis-typed) and that statement can be interpreted differently than I intended. After re-reading it, I can understand why you questioned that statement. What I meant by desirable is the younger children (primarily infants) with less known issues or medical problems. (vs teens, medically fragile, Mental retardation, autism etc.) In my state, county homes are no longer license home to be "therapeutic", only agencies license that way. In my area (maybe statewide, not sure) county homes place their children within their network first. If a child is known to have medical/behavioral/ or physical disabilities, county homes are not considered as they are not licensed as therapeutic. I guess certain conditions automatically qualify a child to be labeled therapeutic?? These are the children that are offered to our agency. Also, children that they county cannot find a home for through their network are offered to our agency which are mainly the medically fragile, teens and children with exceptional behaviors. And I agree wholeheartedly about even therapeutic homes not being able to handle placements. Even though I am licensed as therapeutic, the only main difference for my agency is a lot more training hours. I actually repeated the same classes over to get the training hours. So I don't think I am prepared any more than a county or "traditional" home.