How Medina County Supports Families Who Foster

Are you thinking about fostering a child? Providing temporary care for a child gives him or her a safe place to learn and grow. The journey can bring a deep enrichment to your family as well. 

Medina County’s fostering program is truly unique. We offer a range of services to support families who foster. 

• When you foster a child, that child will have Medicaid Insurance to assist with medical needs and a Medina County JFS team member for support, so you’re never alone in helping a child who is transitioning into your home or who has medical needs. 

• The Medina County JFS fostering team puts our personal commitment behind every child and family with whom we work. Our entire team gets involved to ensure success. We get to know every child personally and learn their likes and dislikes.

• Our team applies a strong sense of caring to the foster families as well. We dig deep to learn about the entire foster family, too, and go to great lengths to make sure foster parents feel supported. We like to say that we offer 360 care. We are working very hard to make sure that everyone who's involved in the case feels supported by the team.

• We’ve developed a unique system of gathering feedback from foster families. And we use that data to create programs and activities for fostering families. For example, we started a virtual book club for foster parents during COVID-19 to create a supportive environment. With that, we had excellent participation and lots of positive feedback! We also hold ongoing activities throughout the year to foster connections among families who are fostering. Our summer picnic featured face painting, a Kona ice truck, interactive musicians and a potluck!

• We provide Trust-Based Relational Intervention training for our foster parents to train and equip them to work with the unique needs of the children being placed in their home. It is an incredibly practical and applicable training that has shown to be very effective with children from tough places.

Throughout Medina County, there are 50 families who are currently fostering children. With a current count of 135 kids in care, a majority of the children are either placed in foster care or with kinship relatives.

Medina County JFS has a dream: To increase our pool to 70 families capable of fostering children to help us meet the demand.

Would your family consider fostering? 

Contact the Medina County JFS with your questions, and get started on the journey to transform another child’s life.