Family Resource Center of South Florida, Inc.

This program ensures that kids who enter foster care get the medical, mental health, and dental care that they need quickly and with high-quality providers. It covers those children who have no insurance, have met insurance maximums, or are awaiting coverage. By law, all foster children must receive a thorough medical examination within 72 hours of being removed from their parents. The most common services that we provide under this program are: primary care and specialists’ appointments, immunizations, medications, medical lab services, hearing screenings for kids who present with hearing disabilities, dental screenings and emergency dental care, vision screenings and eyeglasses, dietary consultation for children entering care severely underweight, and mental health counseling for those children who have experienced sexual abuse, violence in the home or other traumas.

The trauma of child abuse and subsequent removal from the home can lead a child to perform below grade level. This program provides in-home tutoring for all K-12 subject areas with a focus on meeting the specific needs of the foster care population. All students are given an individualized learning plan and tutoring materials that are aligned to their specific areas of need.

45% of children in out-of-home care are under the age of five. Infants and toddlers who do not have an opportunity to form a reliable attachment with a trusted adult may have grave developmental consequences. Operational since 2010, this program provides therapeutic intervention focusing on the bond between parent and child in an effort to rebuild a healthy relationship.

This service is provided to families that have had their children removed by the Department of Children and Families. It allows the parent or parents the opportunity to meet with the child in a safe, nurturing environment. Visits are one to two hours and can take place from once a week to three times a week, depending on the court order. Supervised visitation lays the groundwork for possible reunification with parents/caretakers while protecting the child from further abuse and/or trauma.

This type of visitation involves the utilization of a Master’s or Doctoral level mental health professional for continuously supervised visitation. Tt is felt by the staff and the court that the relationship between the child and the parent/caretaker is fragile, prone to pathological process, and frequently stressful to the child. The supervising professional usually needs to make contemporaneous clinical judgments about the parenting and give assertive instructions and guidance to the parent/caretaker.

Family Resource Center’s Parent Education Program has been in operation since 1999 and to date has served over 3,000 families. It is one of only nine such programs in Miami-Dade that is approved by the Judiciary of the Dependency Court and by Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe, Inc. The curriculum is an internationally recognized psycho-educational program that is distinguished for its effectiveness in improving parenting skills and parent-child interactions with at-risk families. The FRC Parent Education Program is designed to promote positive parent-child interaction and healthy childhood growth and development, thereby preventing the occurrence or reoccurrence of child abuse and neglect.

This program provides intensive Full Case Management, Substance Abuse Counseling, Mental Health Counseling and In-Home Services to abusive or neglectful parents for whom substance abuse is a salient problem. Weekly court hearings with these families provide guidance and incentives for the parents to rehabilitate themselves and ensures that traumatized children receive prompt and comprehensive care.

Family Resource Center works to identify a parent or parents who are a good fit for single children and sibling groups that become free for adoption due to TPR (termination of parental rights). The process includes a screening, home study, background check, psychological evaluation and several months of visits and overnights before the child(ren) are placed in what is called a pre-adoptive placement. FRC’s staff handles all of the adoption paperwork through the courts and manages the process with the pre-adoptive parent(s) to ensure that the adoption can take place in a timely manner. In addition, if the child or children qualify for a monthly adoption subsidy, FRC handles the requests and negotiates on behalf of the adoptive parent(s).