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?
"*" indicates required fields
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 about wrapping our arms around both the child and their family, providing a safe, nurturing environment for children who can’t remain at home due to trauma, abuse, or neglect. It offers children a chance to heal and rebuild trust while also partnering with their birth families to work toward reunification or other permanency options. Foster parents play a crucial role, not only in meeting the child’s emotional, medical, and educational needs but also in supporting the family’s journey toward hope and healing, ensuring the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
To foster a child, fill out the form on this page, and a team member will contact you to guide you through the next steps. You will be required to take a Mandatory State preservice training and then apply for licensure. Once licensed and a child is placed in your home, you can expect to work closely with case managers and other professionals to ensure the child’s well-being.
To become a foster parent with Saint Francis Ministries, you must be at least 21, pass a background check, complete training, 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. Saint Francis supports our foster parents every step of the way, providing 24/7 assistance, respite care, tax-free compensation, and more.
The process to become a foster parent typically takes about six months. This timeline involves completing the necessary training, passing background checks, and inspecting your home to ensure it’s safe and suitable for a foster child. The process may vary slightly depending on your state and individual circumstances.
Foster parents get paid monthly to help with the costs of caring for the child/children in their care, such as food, clothing, and other necessities. Payments received are tax-free and vary, depending on the number of foster children in the home, their ages, and any special needs they might have. Each state has its own foster care payment schedule.
Saint Francis provides foster care services in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. On average, 14 children enter our care each day, which highlights the urgent need for more foster parents. Foster parents play an essential role in providing stability and love to children during a challenging and uncertain time in their lives.
Yes, you can! Single parents are welcome to apply if they meet financial stability requirements, have a safe home, and are emotionally mature. We provide support and resources to all our foster parents, regardless of marital status.
The length of time depends upon the circumstances of the case. Typically, parents receive a reunification plan outlining specific goals they must meet for their child’s return. Parents generally have around 12 to 18 months to meet these goals, but timelines may vary depending on court rulings, the child’s needs, and other factors.
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.
