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More
foster parents are needed every year as more people are
getting involved in reporting child abuse and neglect.
Hotline social workers this year will handle more
than 130,000 reports of child abuse and neglect.
What are child abuse and neglect? Child abuse is the
mistreatment of a child under the age of 18 by a parent,
caretaker, someone living in the child’s home or someone
who works with or around children.
The mistreatment must cause injury or must put the
child at risk of physical injury.
Child abuse can be physical (such as burns or broken
bones), sexual (such as fondling or incest), or emotional.
Neglect occurs when a parent or responsible caretaker
fails to provide adequate supervision, food, clothing,
shelter, or other basics of a child.
It is important for every person to take child abuse
and neglect seriously, to be able to recognize when it
happens, and to know what to do next.
Care enough to call the state’s Child Abuse
Hotline: 1-800-25-ABUSE or 1-800-358-5117 (TDD).
As
more children enter the foster system, there is an
increasing need for foster parents.
Foster parents care about children and they are
willing and able to love, respect, and nurture them.
A foster parent has to be at least 21 years old;
law-abiding; free of communicable diseases; trained to
foster children; a licensed foster parent; able to work
closely with the agency that supervises their home;
and provide living quarters which are large enough,
safe enough, and furnished in a way that is appropriate for
a family with children.
If you wish to become a foster parent, call
1-800-624-KIDS to request further information.
If you prefer adoption, consider making a waiting
child part of your family. For more information on how you can become an adoptive
parent, call 1-800-572-2390.
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Logan County Health
Department provides services to foster parents and foster
children by acting as the Lead Agency for HealthWorks of
Illinois. HealthWorks
monitors the medical needs of Department of Children and
Family Services (DCFS) wards (foster children) for a ten
county area in Logan, Christian, Mason, Menard, Sangamon,
Macoupin, Montgomery, Scott, Morgan, and Cass Counties.
It is a medical program developed to provide the best
possible medical care for the children.
It provides and maintains a medical network that
supplies consistent and appropriate medical services to DCFS
wards. All children under the age of 6 also have on hand at
each respective health department a medical case manager
that will be available to answer any medical questions a
foster parent may have about the DCFS ward.
HealthWorks provides an exam within 24 hours of
placement. It
also allows the foster child to carry a Health Passport that
documents their medical services as they move through foster
care.
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