Children and youth live in family homes that provide daily routines and structure consistent with a placement plan. The placements meet each youth’s needs with regard to physical space, clothing, nutritional requirements and treatment.
Maple Star foster parents are monitored by a Maple Star social worker, who provides consultation regarding provide the highest level of care of to children and youth. Maple Star social workers meet with foster parents at a minimum frequency of twice a month.
Monitoring refers to regular activities directed toward reviewing the performance of foster parents against performance standards found in the performance guidelines for foster parents and other policy documents. Monitoring is done to assure that the performance guidelines are being followed.
Consultation is a process of identifying and supporting the strengths of foster parents as they serve persons in their care. It includes identifying problems in performance and assisting foster parents to find alternative ways of dealing with matters leading to the performance problems. It also involves providing suggestions and information for consideration of the family care provider in carrying out contractual responsibilities. Consultation is an educational function, not counseling, and is designed to strengthen performance by recognizing existing strengths and assisting the family care provider to deal with any performance problems. Consultation is not supervision because Maple Star social workers are not in a position to direct the work of the family care provider; they can only identify any performance problems, offer suggestions, and assist the family care provider in identifying a course of action which they may take.
Maple Star provides child care resources according to the needs determined by the service plan and quarterly reviews to support the foster parents in dealing with the youth.
Tutors will be provided to youth who require assistance in meeting school requirements.
Foster parents provide youth with transportation to appointments as specified in the placement plan.
Youths are involved in activities designed to develop and strengthen networks of community support. Recreational and community activities, as well as activities by which youths contribute to the good of the community, are incorporated into placement plans to meet the individual needs of the youth.
Maple Star is committed to the principle of inclusive care. The extent of services provided to the parents of clients will vary according to each client’s placement plan, and the resources available to the service team. Some services include parent mentoring, parent counseling, coordination of visits and telephone calls, supervision of parent visits and telephone calls, and transportation to and from visits.
Foster parents keep weekly client behaviour and activity Logs for each youth in care. Logs are recorded to reflect the problems that occur in placement, the objectives set, and the interventions utilized. Foster parents submit monthly Youth Case Notes to the Maple Star social worker who reviews the notes and signs them.
Foster parents have access to emergency social work support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Critical interventions are managed in a prescribed step-by-step fashion with mandatory notification of the referring agency of all crises. Maple Star social workers are certified by the Crisis Prevention Institute to participate, assist and train foster parents in the de-escalation and physical management of adolescents in crisis. Maple Star policies require that the referring agency be notified when a client is involved in a crisis or emergency, including substantial property damage, substance overdose, delinquent or criminal behaviour, runaway, physical illness or injury requiring medical attention, or any other situation in which the youth may harm themselves or others.
Maple Star can provide clients with direct professional client therapy as identified in the placement plan. Direct therapy is not a mandatory component of the program; the program emphasizes social network therapy.
Maple Star social workers provide case management services, and work with the service team to coordinate services. Service providers such as schools, licensed professional therapists, and other intensive community based, rehabilitative partial care/day treatment and rehabilitative skills training providers are brought into Maple Star’s placement planning process to assure continuity and meet client needs.
Discharge planning is specified in each individual’s placement plan. This planning will involve financial management, housing, medical care, household management, and employment. Youth are prepared for discharge according to the permanency plan as developed by the service team.
Service providers such as schools will be brought into Maple Star’s placement planning process to assure continuity and meet client’s needs. Maple Star will maintain necessary contact with schools at a frequency to prevent, monitor, and correct school related problems.
Experienced foster parents are matched with new foster parents to assist them in their transition to fostering full time. They are able to draw upon their extensive experience to provide insight and advice.
To ensure that foster parents are provided with compensated time off so that personal and professional needs may be met, funds can be accrued by foster parents to purchase respite services at a rate of two days per month for each youth placed.
Each foster parent is required to complete annually 30 hours of training. Sessions are provided by Maple Star on a monthly basis where guest speakers from the areas of children’s mental health, the school system, therapists, doctors and social workers are able to share their knowledge with our staff and foster parents.
