Using a Support Family
Sometimes support means help from another family. Family circumstances coupled with the particular needs of a child with a developmental disability, can sometimes mean that a family struggles to care for their child at home. If a family finds themselves in the devastating position of feeling they can no longer care for their child at home, they need an alternative other than placement in a facility or relinquishment. Service systems need to develop and promote a system where another family can provide a home for a child.
One kind of alternative to facility placement is a “Support Family.” A Support Family is a family who is recruited, evaluated, trained, prepared, monitored by a provider agency, and paid to care for a child with a disability as part of an organized system with standards and safeguards to assure the well-being of children who are placed with them.
The term “Support Family” is used to emphasize that the role of the alternate family is to support the child and the child’s relationship with their family. The role of the alternate family is not to replace the child’s family or their parents’ authority, but rather is to help parents to meet their responsibility to assure nurturing family life for their child even though they are unable to provide it directly.
