Illinois Family Program Providing Model for Other States

 Posted on October 24, 2014 in Child Custody

There are many children across the United States who are in need of a home. Whether this is accomplished through adoption, foster care, or some other type of living arrangement, many children benefit from having a safe and stable living environment. Illinois has previously established a program in which youths can be matched up with families who are willing to open up their homes to them in order to provide them with shelter and care. Now, according to a recently published news article, other states are taking Illinois’ lead and using the program as a model to implement their own such program.

Safe Haven

The state of Oregon used Illinois’ example as a lead in implementing a shelter program aimed at providing youths with a stable home environment. Such programs match stable host families with kids who are at risk for homelessness because their own home lives are affected by drugs, alcohol, abuse, or other troubles. The purpose of the program is to intervene in the lives of at-risk kids before they reach the point of homelessness or become the victims of abuse.

Oregon requires that both the host families and the youths go through an application process, which includes background checks, letters of recommendation, a lack of certain criminal offenses being in their record, and training for crisis prevention and intervention. The program requires parental consent for temporary custody to be turned over to the host families if the youth is a minor, and the biological parent can decide to revoke their consent at any time. In many circumstances, the youths may want to return to their biological parents if the issues present at home are addressed, and the placement may give many parents an opportunity to do so.

Illinois Model

The Oregon family program is reportedly based off of a model called Safe Families for Children, which was developed by Lydia Home Association out of Illinois. A similar program has been implemented in the state of Illinois since about 2005. Numbers from the program’s performance indicate that about 90 percent of youths who participated in the program ended up making a successful return to their biological families. On average, kids stayed with their host families for 40 days, but placements ranged anywhere from one day to over a year.

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