Foster Care
Children from all backgrounds enter the foster care system, many bearing the scars of trauma. Foster parents open their homes and hearts – helping children heal, trust, and hope again. Children in care range in age from birth to 21, mostly school-aged. Most enter foster care due to abuse or neglect, while others exhibit behavioral disorders. We strive to keep sibling groups together and in their home community. Whatever their story, each child in foster care needs a safe place to stay and a family to provide for their emotional, educational, medical, and special behavioral needs.
Is there room in your life to foster a child?
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The Urgent Need for Foster Parents
Every day, 14 children children enter the Saint Francis Ministries Foster Care program.
The need for compassionate foster parents has never been more pressing. Every child that enters our program is seeking a safe haven and a nurturing environment. These numbers underscore the critical role that foster parents play in providing stability, love, and hope for children during some of the most challenging times in their lives. By stepping up to foster, individuals can make a transformative difference in the trajectory of a child’s future.
Opening Homes, Healing Hearts
Children come to foster care from all walks of life and from every community. Many have experienced trauma, so they come frightened, confused, and anxious.
Foster parents open their homes and hearts – helping children heal, trust, and hope again.
Whatever their story, each child in foster care needs a safe place to stay and a family to provide for their emotional, educational, medical, and special behavioral needs.
“Our purpose was to help others, help kids.”
Kevin Chhantra and Lori Leuthiphonh
Saint Francis Foster Parents
Frequently Asked Questions
Foster care is a nurturing and protective system for children from all backgrounds who can’t be with their biological families. Many of these children bear the scars of trauma, having experienced abuse, neglect, or other challenging situations. Our foster care program provides these children with a safe, loving environment where they can begin to heal, trust, and hope again. Our dedicated foster parents play a crucial role in caring for children up to the age of 21, ensuring their emotional, educational, medical, and special behavioral needs are met.
Children in need are placed in the homes of compassionate, state-certified foster parents. These foster parents provide day-to-day care, support, and stability to the children. Our aim is always to work towards the best outcome for each child, which may include reunification with biological families, adoption, or other long-term care solutions. Saint Francis Ministries provides ongoing support and training to foster parents to ensure the best possible care for the children.
To become a foster parent with Saint Francis Ministries, you must be at least 21 years old, pass a background check, complete training sessions, and demonstrate a supportive and safe home environment. Emotional maturity, financial stability, and a willingness to work cooperatively with our agency and professionals are essential. We are committed to supporting our foster parents every step of the way, providing 24/7 assistance, respite care, tax-free compensation, and more.
Across our various states of operation, including Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, the number of children in foster care changes. On average, 14 children enter the Saint Francis Ministries Foster Care program each day, highlighting the urgent need for more foster parents. Every child in our care seeks a safe haven and a nurturing environment, and the role of foster parents in providing stability and love during challenging times cannot be overstated.
Foster Parent
Rewards and Benefits
- Positively influence a young person’s life
- Keep children safe, within a family environment
- Serve their community
- Participate on a professional team
- Enrich the quality of their own life through foster parenting
- Feel the joy of providing healing and hope to a child in need
- Strengthen bonds and dynamics within your own family
- Tax-free compensation
- 24/7 support services
- Free, professional one-on-one support provided by our caring staff
- Respite/relief care
- Mileage reimbursement per state guidelines
- Medical cards for foster children
- Foster Care Child Care Assistance for employed foster parents
Therapeutic Foster Care
Adolescence can be challenging, leading some youths towards poor decisions and harmful behaviors. Our therapeutic foster care aids those aged 10 and up, offering them a nurturing environment and tools to reintegrate successfully into their families and communities.
Therapeutic Foster Care Parent Benefits
- Weekly home visits and around-the-clock availability in case of emergency or if you just need to talk
- Free initial and ongoing training to give you all the tools and skills you need to be an effective and knowledgeable foster parent
- Review of youth’s case record prior to placement. You may have the opportunity to meet the young person. In all cases, you have the right to refuse placement
- TFC parents are reimbursed a higher rate than standard foster care
- Medical cards for youth
- Regular newsletters with helpful articles
- Online resources and support with easily accessible tools and training designed exclusively for our foster parents
Kinship Care
A form of foster care, kinship care involves placement with a person related to the child either by blood or by marriage.
Saint Francis Ministries always tries to place a child with a relative because it typically results in a more stable placement, while decreasing the length of time a child remains out of home. Plus, kinship care often results in less trauma for the child because they are placed with someone they know and with whom they already have a relationship.
- When a child enters out-of-home placement, SFM Family Coordinators search for known relatives.
- We work with state agencies and with birth parents to identify and meet relatives who come to court hearings or who otherwise have an interest in the child’s well-being.
- Once we identify a kinship candidate, we evaluate them immediately for placement. Our first priority is always to place a child in kinship care.
Saint Francis Ministries also uses “Together Facing the Challenge, an evidence-based practice that helps kinship families develop the skills and techniques to work with children in their care.
Our staff receive training to deliver “Together Facing the Challenge” directly to families in the home.
