Approved Resource Parents may qualify For funding

Intensive Services Foster Care (ISFC) families are specially trained to care for children and young adults with intensive needs. These include, but are not limited to, medical, therapeutic or behavioral needs. The purpose of ISFC is to keep children with high needs in a family home. The monthly financial support that ISFC families receive on behalf of an eligible child is $3,148 a month. In some cases, you may receive ISFC funding before you complete ISFC training. To qualify for ISFC funding, the child must need specialized programs that serve children with specific needs. Eligible needs may include:

• Adjudicated violent offenses
• History of significant property damage
• History of sex offenses
• Aggressive and assaultive behaviors
• History of animal cruelty
• History of commercial sexual exploitation
• History of an eating disorder
• History of fire-setting
• Gang activity
• Habitual truancy
• History of psychiatric hospitalization(s)
• Runaway behaviors
• Severe mental health issues, including suicidal ideation and/or self-harm
• Substance use/abuse
• Three or more placement changes due to behavior
• Score of 7 on the Level of Care protocol in either the health domain OR the behavioral/emotional domain

Resource Families may receive an infant supplement if a young person in foster care who has been placed with them gives birth to a baby. The supplement is intended to cover the additional cost of providing food, clothing, and shelter for an infant.

The infant supplement is $900 per month and is paid in addition to the basic rate that you receive to support the foster youth who is the parent of the infant. In most counties, the infant supplement is not paid until the child is born. Parents in foster care who are caring for their own biological children can also qualify to receive the infant supplement directly. In other words, the Resource Family caring for the parent of the baby may receive the supplement, or the parent of the baby may receive the supplement, but both parties may not receive the supplement.

You may be eligible for special funding (known as the educational travel reimbursement, or school of origin funding) if you are transporting a child to a school more than three miles away from your home. A child’s “school of origin” is, in most cases, the school that they were attending before they were placed in your home. Funding may be available to transport the child to their school of origin in order to maintain stability and continuity in their education.

Adopting a child from foster care can change both your lives forever. Learn more about the adoption process and how we can help.

Families may receive time-limited child care vouchers to assist with child care costs for foster children up to the age of 12, and for youth with exceptional needs up to the age of 21. A voucher may be issued for up to six months until the child is successfully transitioned into long-term, subsidized child care. Eligibility may be extended an additional six months at the discretion of the county. 

To learn more about the programs listed above, please contact your Agency Social Worker.