Inner Circle FFA provides out of home care through foster care services to clients. Each client admitted is placed into an Inner Circle FFA approved Resource Home.

Each resource home must undergo extensive screening and training prior to the placing of a child. Our homes are typically certified for a capacity of two to four children, however we reserve the right to place up to six to accommodate sibling groups in accordance with the guidelines found in Deliverables, Section C, 4.11 (Inner Circle defines “teenager” as children 10 and older). Special efforts are made to match children with resource families that share common cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Homes that are certified by Inner Circle are designed to provide 24/7 treatment to children who experience behavioral, emotional and physical problems. Resource homes work in congruence with Inner Circle, Foster Family Agency, and the Department of Children and Family Services in planning for the child, as well as to ensure the child’s rights are protected.

Once a child is placed in the home, Inner Circle social workers are required to visit each home once a week. Face to face contact must occur 1x a week. The social worker remains in constant contact with the client – either by telephone or in-person. The client also has the telephone number of the FCSW if age- appropriate. All communication with the client is to be documented in the client’s case record. The purpose of these visits is to monitor the home environment, provide support services to the resource parents (RPs), and to evaluate and assess the child’s progress on a weekly basis. Inner Circle’s FFA social workers, in conjunction with the CSW, work together to find and coordinate the appropriate services for each client.

Many of our children participate in individual counseling and, when deemed appropriate, family therapy with the resource parents and the foster client. These services are available to foster clients and resource families. Agency social workers work closely with placing agencies, birth families, and resource parents to effectively develop and implement the child’s treatment goals. Children/youth, that are placed in services with Inner Circle FFA, have experienced in one form or another a traumatic event. Each client reacts to trauma in several different ways, which is why Inner Circle FFA believes that addressing trauma is a big step to the start of treatment and permanency. Trauma treatment can take place in any number of settings within the client’s time with the agency. When appropriate, community resources are used to augment a specific child’s treatment plan. These services range from specialized treatment groups to community recreational centers. Our goal is to provide support in a trauma‐ informed, victim‐centered, strengths‐based, and culturally sensitive manner that will meet each foster client’s individual needs.

The following services are available either directly or through referral:

Services for special populations including Commercial Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC), Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual Questioning (LGBTQ) and Nonminor Dependents (NMD) may consist of the following but is not limited to:

• Crisis interventions
  • development of a crisis safety and response plan with input from the person(s) served
• Ensuring that the assigned agency social worker can mobilize coordination with hospitals and/or community‐based providers
• Providing respite services that may offer temporary relief to resource parents who are caring for CSEC clients, LGBTQ clients, NMD
• Developing a transitional independent living case plan which the NMD will participate in to prepare for the transition from foster care to independent living.
• Community‐based treatments with focus on:
  • Providing consistency for the person served through changes in placement
  • Episodes when the person served is not in placement
  • Provide community‐based services that help promote self‐esteem and sexual identity issues
  • Participation in peer support groups that may offer activities which identify individual, cultural, and spiritual needs
  • If a person served who identifies as LGBTQ, as well as CSEC, will have the ability to participate in CSEC focused community‐based treatments
  • When the person served returns to or is held by her or his exploiter
  • Mental health assessments (Including additional mental health assistance prior to, during, and after high‐risk retriggering events (e.g. court proceedings)
  • Psychotherapy (individual and family)
  • Clinical case management
  • Rehabilitation (Including early periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment [EPSDT])
  • Psychoeducation
  • Educationally Related Mental Health Services through the school districts when IEPs may be developed
  • Other services as needed

Inner Circle’s direct services are impacted based on the DCFS and the courts decision regarding a client’s transfer for discharge. Inner Circle abides to the courts and DCFS’ decision on the client’s permanency goal. A client may have a permanency goal of:

• Adoption
• Adoption
• Guardianship
• Long Term Care/Independent Living