Sometimes parents are unable to meet their child's basic needs for nurturing, care, and protection. A number of factors may necessitate placement in a foster home, most typical are abuse or neglect, family stress caused by divorce, separation, alcoholism, mental illness, or the physical illness, death or abandonment of the primary caregiver. Foster care is a temporary arrangement while every effort is made to rehabilitate and reunite the child with his or her natural parents.
Children range in age from birth to eighteen years of age.
The average length of placement is twelve to eighteen months. Children, their natural parents and foster parents receive ongoing counseling, and emergency support is available 24 hours a day. Foster parents must be at least 21 years of age and meet Agency and State requirements concerning home safety, emotional stability and character, and must reside in either York, Lancaster, Adams, or Dauphin Counties in Pennsylvania. Families are required to participate in preservice and in-service training and receive ongoing consultation, support and supervision from the Agency's professional staff. Foster parents are not responsible for the cost of medical care for children who are placed in their homes.