Do you have a passion for young people?

Wanting to make a difference in their lives?

Foster Care could be a great fit!

What is Fostering?

Fostering allows a family, couple or individual to open their home to children and youth that have been placed in care by the Children’s Aid Society (CAS). By providing a stable home it allows children and youth the chance to thrive in a safe, secure and loving home environment.

Foster children and youth need:

Stability

Safety

Love

Empathy

Being a Foster Parent

Foster Care Providers come from a wide range of backgrounds, races and religions. Foster Care Providers can be single, married, or living common law. They can own or rent their home. They can have children, be childless, or be empty nesters. Healing Hearts especially looks for Foster Care Providers from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

To ensure a successful foster placement, we believe it is helpful if potential care providers possess some or all of the following:

• An ability to see beyond a child/youth’s behaviour and link it to past trauma
• An ability to work within a team to promote the child’s overall well-being and success
• An empathy for and natural ability to nurture traumatized children and youth
• Resiliency - the capacity to withstand or recover quickly from challenges and difficulties
• Patience, dedication and compassion

• Ability to communicate effectively
• Understanding of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle
• Recognizing the importance of being physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy
• A sense of humour
• A willingness to learn and adapt—an ability to be flexible and try new strategies
• An ability to model appropriate behaviours and lead by example
• Plenty of physical and emotional stamina

Experience working with children of vulnerable youth in various capacities, having a background in child welfare or mental health, or previous foster care experience—all are great assets—not necessary although.

Foster Care Provider Requirements

The Foster Care Process

Giving you the tools for a successful match

Becoming a foster parent can be overwhelming—especially when it involves vulnerable/trauma related children and youth. Our passionate desire is for you and the child to overwhelmingly succeed. Therefore, we come alongside you to ensure you are equipped. Acquiring effective skills and techniques is an on-going process for the duration of your involvement with Healing Hearts. We partner with you making this a team effort to success.

A snapshot of training:

Let’s talk about success

How do we measure it?

To us, success is seeing noticeable improvement in a child—hurting themselves or others less, more positive overall attitude, acting out less, less aggression, and improved relationships between the foster child and other children/adults are all exciting milestones of success. 

Environment matters

Our goal is to lessen negative behaviours and to make each child feel that they are in a stable, caring, loving, consistent home—where they feel cared for, valued and worth much more than they have been treated in the past.

Amazing potential

We have found that the majority of children and youth, when fostered well—become incredible success stories and true models in our society—all possible because foster care providers like you invested the time to make a difference in their lives.

Matching up children/youth with foster care providers

It is usually most beneficial to match children with foster parents of the same culture/ethnicity. Foster parents of the same culture tend to have a greater understanding into their needs and culture. However, we find that many of our foster parents are more than happy to open their hearts to a child of different ethnicity. It is imperative that you as a foster parent have an openness to receiving a child of a different decent. If you are willing to learn and adapt with various cultures—you will be a good fit for Healing Hearts. 

As an agency, we strive to learn as much background on each child as possible to better understand how we can help them the most. We meet with other family members to receive as much insight possible to make the transition as smooth as possible. The more we can create an environment where the child is comfortable—the more they will lower their guard and thrive.

Everything is taken into consideration when choosing a home for a child. As each child is very unique, we take the time to carefully select the parents that we feel will be the best fit for a child or youth.

Foster Parent Requirements

Previous experience fostering or close involvement with someone who has fostered; experience parenting children/young adults; and/or experience working with children and/or youth in a paid or unpaid capacity is considered an asset, but is not required. In addition, Foster Care Providers are required to have: 

• A spare bedroom for the foster child/youth
• No previous convictions of child maltreatment (suspected or confirmed)
• A commitment to attend training and resource/support meetings
• Be available for Plan of Care/CARE Team meetings
• A willingness to support a child/young adult’s attendance to such things as medical appointments, therapeutic services, and recreational activities, including the provision of transport when necessary
• A drivers license and access to a vehicle

What is the process

Being a foster parent is a commitment that requires dedication and there are a series of steps that gets you qualified and prepared to accept children into your home. The process begins when you complete an application. Due to the nature of our work we conduct thorough background checks, and require each individual living in the home, to participate in the application process. The full process usually takes 4-6 months. We will begin training you along the way so that when your child arrives, you will be much more prepared and confident moving forward.

Application Process

Frequently Asked Questions

Becoming a Foster Care Provider is a big step a huge commitment. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions. If your question is not answered through our website, please feel free to reach out to us. We are here to make this work for you.