1. (a)

   1. (1) Therapeutic foster care (TFC) is a specialized form of foster care that provides a wraparound plan for children who need more intensive case management to meet their individual needs.
   2. (2) TFC is a family-based service delivery approach supported by licensed mental health professionals, as recognized by Arkansas Medicaid, that provides individual treatment for children, youth, and their families.
   3. (3) Therapeutic foster parents are specially trained and more intensively supervised and supported to help them care for children with more complex needs.
   4. (4) Children may need TFC as a result of disruptive behaviors, mental health issues, true findings of sexual abuse, or numerous unsuccessful placements.
   5. (5) In addition to a Division of Children and Family Services Family Service Worker, each child in a therapeutic foster home is assigned a case manager who is active in the child’s daily life through more frequent visits, medication management, therapy, etc.
   6. (6) The goal of therapeutic foster care is to stabilize children in their communities so they can achieve permanency through reunification with parents or relatives or through adoption.

2. (b)

   1. (1) The division contracts for therapeutic foster care with licensed providers across the state.
   2. (2) All referrals for TFC will go through the Specialized Placement Unit (SPU) to ensure that placement is in a child’s best interest and, if possible, that a child remains close to his or her home county.
   3. (3) A referral does not guarantee placement as TFC may not be appropriate for every child.
   4. (4) Additionally, a child may be placed on a waiting list until the provider can secure an appropriate placement.

3. (c)

   1. (1) A foster home may not be both a TFC foster home and a division foster home.

   2. (2) However, a foster child not requiring TFC may be placed into a TFC foster home only in the following circumstances:

      1. (A) He or she is a sibling of a child in the TFC foster home;
      2. (B) He or she is a child of a youth in the TFC foster home; and
      3. (C) He or she had previously been receiving TFC services in that TFC home.

4. (d)

   1. (1) Before placing a foster child not requiring TFC services into a TFC home with a child receiving TFC services, the potential risk to all children shall be considered.
   2. (2) Justification of the appropriateness of the placement shall be documented.
5. (e) If a TFC foster home wishes to become a division foster home, all applicable minimum licensing standards and division policy requirements must be met by the foster home.

Codification Notes: This section as promulgated prior to codification into the Code of Arkansas Rules provided as follows: "06/2011"