Department of Social Services Kinship Therapeutic Foster Care Program

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

New Hanover County applied for participation in the Family Focused Treatment Associations’ (FFTA) initiative focused on kinship treatment foster care (TFC) as a common-sense idea that can improve safety, permanence and well-being outcomes for children and youth. The Kinship Therapeutic Foster Care Program, started in 2020 in partnership with Boys and Girls Homes of NC. The goal of this program is to license kinship families for youth in foster care who have therapeutic needs. By becoming licensed therapeutic foster parents, the family received extra behavioral support, clinical guidance, and financial assistance to best meet the needs of the youth in their home. All youth in this program have therapeutic needs, higher than what “family foster care” can provide to them. Therapeutic Kinship Foster care is an out-of-home arrangement for full-time care by relatives such as grandparents or uncles and aunts, godparents, or others who are not a child’s parent but have a family relationship with the child. When a child is removed from home due to a safety concern, such as child maltreatment, these caregivers must have the necessary training to be considered a therapeutic foster home. The program, in partnership with the Boys and Girls homes, assisted families with obtaining the needed training to be categorized as a therapeutic kinship foster care placement.