Glossary of terms

Fostering

Fostering is a way of offering a family home to a child or young person who, for various reasons, cannot remain with their birth family.

Fostering placements with Key Assets Fostering can last for any length of time and can be aimed at reuniting children with their birth families or leading them towards independence or adoption. Fostering can come as a result of many reasons, including illness, relationship problems, family breakdown, or a situation in which a child or young person’s welfare is threatened.

Find out more about fostering with Key Assets Fostering.

Foster parents

Foster parents provide children and young people in the care of Key Assets Fostering with safe, secure and stable home lives when they cannot return to their birth families.

Foster parents are a diverse group of people from a wide range of backgrounds who are all working towards making a positive and lasting difference to children and young people in foster care.

Find out more about who can foster with Key Assets Fostering.

Foster care placements

Foster care placements at Key Assets Fostering vary from child to child. Our main placements can be grouped into emergency placements, short term placements, long term placements, respite placements or parent and child placements.

Many of the placement types at Key Assets Fostering are aimed at supporting children and young people with high and complex needs, including Aboriginal peoples with specific cultural requirements. All of our placements are underpinned by Key Assets Fostering’s unique Team Parenting™ approach.

Find out more about the different types of foster care placement.

Team Parenting™

Team Parenting™ is a unique approach to foster care that acknowledges and supports high and complex needs as well as cultural identities of all children and young people.

Team Parenting™ draws together an exceptional level of support for foster parents in Northern Ontario, Southern Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador based on the services provided by Social Workers, Child and Youth Counsellors, Education Liaison Officers and Key Assets Fostering Therapists.

Find out more about the Team Parenting™ approach.

Children’s Aid Societies

Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario maintain the authority to remove children and young people from their homes and provide them with foster care placements.

Children’s Aid Societies are run and funded by the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services and are non-governmental organizations, meaning they run independently of the government although they are empowered by provincial legislaton.

When a child or young person comes into foster care with Key Assets Fostering, the responsibility for that child will rest with the Children’s Aid Society that referred them. Often, Children’s Aid Societies will refer a child to Key Assets Fostering due to their complex physical or behavioural needs.

Department of Child, Youth and Family Services

The Department of Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) is the governmental child welfare service provider for the Newfoundland and Labrador province.

Children and young people in foster care with CYFS come under the jurisdiction of the Director of the CYFS and the ‘In Care’ program, which seeks to protect and promote the welfare of children and young people in foster care throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.

As with Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario, when a child or young person comes into foster care with Key Assets Fostering, often due to their high and complex needs, the responsibility for that child will rest with the CYFS for the length of the placement.

For more information about Key Assets Fostering, contact your regional office.
 

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