Understand the critical need
We helped 309 children and youth through our foster care services this past year. Our foster families provide safe, stable and healing home environments for abused and neglected children. Our services also include a focus on helping current and former foster youth transition into self-sufficient adults.
Contact Our Team
SDYS Foster Care Team
Resource Family Agency
Youth Contact
Current or former foster youth ages 16-21 are invited to sign up for our Independent Living Skills program
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Becoming a Parent Who Fosters
Children need parents. They need families. Amazing families look many different ways and every child needs someone to connect deeply with, someone they can count on and trust. They need it like they need water and air.
We Do Foster Care Different
San Diego Youth Services is passionate about a new brand of foster care that will meet these goals for every single child. Our highly trained and committed Foster Parents are the Secret Sauce to finding the solution instead of perpetuating the problem.
Traditional foster care is broken.
Children who experience abuse and neglect are left with trauma. That trauma is repeated when they are taken from their families, no matter how damaging the environment was. Then the traditional foster care model repeats that cycle each time a child is moved from one “bed” to another in the system created to protect them. The intervention is worse than the problem. It has failed to provide the safe, loving and therapeutic homes that our traumatized children need to heal and thrive.
- Heartbreakingly, nearly 20 percent of youth in foster care have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a higher rate than combat veterans.
We must be part of the solution.
We hope you’re looking for a new life journey.
If you accept this mission, your life will be changed from the inside out.
You will rescue children who need you like they need air to breathe.
Your life story will be more meaningful and well worth telling.
We’re looking for super parents who are all in, fully committed to the child in your trust until a permanent loving family wraps their arms around that child.
Are you in?
Join Us for Our Next Information Session
Independent Living Skills
The Independent Living Skills Program (ILS) focuses on giving former foster youth the tools and resources they need to transition smoothly into becoming an independent and self-sufficient adult. The program helps ensure that upon exiting foster care, youth will be enrolled in college, vocational programs and/or be employed, as well as be in a stable housing situation.
The program, a partnership with South Bay Community Services, helped 298 foster youth last year.
Eligibility
Current and former foster youth ages 16-21. Referrals can be made by the social workers, probation officers or other ILS partnerships. Youth can also refer themselves to ILS.
Aftercare Services
Upon leaving the foster care system, aftercare services are available until a youth’s 21st birthday. Such services may include: financial assistance for employment or educational purposes, housing assistance, scholarships, Medi-Cal, household items, gift cards and other resources, when possible.
Additional Services
- ILS classes and workshops
- Bus passes, when possible
- Career exploration
- Employment support services, such as interview skills and resume writing
- Financial assistance, when possible for job uniforms, interview clothing
- Incentives for attending workshops or events
- Individual case management
Free Drop-in Center Services
- Computer lab
- Snacks and light meals