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May 19, 2009

A North Carolina County Reduces the Need for Foster Care Through Preventative, Early Intervention

Posted by Janet Langjahr. Filed under Child Custody or Parental Responsibility, Domestic Violence or Restraining Orders, Juvenile Delinquency or Juvenile Dependency, Paternity, Special Needs Children or Disabled Children.

In one North Carolina county, the number of children in foster care has gone down, pretty dramatically, over the last several years.

How did they accomplish it?

The child welfare agency there has been experimenting with several preventative, early intervention programs, using government and charitable funds grants.

Each program or service has a different focus, such as:

maintaining the involvement of fathers in their children’s lives
assigning a nurse to each new mother during her baby’s first two years
promoting relationships between parents and extended family members
offering therapeutic foster care services, to train and support parents of children with special needs
placing removed children with extended family members rather than in foster care with strangers

Between 2002 and 2009, the number of children in foster care in this North Carolina county shrank from 573 to 396.