Thailand Foster Care Transition Homes

Unfortunately, with the continued COVID outbreak happening, the development of Thailand's foster care system has slowed down considerably. We were planning to partner with the government orphanages to take short term placements of schoool age children, but with the continued lockdowns since April, they have only been placing children under the age of 5 with foster families. We have recently had mass vaccinations of people ages 12 and up, so we are hopeful that 2022 will see more children be placed in foster families and we will be able too provide support for families as they are separated and see them restored and strengthened. 

Unfortunately, there's not a lot to report in this area due to COVID lockdowns being in place for several months now. This month, we hired a Family Placement Liaison to begin to work with some of our partner organizations to learn about how to recruit and train foster families and also in the future work with orphanages who want to transition to family-based care. She will help them plan for what their staff will do post-transition, create permanency plans for the children and teach staff how to assess biological family and foster families while determining what is in the best interests of each child. 

Foster placements from the government are on hold during this time as we wait for vaccines to come to Thailand and the COVID numbers keep rising. We are hopeful this will end soon and we will be able to provide assistance for children preparing to move back with their families in the next few months.