What is Foster Care Service
Our Foster Care Service provides the most family-like "out of home" we can for 80 children and young people who cannot be adequately cared for by their families due to various family problems or crises. We also provide ‘day foster care’ service for children in need. Under ‘day foster care’, children are cared for by the foster family during the day; the birth parents of the children take the child back from the foster family at night.
The aim of foster care is to provide a substitute family life experience for children in need so that they can enjoy a healthy home environment and community experience until they reunite with their families, are adopted, or reach 18 years of age and can begin the transition to independent living.
Children under foster care service will stay with the foster family for an average of a few months to two years.
Mothers Choice currently has capacity for 80 children eligible for foster care.
Our Mission
Our Foster Care Service started in 1993.
Around one-third of the children in our care are babies awaiting adoption and staying with a foster family for just a few months. We co-work with the Social Welfare Department and actively recruit English-speaking or bilingual foster families for children with special needs referred for overseas adoption so that they can begin learning English and be familiarized with the kind of home environment where they will grow up. In this way, the transition will be easier and more natural.
With an increasing number of children with special needs waiting for adoption in the past few years, we hope that we can find more families to help these children in the coming years.
Our Foster Care Services holds these core beliefs:
- Every child should receive loving and nurturing family care, enjoy a happy childhood and be part of a stable family
- Children should be protected from all forms of abuse, negligence and exploitation
- Children should be able to play an active role in decisions affecting their own lives and participate in their communities in preparation for responsible adulthood
- Children should fully develop their potential through education, play, experience and cultural activities