Kids in BYS Therapeutic Foster Care

In addition to the 'group living' facilities that BYS owns and operates for children's residential care, BYS also recruits and licenses foster families to share their homes with selected children. The program is called Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC).

The level of care provided is called 'foster treatment', because all of the specialized services of BYS continue as a support and safety net for the child entering the foster home. The program manager for this program is "Shelia Stephenson". Participating foster parents receive 40-hours of qualifying training in the initial licensing, and formal continuing education thereafter. Currently 15 foster families make up the TFC homes for BYS.

Youths selected for BYS' Therapeutic Foster Care program are generally those whose primary families are not available to them for reunification, within a reasonable time. The TFC family provides a real family environment for the youth to move into and become a member of, from a residential facility 'group home' living environment. Whereas residential group treatment is intended to transitional and of moderate duration, TFC is family centered and is expected to be longer term.

As for children in all BYS programs, a goal for children in the TFC program is to eventually attend the public schools successfully. Typically youth's entering the TFC program have progressed in BYS School to the extent that they are already attending either part-day or all-day public school, but that is not a necessary requirement. Similarly youth in TFC are encouraged to participate and benefit from community recreational activities and positive peer friendships outside of BYS, however BYS recreation program and BYS art therapy remain available and more 'elective' as those youth successfully 'move out'. For the older adolescent in TFC, this program provides a most important and valued preparation for independent living.

Because the TFC program operates in combination with all of the other programs of BYS locally, children and their prospective foster parents typically meet and become well acquainted with one another well in advance of an actual placement being made in that home. In reality the child selects the foster family, just as the family selects the child, over an extended period of pre-placement visits in the TFC family home, and following many related open discussions with all concerned.