Foster Care Programs | Diakon Adoption & Foster Care

What Is Foster Care?

Foster care is a service for children and youths whose parents are unable to take care of them. It partners them with foster parents in temporary, safe living spaces. Foster care is a way to ensure that these children can have the necessary resources to grow and thrive.

Typically, the children and youths served through the foster care system are referred by county children and youth services or juvenile probation offices.

Foster Care vs. Adopt

Foster care and adoption differ in various aspects:

Duration: Foster care is typically temporary, with placements that can last from a few days to several years. On the other hand, adoption is intended to be a permanent arrangement.

Responsibilities: In foster care, families serve as temporary caretakers with the primary aim of reuniting the children with their birth parents. Conversely, adoption seeks to establish a permanent legal family unit.

Support: Foster parents receive substantial support from a team of professionals throughout the relationship, whereas adoptive parents generally receive more of this support in the initial phases.

Regardless of how you choose to support a child in need, Diakon Adoption & Foster Care is here to hold your hand and guide you through the process.

Foster family

Why Choose Diakon

Looking to be a Foster Parent?

Foster parents are always needed to bring love and stability to the lives of children waiting in foster care. Our program focuses on providing the best long-term solution for each child or youth referred to us. Whether preparing them for independence, a successful return to their birth families or other relatives, or for adoption, we offer an array of services to meet these children’s varying needs.

Designed to meet both short- and long-term goals for young people in transition, our tiered levels of foster care allow us to tailor our service to meet unique needs. Levels of foster care vary based on the intensity of service, case management, and related services. However, all Diakon foster care programs emphasize the availability of a continuum of services, with a focus on providing the highest quality of care.

How Does Foster Care Work?

At Diakon Adoption & Foster Care, we have essential guidelines for how to best serve foster children and youths and how to give them the care they deserve. These foster care features include:

Sympathetic and Encouraging Environments

Each child is connected to loving, nurturing homes with well-trained resource families, who are selected to meet the special emotional and behavioral needs of their child or youth. These families are dually certified and meet or exceed the latest training requirements for both adoption and foster care placements.

Qualified Staff and Support

Our highly qualified staff consists of committed case managers at both bachelor’s and master’s degree levels. These individuals are well-trained to ensure the highest support for youths, families, and referring agencies. Staff members are on call 24 hours a day and are here to help each and every family through the foster care journey.

Counseling and treatment services are also available to help promote emotional well-being as well as a speedy transition to permanency for foster families.

Emergency Foster Care Placements

Emergency foster care begins with a call from the county to place a child immediately, often with little information available about the child. The foster family who takes emergency placements must be ready to accept the placement immediately. The placement may be short-term, but it might also become longer-term or even (at times) permanent.

Local Placement for Little Disruption

A hallmark of our program is our focus on serving youths as close to home as possible. Even if the planned outcome of service is not a return home, we become as involved with the birth family as circumstances permit. Services are offered to dependent and delinquent children and youths from birth through age 18. Youths are considered for placement based on need and the appropriateness of our services to meet those needs.

Why should you choose Diakon Adoption & Foster Care? We are completely committed to your success!

Foster Care Features include:

Loving, nurturing homes with well-trained resource families selected to meet the special emotional and behavioral needs of each child. These families are dually certified and meet or exceed the latest training requirements for both adoption and foster care placements.

Well-trained, committed case-management staff of both bachelor’s and master’s degree levels, assuring the highest support for youths, families and referring agencies

Staff members on call 24 hours a day

Counseling and treatment services promoting both emotional well-being and a speedy transition to permanency

Emergency foster care placements*

* Emergency foster care begins with a call from the county to place a child immediately, often with little information available about the child. The foster family who takes emergency placements must to be ready to accept the placement right away. The placement may be short term, but might also become a longer term or even (at times) a permanent placement.

A hallmark of our program is our focus on serving youths as close to home as possible. And even if the planned outcome of service is not a return home, we become as involved with the birth family as circumstances permit. Services are offered to dependent and delinquent children and youths from birth through age 18. Youths are considered for placement based on need and the appropriateness of our services to meet those needs.

Contact us to learn more about the foster parent process and our multiple levels of foster care. We’ll be more than happy to help you in whatever stage you find yourself in.

Foster Care