The Alternate Care Unit provides alternative placement resources for children who are unable to remain in their homes of origin, and who require a safe and nurturing environment. These resources can be emergency, short-term or long-term placements. The primary responsibility of the unit, in working closely with the CFS teams, is to identify and license foster homes within our communities and or extended families for the placement of children. Although recruitment and development of agency resources in the nine First Nations communities is the principle goal, placement resources off-reserve are also needed and considered.
The main areas of responsibility for the Alternate Care unit includes active resource recruitment strategies, ongoing orientation training to foster parents, foster home studies and assessments, foster home annual reviews and reassessments, kinship care assessments, providing support to foster families through advocacy/networking; foster parent appreciation days, POS placements, providing foster families with education and training opportunities, and completing court-ordered assessments, when required.
The Alternate Care team oversees WRCFS’ Place of Safety (POS) placements and foster homes resources, both on & off-reserve.
The Gaa Gii Kweng team oversees the agency’s specialized foster home resources, including our medical homes for children with exceptional needs.