New Directions Youth and Family Services - Foster Care and Adoption Services

New Directions provides therapeutic and traditional foster care services for children throughout Western New York. We recruit, screen, train, and certify caring couples and individuals to serve as foster parents for children with special needs and those needing a stable home environment. In doing so, children have the valuable opportunity to live in a community, and develop within a family setting. Creating a forever home or permanent placement is important for all youth. For children needing to be adopted, a clinical social worker actively seeks adoptive resources and provides assistance to the adoptive family. For youth whose goal is to return to their birth family, a clinical social worker facilitates reunification, coordinates services, and serves as a liaison among all involved parties. Foster and adoptive parents are carefully screened and must successfully complete the MAPP/GPS II certification process. Our families are professional, teaching parents. To meet this standard, each year, they complete 24 hours of specialized training, including behavior management, medical concerns, mental health, grief and loss, how to assess youth's needs, and how to help the youth maintain connections to family and friends.