Family Care Collaborative (FCC)

The Family Care Collaborative (FCC), a partnership between the Department of Human Services (DHS) and Options, is designed to reduce the likelihood of children coming into foster care, to increase reunification of the child’s family and to shorten the length of stay for children who are in foster care. 

The Family Care Collaborative provides support and services for the entire family which increases the rate of participation and success.  The FCC team consists of a mental health clinician, parent peer support specialists, and a skills trainer.  All members of the FFC team act as mentors to both foster families, in the case of children who have been displaced from their natural homes, and the family of origin themselves.  Family therapy targets specific issues that have been problematic within the family over time. The Peer Recovery Support Specialists are directly involved in teaching the use of “Behavioral Teaching” model to the foster parents and biological parents. They go into both the foster family’s and biological family’s homes and actually model the use of the Behavioral Teaching approach with the children and observe the family interacting, providing specific coaching and training to the parents/guardians.  Teaching is provided to the parent/guardian in the home around issues of daily living, understanding their children’s strengths and limitations and targeted, developmentally appropriate use of the Behavioral Teaching model.  The FCC model is very positive, clear and focused on the possibilities of what “can be” for the families, with a very structured, concrete, predictable and interpersonally supportive set of techniques for how to get there.