The children served are from families experiencing abuse and neglect, at risk of abuse and neglect or defined as truant.
Family Support Unit provides a variety of services, strengthening the family unit using culturally diverse approaches and treatment methods. This treatment is provided the guidance and supportive services necessary to make the family unit stable, while preventing placement outside the home.
Supportive Services refers to family, child, and group or individual counseling, financial management skills, parenting skills, and behavior modification education programs. It may also include drug and alcohol evaluations or mental health assessments. Referrals to community resources are often made for basic services such as food and housing.
One extremely successful service is the Family Preservation Teams and Intensive Family Services In-Home Services Teams that provide an intensive one-on-one treatment approach to address the specific family dynamics and problem areas.
Another service provided by the Intensive Unit is supportive services to families experiencing complex problems requiring frequent and lengthy in-home sessions. These services assist in strengthening family relationships, increasing parenting skills and parent confidence, and also decreasing the need for out-of-home placements.
The George Jr. Preventive Aftercare Program is another intensive service that provides direct personal contact with the youth at least once a day. The program provides individual and family counseling to improve youth self-concept social skills, peer adult relationships. This program, while improving education and employment achievement, also reduces the need for out of home placements.
The unit also collaborates with community agencies to provide and develop needed resources and services to meet the needs of all children and families. For more intensive problems, psychological and psychiatric consultation is available.
When safety cannot be guaranteed for children in their own home, York County Children and Youth provides placement service (foster care).
Foster care provides a substitute family life for the children who have been separated from their natural or legal parents. The children have been removed from their home for a variety of reasons, either voluntary, or involuntary, but always by court order. Foster care is considered only after all other resources for the children have been exhausted including a placement with relatives, under the Agency’s Kinship Care Program.
The goal is to stabilize the family and return the children home as soon as possible.
Foster care children may have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their natural parents. The purpose of foster care is to provide these children with experiences in family living which are essential to a child’s healthy and constructive growth and development. Due to their history the children may often have many issues.
Whenever possible, the Agency tries to place the children in foster homes which are best suited to meet their needs. Every effort is made to stabilize the children and help them adjust to the separation from the family.
The foster families and the Agency caseworkers work as a team toward the goal of reuniting the child with the natural parents whenever possible or towards the best possible plan for the child’s welfare. The child’s case is reviewed by the court at a permanency hearing every six months to determine the appropriateness of the placement and the progress being made by the family toward reunification.
While the children are in foster care the Agency provides for their room and broad, clothing, medical, and dental care.
The Agency coordinates annual activities such as picnics and Christmas parties in association with the local Foster Parent Association, for the children and their foster families.
There is always a need for foster homes in York County. It is an ideal situation when children are able to remain in their own community.