Register for Foster Parent Information Sessions using the links below. All cover the same information and are virtual unless noted.
1. *Foster parent info session at Hillside Church Tickets, Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 6:30 PM | Eventbrite*in person
2. Foster Parent Info Session Tickets, Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite
3. Foster Parent Info Session Tickets, Thu, Nov 28, 2024 at 7:00 PM | Eventbrite
4. Foster Parent Info Session Tickets, Tue, Jan 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite
5. Foster Parent Info Session Tickets, Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 7:00 PM | Eventbrite
Contact our Inquiry Worker anytime at [email protected] or 519-455-9000 x2777 to schedule an in-home information meeting if you cannot make an info session or hope to begin your fostering journey today.
Learn more from a Foster parent and youth in care. Watch Laura and Sara's Story.
Click here to watch "Homes for Teens" (4:30 min.)
A Safe Place to Call Home
Every child and youth needs and deserves a safe place to call home; a place where they belong. When children and youth come into our care our goal is to give them permanency. We do everything we can to return children and youth home or to live with extended family or kin. If those are not options, then we find them an adoptive family to call home.
There are many opportunities for people who wish to become Foster Adopt Care Providers through our agency. We are seeking adults from various communities to provide stable and supportive families for children and youth who either need temporary care on their path to permanency or a permanent home.
Dually Approved Care Providers
Unless it is a very unique situation and/or you are looking to adopt an older child, all adoptive parents with our agency will first foster.
Many families who contact our agency wanting to adopt a child discover that a relationship with a child or youth may begin earlier through fostering. Some of these children become available for adoption and some do not. Given that you will be a child’s foster home, as well as their potential adoptive home you will be dually approved to do both.
Dually approved care providers understand that in some cases the child may leave their care to be returned to birth family or placed with kin. Recognizing this, they commit to caring for a child as long as is needed and this may include adoption. This type of care allows children to be placed with a possible permanent family as soon as possible, which increases the child’s stability and well-being while minimizing the number of changes and transitions they have to face.
Could you be a Foster Adopt Care Provider?
Just as each child and youth are unique, so are the care providers who are able to meet the needs of our children and youth. Our children need people who understand the importance of providing a safe, stable and nurturing environment where the child or youth can reach his or her full potential.
As fostering and adopting is often stressful and unpredictable, it is important to be able to flexible, adaptable and be able to manage the “unknown”. To have a strong support system and have a willingness to ask for help is important. Given that you will be working as a part of our child welfare team, you must be able to communicate effectively. Whether you are looking to foster or to provide permanency through adoption, you will be working with birth families and as such, you will need to support their connections and contact with birth family and have empathy for children and their birth parent situation.
Our foster and adoptive care providers can be:
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Single, married or living common-law
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Childless families, families with children or families who have finished raising children
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Same sex couples, people from the LGBTQ2S+ community
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Home owners or renters
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Stay at home adults or people who work outside the home
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People of diverse cultural backgrounds including Black families
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Those open to parenting children with additional needs, sibling groups and youth
It won’t always to be easy; but most of our care providers say it is one of the best things they have ever done.
To learn more about how you can make a difference in lives of children and youth please see to How To. Contact us at 519-455-9000 ext. 2777 or email [email protected].
For those seeking other information, please visit Adoption Disclosure or How Do I Access My Personal Information?