Treatment Foster Care

Beginning in 1995, the treatment foster care component of the agency began due to our awareness of the need for children coming out of the residential programs of the agency to have a transition or “practice time” in a home setting. The treatment foster care program emphasizes ways for children to adapt the new knowledge and skills they have gained in residential treatment into a more intimate and community-based family setting.  The practice families help children generalize their gains in the treatment program before going into families.  These families are an aftercare resource for our other programs. 

No direct referrals for this program are accepted from outside our other services.

WHAT IS TREATMENT FOSTER CARE?
Treatment foster care enhances regular foster care with individualized treatment components. These include parents who are trained to support treatment goals developed by the clinical care team—the child’s family, the psychiatrist and Jasper treatment and school staff. Children who require a treatment foster care resource are usually those who have experienced trauma or abuse and who have had serious difficulties functioning in a family setting due to their background and associated behaviors.

In order to help health and stability, treatment foster parents are provided training beyond what regular foster parents receive. Specifically, they are trained to “translate” an abused child’s behaviors so that adults can respond to the underlying needs of the child, rather than take the behaviors at face value. Treatment foster care is designed to help abused children make a significant change toward emotional and behavioral health, and be able to use these gains to be able to experience success and belonging in the practice family and eventually their own family.

To provide a resource like this for the children who have been served by agency programs, Jasper Mountain staff certify that foster parents have the home environment, support, patience and skills needed to make a positive, lasting difference.

Jasper Mountain’s Treatment Foster Care program is able to help foster parents find success with difficult children. It takes courage and patience to promote positive growth with a difficult child. Above all, it takes teamwork and an openness to personal growth.

WHO ARE THE CHILDREN IN TREATMENT FOSTER CARE?
The treatment foster care program at Jasper Mountain works with children as young as four and as old as 13 years of age. The children come from the local area, throughout the state of Oregon, and at times, from other states across the country. Many of the children have histories of failing in family settings, so they tend to “test” foster parents and their rules to insure that they will be safe. These children tend to be labeled “extremely challenging,” due to their behaviors, but work hard to understand why they act as they do. Training and support by experienced treatment foster care personnel help promote behavioral change and achieve treatment goals.