Our community includes children and adolescents with troubled backgrounds who want to live in a family setting. Many do not know how a family works, plays, or lives together. Maryhurst needs special families to provide these youth with the opportunity to experience healthy family life. Who do you know who could help us?

What makes a Family Treatment Home? Foster families are given specialized training to provide a balance of structure and nurture in their home. This gives our youth a solid foundation to work through issues related to abuse or neglect and continue their journey of hope. Respite Foster Care

Maryhurst offers regular "respite" care to our full-time treatment foster parents. One or two weekends a month, a youth in therapeutic foster care stays with another foster family. This gives the full-time foster parent some time to re-energize and the youth a chance to form other healthy relationships. Some families choose to become certified only to provide respite care. This is a valuable service that provides many of the benefits of fostering without the full-time commitment.

Requirements for Certification as a Family Treatment Home

• Completion of training classes
• Information regarding family background and suitability of living environment
• Personal, employer, and credit references
• Criminal and Abuse/Neglect background checks
• A home study including interviews with each family member

Foster parents can't take the place of mom or dad, but they can reap some of the same rewards:

• The deep satisfaction that comes from making a difference in the life of a youth
• Financial assistance above the cost of care
• The opportunity for personal growth
• The chance to form lifetime relationships

Treatment foster parents must meet the following qualifications. Who do you know that fits this description?

• 21 years of age or older
• Single or married
• Financially stable
• Physically healthy enough to care for an active young person
• No history of abusing or neglecting children or adults; No past felony convictions

• TOLERANCE
• REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
• Strong SUPPORT SYSTEM
• Willingness and ability to be a TEAM PLAYER
• Good SENSE OF HUMOR
• PASSION for working with troubled youth

Ways to "Make a Difference" for Foster Families

Ways to Support Foster Parents/ Families:

• Donate gift certificates for foster parents to have time to rest, relax, and rejuvenate (e.g., restaurants, Bed & Breakfast weekends, plays, movies, etc.)
• Donate new gift items to be given to foster parents as tokens of appreciation or as door prizes to encourage attendance at training and support groups
• Adopt a foster family (Send them encouraging notes; pray for them; offer to baby sit; bake them cookies or a meal, etc.)
• If you know someone who might be interested in providing full-time or part-time (a weekend or two a month) foster care, refer them to our recruitment staff at 245-1576 ext. 604 or toll-free 1-866-521-4905 ext. 604.
• Donate gift certificates/passes for foster families to participate in recreational activities such as restaurants, movies, plays, miniature golf, bowling, amusement parks, community events, etc.

• Volunteer your time to be a mentor to a young person in foster care
• Donate any of the much-needed items listed below (keeping mind that most of our young people are between the ages of 11 and 17):

Donated items may be delivered to Maryhurst's main campus administration building at 1015 Dorsey Lane- Louisville, KY. Thanks for your support!

Foster Parent Pre-Service Training

Meeting 1: Critical Issues in Foster Care

• Motivations for Fostering - Looking at why individuals provide foster care and how that impacts what they do
• A Foster Care Simulation Experience - A role play focusing on the foster child, the birth family, and the system
• Grief and Loss - How a foster child experiences grief, the resulting behaviors, and how to help them deal with it; dealing with the foster parent's own grief and loss
• Referrals - The types of children we serve and how a foster family fits into the process; differences between a therapeutic and traditional placement
• Permanency planning - What does the future hold for a foster child? (Reunification, Adoption, Planned Permanent Living Arrangement, or Independent Living) What are the special needs of children with each type of permanency plan?

• Confidentiality - What information foster parents can and cannot share with whom The Importance of Attachment - How is it formed and what does it mean to a child?
• Insecure Attachment - What is Reactive Attachment Disorder? What happens when a child does not form secure attachment to a primary caregiver?
• Building Attachments - How foster parents can help a child form healthy attachments
• Birth Family Connections - What role the birth family has in the life of a foster child (visitation, involving birth families in decision-making, maintaining birth family relationships/connections)
• Cultural Iceberg - What role culture plays in foster care
• Teamwork - Foster parents' partnership with the agency, the birth family, the treatment team, and other community services

• Effects of Foster Care on Family and Friends - How fostering impacts the lives of foster families, expectations of the agency
• Writing Behavioral Objectives - How to communicate the desired behavior of a child as a goal
• Using Social Rewards - Using positive social reinforcers to change behavior
• Discipline Vs. Punishment - What are we teaching and what are children learning?
• Strategies: Instruction with Rationale; Planned Ignoring; Time Out; Natural, Logical & Illogical
Consequences

• LODES - How to document the skills you are using with a foster child
• Reward Systems - Using social, material, and privilege rewards to motivate
• Using the Daily Review - A structured system for helping a child set goals and reach them.

• Typical Twelve Ways of Responding - A look at how we typically respond to things people say
• Active Listening - A communication skills which encourages individual to talk and explore feelings verbally
• I-Feel Messages - A communication skill focusing on the healthy expression of emotions

• The effects of Physical and Emotional Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Chemical Dependency, Neglect, and Domestic Violence on a child, the behavior and developmental delays that may result, and how a foster parent can deal with these issues.
• Investigations - What happens when allegations are made and how to survive
• Teaching a Child to Select, Make, and Keep Friends - Helping a child form a positive peer group

• Skill-teaching - Identifying skills a child lacks and helping them master those skills
• Problem-Solving - Teaching a child to make good decisions regarding problems
• Negotiation - Working together with a child to find mutually-acceptable solutions

• Trauma Outcomes - Understanding the process of trauma and its results
• Triggers - A look at types of triggers and resulting feelings and behaviors
• Verbal De-escalation Skills - How to help an enraged child become calm and process feelings

• Advocating for Your Foster Child - Helping your child in the community, at school, and in life.
• Working with the foster care team - The roles of the Foster Care Specialist, the Program Manager, and the FTH Parent; documentation; medication administration
• Foster Panel of Parents and Youth - Your opportunity to address your questions to real live foster parents and youth who have lived in foster homes

• Adult CPR and First Aid (for use on those ages 9 and older) teaches how to assess emergencies and provide care until help arrives.

Interested in becoming a Foster Parent? Complete the on-line application today! Application In PDF Format

For more information on how you or members of your congregation, parish, club, or group can become or help foster families, contact Jennifer Chrisman or call 502-499-1570 x721.

Maryhurst is a privately-operated, not-for-profit agency receiving referrals from the Kentucky Cabinet for Families and Children, the Department of Juvenile Justice, and KY Impact Plus.