StepStone Understands That Parenting Can Be Difficult. We’re Here To Help.
For over 20 years, we have been a leading provider of foster care/adoption services. The foster care training we provide includes home and community-based parent education, case management and counseling services and social services to children and their families. Specific training and services include:
- Foster care licensing and adoption certification
- State-approved training for potential foster and adoptive parents
- Home and community-based instruction in positive parenting techniques, and life and home management skills
- Office-based individual and family counseling (at some locations)
- Home-based individual and family counseling (at some locations)
- Intensive home-based intervention for families involved in the Child Protective Services (CPS) system supervised visitation for parents, children, and sibling groups (at some locations)
Pre-Service Training
You’ll begin your journey towards becoming a foster and/or adoptive parent by completing the licensing application and home study while simultaneously attending the pre-service training classes required. Depending on the type of training you need, this pre-service training lasts 5 -10 weeks, with classes occurring weekly and lasting 3 hours each.
These trainings help guide the way for you to successfully parent children who started life in a family that is most likely very different from yours. These children have had experiences which require a unique parenting style that may be very different than how you parent your own children, and the pre-service classes teach these skills and help support you as you prepare to become a foster parent.
Home Monitoring Makes A Good Foster Parent Even Better.
Once Foster Parents have their license, they can accept placements of foster children in their home. When this occurs, StepStone staff will provide ongoing home monitoring, supervision and support to help ensure that both Foster Parents and children continue to have a successful experience!
Adoption Certification and Training
If you are seeking to adopt, the requirements for certification are very similar to those for being a foster parent, and include completion of the pre-service training, a home study and approval by the regional court system as a certified adoptive home. Families can be certified to adopt even if they have not identified a specific child to adopt. In these cases, the state Child Welfare agency requires that families provide foster care to a child before recommending permanent adoption, so you will be licensed as a foster home first.
Moving Towards Adoption
The first step towards adoption is being selected as a potential adoptive home by the child’s state Child Welfare agency. There will be discussions about the potential adoptive child and his/her needs and case plan, and brief visits between you and the child if he/she is not already placed in your home. The state Child Welfare agency typically requires that the child be placed in your home as a foster child for a minimum of six months before the adoption can be finalized, and the regional court makes the final approval of the adoption.