Out-of-Home Care
Summary
Children who can’t safely live at home deserve the best care while waiting for permanency. Every effort should be made to ensure that time in out-of-home care is as short as possible, which means children and youth need services to heal and their families need supports to stabilize. Foster care families and residential treatment facilities must be able to meet children’s every need while guiding the transitions to and from their care. Social workers must have the capacity and resources to oversee both the out-of-home care and the urgent return of the children to permanency. Each child in out-of-home care must be supported by every level of government and community resource. We must all do our part because children don’t stop developing for any intervention and every child needs constant, loving care.