• Family Intervention Program
• Become a Foster Parent

For Love of Children believes that every child deserves a safe, permanent, stable home in which to grow up.

When city authorities remove a child from his home due to abuse or neglect and refer the case to For Love of Children, our Family Intervention Program (FIP) works intensively with the entire family. FIP staff identify and assist those parents who are working hard to reclaim their role as responsible mothers and fathers so they can be reunited with their children. When that is not possible, FIP works swiftly to find permanent placements for children in safe and nurturing foster families that will lead to adoption.

The FLOC Family Intervention Program (FIP) provides foster care and family support for children in Washington who have been removed from their homes by D.C.'s Child and Family Services Agency due to abuse or neglect. FIP was designed in collaboration between For Love of Children, the Casey Family Programs of Seattle Washington and the DC Child and Family Services Agency.

The Family Intervention Program's goals are:

• to assure the safety and stability of each child served;
• to swiftly establish an effective plan for permanency - whether the child will be able to be reunited with his family or will need to be permanently placed with a new family;
• to establish a successful long-range view for each child.

The cornerstone of our practice is the involvement of the family in a partnership. To achieve a partnership with our families, FIP uses Family Group Decision Making conferences, Solution Focused Interviewing techniques and Family Based team meetings.

In a Family Group Decision Making Conference, FIP staff meets with as many members of the child's extended family and community as possible and invites them to gather at a conference in the child's behalf. At the meeting, FIP staff advises them of the city's legal requirements for a plan for the child's safety. The family then discusses options for the child and proposes a plan. Families are empowered to recognize and build on their own strengths, and are more invested and committed in the success of the plan for the child when it is their own plan.

FLOC operates foster homes in Maryland and the District of Columbia. The Family Intervention Program is focused on recruiting foster families who are willing not only to foster children, but also to work with FIP staff and birth families to play an effective role in reunification and permanency planning for their foster children.

Become a Foster Parent

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