Siirry sisältöön
Wellbeing services county of Central Ostrobothnia
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Family care for children and adolescents in child welfare

Family care in child welfare means arranging care for a child or an adolescent in a foster family or in the child’s or adolescent’s home. Family care is used for arranging care for children who have been taken into custody and who are placed urgently and for children who are placed outside their home as an open care support measure.

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    Family care is used in child welfare where family care is the primary form of care for a child and adolescent who has been placed outside their home. Family care can be temporary or long-term care. Foster parent is a more familiar name for family care givers for children and adolescents.

    Family care offers:

    • the possibility to get homelike care
    • relationships that promote rehabilitation and are connected with the family’s everyday life
    • daily tasks in the home
    • individual care and safety.

    The goal of family care is to give a child in family care the possibility to receive family-like care and form close relationships. The family’s daily tasks in the home and steady relationships help the child who is in family care to feel safe and maintain a good physical, mental and social functional capacity. 

    Family care is suitable for children and adolescents of all ages and can be of short duration or continue until further notice and is based on individual client plans. According to law, the need and length of a placement must be evaluated yearly.

    Family caregivers have received training and have been approved to act as a family for a placed child. Soite draws up a commission agreement with the family care giver.

    An individual plan is drawn up for a child or adolescent in family care on arranging the services, care, support and guidance that is needed.

    Family care is based on the Family Care Act (perhehoitolaki). Soite’s county board has approved the instruction on family care through which carrying out family care is harmonised in the welfare services county. In addition to this, family care is directed by the instruction on family care in child welfare.

    Forms of family care

    When long-term family care is arranged, a non-fixed term commission agreement is drawn up on family care. Children who are placed in long-term family care have been taken into custody and instead of living with their own family, they live with a family who offers family care.

    According to law, the need and length of a placement must be evaluated yearly.

    Emergency family care is arranged for a child or an adolescent in accordance with the Child Welfare Act when urgent or acute placement is needed. The families that offer emergency family care are on duty in turn and are then on standby 24 hours a day and ready to receive a child in need of placement.

    Special characteristics of emergency family care include for example receiving a child at short notice and often with little information beforehand. In emergency family care, one of the parent’s must be at home, because a child may need care at any time.  

    Short-term family care of a child can be carried out as a planned open care support measure or as an urgent placement in acute situations in accordance with the Child Welfare Act. The placements are either urgent placements or open care placements. 

    In family care given by relatives or a family in the close network, the family caregiver is the child’s biological relative or another family in the close network. The family can offer short-term or long-term family care.

    The families receive training beforehand or within a year from starting as a family care giver.

    Filling in for a family caregiver is short-term family care in the home of a family caregiver or in the home of the carer who is filling in. The carer who is filling in is responsible for caring for the child.

    The carer who is filling in makes it for example possible for the family caregiver to take the statutory days off.

    Applying for services

    You can apply for services digitally on behalf of an underaged child if you have first filled out a commitment on acting on behalf of an underaged child in the Omapalvelu service.

    Using the Omapalvelu service requires online bank user identifiers or a mobile certificate.

    “Meidän sakki” -groups for siblings and peer support meetings

    Meidän sakki-groups for siblings are peer support groups that aim to strengthen the relationships between siblings. All children living in a foster family are welcome, both biological, adopted and placed children.

    The group has 10 meetings with 8 themes, such as family, a good everyday life, equality and trust.

    The group’s most important task is to give children the possibility to spend time together as equals and to express their own thoughts in a safe atmosphere where they are valued. The group is led by a family caregiver and a social advisor from family care.

    Other peer group meetings are e.g. a peer group for family caregivers for toddlers, a group for foster fathers, a group for foster mothers and active peer meetings for families who offer family care.

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