Provides out-of-home placement for a wide range of youth, including young victims of abuse and neglect, emergency short term care, and youth with severe emotional and behavioral disorders. The goals for the youth in care are either reunification with family, guardianship or adoption, or independent living. Care is delivered in private homes with specially trained foster parents. Foster Care Specialists are responsible for coordinating various services while youth are in care. If required, the agency will provide additional therapeutic support to both the biological family and foster family, as well as the youth in care.

Agency-based foster, fos-adoptive, kinship, and relative care.

Adoption services include recruitment, screening, assessing, and case management provided to persons choosing to adopt an infant. Counseling and support are provided to birth mothers/fathers choosing to place a child for adoption, as well as post-adoptive services for those who are adopted, adoptive parents, and birth parents. This includes international and private adoptions.

Adoptive home assessments provide guidance to prospective adoptive parents and/or adoptive parents in Iowa and Illinois.

Helps applying for benefits, information on community resources, and assistance to caregivers and grandparents raising grandchildren.

Provides a list of referrals for adoption agencies in the area.

Services are designed to support and strengthen the lives of adoptive parents, adult adopted persons, and birth parents by providing compassionate profiles, searches, and intermediary services.

Services include:

-- Individual and Family Counseling by request from anyone involved in an adoption plan made through Catholic Charities at any time.

-- Mutual consent registry.

-- Background histories and non-identifying profiles.

-- Post adoption search and intermediary service in the form of indirect and direct contact between interested parties.

Traditional Foster Care for children ages 0-18 whose families are unable or unwilling to meet the minimum standards of parents as defined by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

-- Specialized Foster Care provides intensive services to behaviorally challenged children ages 3-18.

-- Relative Foster Care allows children who need to be placed out of their home to be placed with relatives.

-- Aftercare Program is specially designed to assist children and their families upon their return home from living with a foster family.

Other services include:

-- Foster Parent Recruitment.

-- Adoption Conversions.

Assists individuals in Illinois in becoming licensed foster parents. Also provides follow-up training for foster parents to help meet the various needs of their foster children.

Services provided:

-- LCFS team provides guidance and support through the foster care experience.

-- Health insurance for the children placed in a foster home.

-- Therapy, counseling, and academic counseling, and special education services when needed.

-- Training programs, support groups, and newsletters geared to foster families.

-- Monthly financial support for the foster child(ren's) basic needs, including food, clothing, and housing costs.

-- Funding for daycare, after-school care, and extracurricular activities including sports and art programs for eligible children in foster care.

Offers help for families to adopt American children, both with and without unique challenges. The children assisted are not only from Illinois, but they can also reside anywhere in the United States. OCH works with other agencies to assist with the matching process and to assess the needs of the child to determine whether the child and family make an appropriate match.

Foster Care programs are designed to find safe, secure, and nurturing homes.

-- Relative Foster Care serves children who are placed in foster care with maternal or paternal relatives.

-- Fictive Kin Foster Care serves children who are placed with a non-relative, but the individual has personal or emotional ties with the child.

-- Traditional Foster Care serves children who are placed in non-relative, licensed foster homes.

-- Foster Family After Care serves children who have successfully returned home to their parents. It provides case management and counseling services in order to stabilize the newly reunited family. Services can continue for up to nine months.

Provides placement and casework services for children who have been removed from their birth families because of abuse or neglect. Provides training, licensing, and services for foster families.