Family Preservation and Foster Care Services

Catholic Charities’ Family Preservation and Foster Care programs serve over 1,000 children and their families each year.

We are committed to helping children live and grow up in families where they know they are loved, cared for, safe, and won’t have to leave.

Catholic Charities provides intensive in-home services to families who need casework or counseling intervention in order to strengthen and preserve the family, prevent abuse or neglect, and avoid unnecessary out-of-home placement for children.

All decisions are made in the best interest of the child, and sometimes foster home placement is necessary to protect children from abuse or neglect. Our professional child welfare staff license and provide support services to relative foster parents. We also recruit, license, and train caring and compassionate families in order to provide safe, loving families for children of all ages who cannot live safely at home. For more information on how to become involved, click here.

For children, leaving your home and your parents can be scary. When foster care placement is necessary, Catholic Charities works with the child, the foster home and the child’s parents to make the experience less traumatic for each child and do everything possible to help them feel safe and secure.

Catholic Charities also provides comprehensive services to the parents of children who are placed in foster care due to abuse or neglect. Counseling, casework, educational and support services are available to assist families in making the necessary changes to address the issues that led to abuse, neglect, and foster care placement.

Frequently, children are able to return back home safely to their parents after a temporary foster care placement. When this happens, Catholic Charities provides intensive in-home services to assist the family, monitor the children’s safety, and prevent subsequent abuse or neglect of the children.

Sometimes, a safe reunification is not an option for a child or sibling group. In those situations, Catholic Charities facilitates adoptions or permanent guardianship in order to provide each child a lasting, safe, and loving family.

Catholic Charities is committed to helping each child we serve reach their full potential. Assuring each child a safe, loving family to grow up in is at the heart of all we do.