FOSTER CARE SERVICES
providing Licensing for Traditional, Safe Home and Specialized Therapeutic Foster Care in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco, Counties
Children’s Home Network’s Fostering Families program was established in 1990 to provide licensing and support services to help meet the growing need for quality foster family homes in Hillsborough County. Foster families play a crucial role in our mission to heal children, restore childhoods and reunify families. As a recognized leader in the field of child welfare, our program offers essential support, encouragement and assistance foster families require while providing life-changing opportunities to children in need. Our commitment to providing customized support for each family, including bilingual staff, has earned us a strong reputation as a preferred licensing agency.
FOSTERING FAMILIES
Foster families offer children, and oftentimes sibling groups, greater opportunities for happiness and success by providing a safe, stable space where children are nurtured and healing can begin. This familial setting also allows children to “just be kids” and see what a functioning family is like. Securing foster homes in their local community are favored so there is little disruption as possible to the child(ren)’s life and they are able attend their same school, see their friends, visit with their families and be in familiar surroundings. Foster care gives the child(ren)’s biological parent(s) time to work through their issues in the hope of reunifying the family.
CHN believes that family is the most important relationship for children. We proudly serve and support the families, relatives and non-relatives who selflessly bring the children into their lives, often with little to no advance notice. We are committed to meeting our foster families where they are and providing them with customized support as they offer hope and healing to children and families in need.
Children's Home Network licenses and supports three levels of foster care to include Traditional Foster Families, Specialized Therapeutic Foster Families, and Safe Home Foster Families for victims of human trafficking.
To learn more about the different levels of Foster Care please click on the links below:
Specialized Therapeutic Foster Care and Safe Home Foster Care
QUOTES FROM FOSTER PARENTS
I absolutely love working with the Children’s Home and supporting our staff and foster families. Getting to assist foster parents while they do the ‘heavy lifting’ of healing children and families is an honor. Foster Parents are truly the unsung heroes of our country- they are healing the broken and changes lives every minute of every day. I hope I can help lighten that burden each day.
IMPACT OF FOSTERING FAMILIES
In FY 21-22 CHN Foster Families provided 808 children with stable and loving care during the most traumatic time in their young lives. This was roughly 300 children on any given day, helping them to heal while restoring their childhoods.
Meet Scott and Lynny McKeown
There are over 1,500 children in Hillsborough County, from newborns to 17 years old, living in licensed foster care as a result of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Our Fostering Families team of professionals is exclusively committed to recruiting, preparing, and supporting foster families to nurture the children and mentor the families as a whole. We strive to keep siblings together, while providing safety and permanency through reunification and family restoration.
Children’s Home Networks community of licensed caregivers, including relative and non-relatives, is in need of families that can provide temporary care for these children and support for their families until they can be reunified. These dedicated families receive the following support through our program:
Parent training
Comprehensive support during foster care licensure and while the child(ren) are in the home
Ongoing and regular consultation, including 24/7 on-call support
Clinical services from our team of therapists or through community referral
Support and training
THE CHALLENGES CAN BE GREAT, BUT SO ARE THE REWARDS!
For more information on becoming a foster parent in Hillsborough County, call (813) 847-8554
For more information on becoming a foster parent in Hillsborough, Pinellas, or Pasco County,
please call (813) 847-8554 or click here to send an email.
leadership
Ariana Drew - Vice President of Out-of-Home Care 813-864-1459
Paul Penhale - Senior Director of Out-of-Home Licensing 813-847-8792
Kerri Pederson - Director of Therapeutic Foster Care Services 813-860-9151
