Child Welfare

Foster Care

Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP) Community Partnership Program Crisis Nursery Families Aligned to Stay Together (FAST) Family Services for Deaf Children and Adults Families Stronger Together Foster Care Healthy Families Improving Family Systems Mother and Child Program Partners for Change Strengthening Our Families Strengthening, Teaching, and Educating People through Support (STEPS) YVLifeSet

Providing care for children separated from their parents has been at the core of The Foundling’s mission since our launch in 1869.

Today, The Foundling is one of New York City’s largest providers of foster care services. We utilize evidence-based interventions in our foster care programs that are proven to support happy, healthy, and functioning families. Children may enter foster care for a variety of reasons, including abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Children are referred by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services to organizations—such as The New York Foundling—that place each child with a relative or foster family during this time. The Foundling, and similarly-missioned organizations, provide services that are geared toward keeping children safe and helping them return to their biological parents, remain with their extended family, or find a permanent home. In addition to placing children and youth in homes with caring and supportive foster parents, The Foundling also provides an array of other services that support the needs of children in foster care, including medical and mental health services, employment supports, and educational services.

Become a Foster Parent

Foster Care

Family Foster Care Program

Our Family Foster Care program serves more than 1,000 children year, from newborns to 21-year-olds. We recognize that these children and youth face a wide range of health, safety, educational, and employment risks due to the trauma that comes from family separation, as well as the abuse and maltreatment that often leads to foster care placement. Our program is designed specifically to address these risks, and our foster parents and our program staff members are specially trained in supporting children and young people in this challenging time in their lives.

Foster Care

Treatment Family Foster Care Program

Many of the children and youth in our foster care programs have histories of diagnosed mental health needs, and others have learning and/or developmental disabilities. The New York Foundling takes extra care to ensure that children are kept in a home setting whenever possible. The Foundling adopted the Treatment Family Foster Care program to provide more specialized support to children in foster care who struggle with serious emotional and behavioral challenges. These children are placed in a home setting where they are supervised by foster parents who are specially trained in trauma, its manifestations, and techniques in managing children who exhibit related symptoms and who have challenging behavioral issues.

Foster Care

Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO)

Targeting children placed in foster care who have complex mental health challenges and histories of hospitalizations, The Foundling’s Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO) program uses the evidence-based model by the same name. The Foundling’s TFCO program is an alternative to group care and is increasingly utilized for youth stepping down from higher levels of care including from the juvenile justice, mental health, and residential systems. It provides comprehensive, inclusive and intensive treatment, support and supervision in a family setting to youth with serious behavioral and/or emotional problems.

Success Stories

Christina came to the U.S. to live with a relative…

Christina came to the U.S. to live with a relative when she was just 6 months old, leaving behind her 14-year-old mother, who was unable to provide the care at age 11 when her safety was at risk. With help from the Foundling, Christina was given the opportunities she needed to become the woman she is today.

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