Specialized Foster Care

IMPACT’S Specialized Foster Care Program provides a community-based home setting for youth who cannot reside with their natural families. The youth in foster care function as an integral part of the foster family. All youth are assigned a Case Manager and a Clinical Liaison. The Case Manager strives to see the youth monthly for the first six months of placement. The Clinical Liaison provides individualized guidance and team building meetings. They see most of the youth in care between 4-8 times a month during the initial six months of treatment. They offer individual and group treatment.

CLIENT PROFILE
IMPACT provides placements for juveniles between the ages of 10 to 18 years of age, including both male and female clients. Significant emotional or behavioral characteristics will be assessed on an individual basis at the initial intake interview in order to determine whether or not the juvenile is appropriate for community-based foster care. We closely follow the principles of Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) when we determine appropriateness of community-based placement. We strongly believe in competency development of the youth who are placed in our care. We recognize an obligation to the offender, the community, and victims.

PLACEMENT OF JUVENILES
Efforts will be made by IMPACT administrators to place a juvenile in the most appropriate foster home. Assignments to specific foster homes will be done with consideration given to age, sex, educational needs, demographic dynamics, or other relevant characteristics of the juvenile being placed. We also recognize the needs of the other natural and/or foster children in the home. We share all referral information with our foster parents after we have determined if a youth is appropriate for foster care. We work diligently to help our families make acceptance decisions that are in the best interest of the referred youth and their family unit.

NATURAL FAMILY
IMPACT recognizes the need to involve the juvenile’s biological family in the placement process whenever possible.

EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
Educational services will be provided for all foster care clients through the public school district in which the foster family resides. IMPACT’s Director of Educational Services will facilitate enrollment in an appropriate educational program immediately following placement in the foster home. IMPACT staff, throughout a client’s placement, will closely monitor educational adjustment and progress. It is expected that our staff be in the school on a once to twice a month basis as long as the schools cooperate and accept our visits.

"Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Thomas Edison