Becoming a Foster Parent in Nassau County, NY

Foster Care Services

1. Foster and Adoptive Resource Development – 516 -227-8291 and Homefinding– 516 - 227-8284. These units recruit, train, study, approve/certify, develop, retain, and re-approve/re-certify foster and adoptive families. To inquire about becoming a foster and/or adoptive parent, please call 516 – 227-7613.
2. Foster care
   Direct and/or referral services are extended to place into foster care children referred by Preventive Services, Child Protective Services, the Department's Information, Resources and Referral Unit, or the Courts. These units work intensively with the children and their foster parents to stabilize the placements, to assure that all of the children's needs are being met, and to establish productive birth-parent/child visits. These units also extend immediate concrete, casework counseling and referral services directly to birth parents in an attempt to reunite them as soon as possible with their children and to lessen the time the children spend in foster care. Those children and families not reunited quickly, despite intensive efforts, receive continued concrete, casework counseling, and referral services as long as extended foster care is necessary. Ultimately, these units effect the safe reunification of children with their birth families, free for adoption children who cannot be safely returned to their birth families, or refer older teens for Independent Living services where neither reunification nor adoption are possible. These older teens are provided with opportunities to develop independent living skills with emphasis on education and/or vocation and to establish permanent family connections.