Children sometimes come into foster care who are
medically fragile, or have been severely emotionally
damaged by their previous families. There will often
be no plan to reunite them with their families.
Foster parents may need to provide extensive medical
support, or mount an intensive salvage operation to
try to turn these children around. Some of
these children may have been allowed to become
delinquent, self-harming, abusers of other children,
animals or adults, using drugs, prostituting
themselves, or in deep trouble with the police. The
last few decades have seen the development of a
corps of highly-trained dedicated specialist foster
parents to look after these children medium- or
long-term and provide a treatment or therapeutic,
safe environment for them which may supplement
professional medical care and/or therapy. They will
be very experienced, often having raised families of
their own already. They will have had extensive
education in techniques of dealing with very ill,
troubled and/or difficult children.
This is a profession in itself and in most cases it is paid accordingly. Both parents in a two-parent home may have given up outside work, with fostering now their full-time job. N.O.A.H. staff is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. N.O.A.H. supervises and fully supports all therapeutic foster parents. There is extensive contact with social workers and other professionals. As in long-term fostering, many of these children develop permanent parent-child relationships with their foster parents. Most states limit the number of children with treatment or therapeutic needs who can be placed in one home unless it is a licensed Group Home.