Program Director: Sandra Hodge Executive Director: Richard Chapman Foster Placement Services Provided By JJC Family Services Services to Foster Children (SFC) is a foster care program that provides care and services to about 80 children aged from newborns to 18 years, to their foster parents and to their natural families, through two teams of social workers. Children are placed in the five county area and in adjacent parts of New Jersey. Young people up to the age of 21 are also served if they are in full-time education. Children referred to SFC have either mild or moderate problems in their social, emotional, physical or intellectual development, and often have complex natural family issues. SFC focuses on counseling the child and supporting the foster parents while we work intensively with the natural family in order to resolve problems that necessitated placement and to achieve the goal of re-unification. In situations where this is not possible, adoption is pursued through our Department of Permanency Planning or, for the older child, independent living may become the goal. Social workers provide a minimum of every other week counseling to the child, natural family and foster parents, and home coordinators also work with the latter. The use of community resources and our Behavioral Health clinic also play a large part in stabilizing and aiding the child's emotional growth to achieve the desired goals.  Kinship Care:  SFC also provides services to families who are providing care to children from within the extended family. If it were not for a grandparent or aunt, for example, these children would be in regular foster placements away from their own families. JJC screens and approves such homes as "kinship" homes and supplies counseling and supportive services to child and family. The family is visited every other week by a social worker and every-other-month by a home coordinator, to help secure a stable, even if temporary, home for the children and to help the parents cope in often quite stressful situations. JJC can provide kinship care services to about 60 children.  Tutoring: Through fund-raising, we are able to obtain tutoring for some of our foster and kinship children. Many of our children are behind in basic skills such as math and reading. Through one-on-one help from a skilled tutor, our children have made rapid gains in learning and self-esteem.  Referrals:  Call Joanne Petro  at (215) 849-2112 ext. 5111 or fax your referral to her at (215) 849-0393 Interested in becoming a foster parent? Call Joanne Petro at (215) 849 2112 ext 5111. She will discuss the requirements, the application process, and will then ask our home finder Mary Shaefer to visit your home.