Child Placement Agencies
Learn more about how Washington foster care relies on CPAs to help children thrive.
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Providing adequate support for foster children, parents, and families takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and resources.
Much of this work typically falls to state caseworkers who have to balance a laundry list of tasks including managing placements, coordinating transitions, conducting regular check-ins, arranging visits, managing legal responsibilities and court orders, just to name a few. This massive workload often does not leave them with the flexibility, time, or resources to provide the kind of support that foster children, their parents, and foster families need. That’s where Child Placement Agencies (or CPAs) come in.
CPAs support the work of the state agencies by supporting children, foster families, and the state social worker. They are partners of the Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) to have good outcomes for children and their families. This page is dedicated to clarifying the roles and benefits of CPAs.
“She was so comforting and said all the right things. It was just great to have someone on a Sunday morning that I could vent to, and work through my own grief. It’s a gift.”
-Nancy (Foster Parent)
What is a child placement agency? (CPA)
These private agencies recruit and certify new families, place children in foster homes, and support the process of reunification. These are similar things state caseworkers do, but there is one key difference.
Because CPAs have smaller caseloads and more flexibility, they’re able to focus on developing meaningful personal relationships. The results are more personalized support for children, youth, families, and foster families, and relief for overwhelmed state caseworkers. Specifically, they help with: accelerating reunification, stabilizing placements, supporting transitions, and in general make things easier for foster parents.
Introducing Washington’s CPAs
Amara
Amara is committed to positive long-term outcomes for children and families. We believe foster care should be about building resiliency and relationships. As a foster parent, you can make an impact in a family’s life, and Amara is here to help every step of the way, offering training, licensing, services, and ongoing support.
Catholic Community Services
CCS is committed to providing a caring family for every child they serve. They offer 24/7 support and conduct home-licensing services for a wide variety of foster care types including community-based, pediatric interim, international, and therapeutic care.
Community and Family Services Foundation
Community & Family Services Foundation is dedicated to foster parents and the abused and neglected children they serve. They specialize in licensing and supporting foster parents who care for and nurture children who might be typically developing, or have high needs.
Community Youth Services
Community Youth Services empowers youth-at-risk and their families to meet their goals for safety, stability, belonging and success by providing a continuum of individualized services and advocacy.
Fostering Solutions
Fostering Solutions is a faith-based foster care adoption organization committed to connecting foster caregivers with children in need of safe, nurturing homes. Fostering Solutions is in it with foster parents for the long haul, providing one-on-one mentoring, from meeting life’s daily challenges to crisis support, offering access to collaborative behavioral management and rehabilitation.
Friends of Youth
Friends of Youth helps young people in challenging circumstances get their lives back on track. Their 26 sites and programs in 18 cities across the Puget Sound region support 6,500 children, youth, and their families. Services include overnight shelters, in-home family support, foster care and transitional housing services among others.
Kid Sense LLC
Kid Sense LLC provides a community and family based Foster Care program with Foster Homes located through-out Washington State. First and foremost we are seeking really great parents. We acknowledge the challenges that come with raising children and realize there isn’t a one size fits all model for parenting. We support the approach that works best for you. Kid Sense homes represent a variety of backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, multi-lingual abilities, economic standings and belief systems. Kid Sense prides itself on successfully maintaining our foster homes until your end goal is reached. Once you join our family, you won't want to leave!
Olive Crest
Olive Crest is a faith based agency that works with foster families to provide emergency care, short and long term care, and specialized therapeutic care for children while working towards reunification with their family. Parents who choose to foster children through Olive Crest are partnering with an agency that will come alongside them every step of the way as they navigate the challenges and triumphs that come along with foster care. By providing support, guidance and training to our foster parents, we aim to ensure that every child who comes into care can be placed with a safe and stable family.
Service Alternatives
Service Alternatives offers wrap around support services that are tailored specifically to meet the needs of the child and family. We offer a wide variety of services that are included in our case management services, case aide support along with 24/7 on-call crisis support and trainings.
Skookum Kids
Skookum Kids takes a common-sense approach to help hopeful foster families navigate the licensing process and provide excellent foster care. They also facilitate child placement into families that fit with their needs and provide ongoing support for foster parents while they change lives.
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF)
DCYF is the lead agency for state-funded services that support children and families to build resilience and health and to improve educational outcomes. They partner with state and local agencies, tribes, and other organizations in communities throughout Washington.
YMCA of Greater Seattle - Social Impact Center
The Y supports children and families experiencing foster care and licenses foster homes to provide care for young people ages 0-21. Their team has extensive experience in caring for children affected by trauma and provides wrap-around mental health services, including BRS. The Y also provides services to alumni of foster care to support their transition into adulthood.
Youthnet
Youthnet serves children, youth, and families across 16 Western Washington counties through compassionate, relationship-centered services. Through programs including foster parent licensing, behavioral rehabilitation services, caregiver support, adolescent transition services, and evidence-based parenting programs, Youthnet works alongside families and their communities to create opportunities for healing, belonging, and hope.