Welcome to Five Acres Foster Care and Adoption Services!
In Los Angeles today, more than 20,000 children are awaiting permanent family solutions. In most cases, the goal is to reunify these children with their biological families. When that is not possible, Five Acres helps connect these children with safe, loving foster and foster-adoptive families. As more children enter into the foster care system, we need these families now more than ever. Here are several ways you can get involved:
Foster Care
To “foster” means to help grow and develop, and to take care of someone’s needs. When you become a foster parent, you will be giving a child a safe place to live and grow. The children in foster care have suffered from neglect and abuse and are in need of a family that will walk with them on a journey to healing. This journey often includes helping a child to reunify with their family of origin after their family has received the help and support they need to get their children back. When reunification is not possible, a foster parent can help guide a child into an adoptive home by either being that resource themselves or bridging their care into a permanent family.
Foster-Adoption
Parents who choose to foster while waiting to adopt from the child welfare system are considered foster-adoptive parents. This process involves fostering a child and following their case until it becomes clear that they can no longer be reunified with their family of origin. At this point, parental rights are terminated and the foster parents move toward becoming the parents of a child/youth in the eyes of the law. There are children at various points in the court process in L.A. County and Five Acres can help guide you with an appropriate match for you.
Intensive Services Foster Care
Intensive services foster care is a program that offers youth and families the tools they need to be successful in assisting to treat challenging mental, emotional or behavioral needs that are no fault of their own. This program offers clinical interventions with close supervision of a team that can guide a family toward success in stabilizing a youth’s needs. Intensive services foster care parents are offered 30 additional training hours that include intervention-specific tools, and a higher reimbursement rate to meet the needs of our youth. We are looking for strong, committed, determined parents who can help turn a life around.
Respite
Respite Care is service where one family supports another family for a short amount of time ( one day up to one week). This allows for a child’s original home to take time for self-care or family emergencies. Being a respite parent can be an easy way to begin fostering. If you are nervous about fostering, or want to be a support to families who care for children, please apply to be a respite parent for traditional foster care or treatment foster care. The support that is offered through both is priceless.
Porting
If you are currently approved through a foster care agency or Los Angeles County (DCFS), you can choose to transfer your approval to Five Acres. This process is called “porting,” and is designed to be more efficient than starting the approval process from the beginning. Many of your documents and trainings can easily transfer with you. If you would like more information on porting, please contact us and we explain the process.
In their words…
Learn more about the Steps to Approval. Do you have additional questions? Read our Frequently Asked Questions.