Foster Care
NOAS offers therapeutic foster care services designed to help behaviorally and emotionally troubled youths remain in a family setting while becoming successfully functioning individuals. The focus is on achieving permanency for the child. Foster care families in our program work as part of the professional team along with NOAS staff and mental health professionals to help youth ages 13 to 17.
Strengthening families
Stabilizing and reunifying troubled families are the goals of the program. If a child has no legal or permanent family, adoption becomes the plan. NOAS services extend to preparing and placing the child in an adoptive home.
Training
Before becoming licensed, foster parents must complete an education series which includes topics such as parenting skills, separation trauma, child development, disciplinary techniques, and understanding children who have been physically and sexually abused. Once they have recieved their foster care license, each foster parent is required to complete the minimum hours of training required by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services every year.
Joint process
The education classes provided to foster parents also prepare them for adoption. The family assessment (home study) can also be used for foster care and adoption. If a foster child becomes available for adoption, and the foster family has an interest in adopting him/her, no additional assessment is necessary.
Payment
Foster care parents are paid a daily rate for youth placed in their home and for participation and training.
Role modeling
Foster care families are closely involved with a child's family of origin, serving as role models and part of the support system. The goal is for the birth family to become stronger and more successful in coping with their own difficulties as well as those of their children. For most children, returning to their family is the goal.
Community involvement
Youth placed in the NOAS foster care program live with their community-based treatment foster family and attend school and counseling sessions regularly (NOAS helps to arrange both) while working on their individual problems and building on their strengths. We encourage foster children to participate in community, school, recreational, and cultural activities.
After-care services
After a child returns to his/her birth family, NOAS provides after-care services to the family for a minimum of three months. NOAS is committed to providing the necessary services to keep the family together.
Sensitivity
NOAS foster parents are expected to demonstrate consideration for, and sensitivity to, the racial, cultural, ethnic, and religious background of foster children.
Discipline
NOAS teaches discipline methods that stress praise and encouragement for desired behavior rather than punishment. It is expected that each foster child will be treated with kindness, consistency, and respect. Discipline is defined more in depth in the Foster Care Policy Statement.
Service area
NOAS foster families live within 90 minute driving distance from either our Warren or Chagrin Falls.
Policies
The NOAS Foster Care Policy Statement, the Statement of Philosophy and Adoption Policy and the "Ohio Adoption Guide" will be given to parents during the education classes.
