Providing a Healing Start for Children Entering Foster Care
A therapeutic transitional residential program supporting children experiencing their initial placement in foster care
Names and faces changed to protect privacy of children.
Children entering foster care often spend their first days and weeks bouncing between child welfare (DCYF) offices, motels, shelters, and emergency care facilities with little chance to get their questions answered, let alone process the recent trauma they have experienced.
Bridge Receiving Center is a therapeutic residential program that partners with a children's camp where children (ages 4-17) find an immediate safe place to stay while awaiting a return home/to extended family or a first placement with a foster family.
THE BRIDGE
DIFFERENCE
• Reduced trauma that comes when a child needs to be removed from home and placed in care.
• Stability through trauma-responsive support during stay.
• Increased sense of felt safety for a child during transition.
• Ability to keep siblings together.
• Time provided to locate the best option for the child, not the first available bed.