Foster Care Resources

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Foster Caregiver Trainings

Foster Caregiver Trainings

This is a collection of on-going trainings to help educate and equip our foster caregivers to best serve our youth in care. 

Co-Parenting: What Foster Parents Need to Know Part 1 & Part 2 | Quiz

QPI: Excellent Parenting and Respectful Partnerships Quiz

Simple Steps to Child Passenger Safety Quiz

Additional Resources

Additional Resources

Family Fundamentals is a parent resource center and a project of Success By 6. Success By 6 is a community-wide children’s initiative, spearheaded by United Way of Central Florida and founded by Carol Barnett, President of Publix Charities in 1995 that brings together resources to form a community partnership. Success By 6 is an initiative to make early childhood development a top priority in Polk, Hardee and Highlands counties and to ensure that all children, by the age of six, have the physical, emotional, social, and mental foundation to succeed in school and in life.


The Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) is one of Florida's approaches to strengthening foster care, including kinship care, using branding and marketing principles. It is a process designed to help a site develop new strategies and practices, rather than imposing upon it a predetermined set of "best practices." Our core premise is that the primary goal of the child welfare system is to ensure that children have effective, loving parenting. The best way to achieve this goal is to enable the child's own parents to care for him or her. If that isn't possible, the system must ensure that the foster or relative family caring for the child provides the loving, committed, skilled care that the child needs, while working effectively with the system to reach the child's long term goals.


The mission of the Early Learning Coalition of Polk County is to provide leadership, direction, and integrated resource management for quality services that support our vision of success for children. Their vision is that all children enter school healthy, ready and eager for lifelong learning with the collaborative support of parents, families, educators, and the community.


The Early Learning Coalition of Florida's Heartland's goal is to ensure young children in Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardee and Highlands counties have access to high quality early care and education programs. A high quality early care and education program is one that is filled with rich and creative experiences, a developmentally appropriate environment and caring teachers who sincerely connect with young children. Such a program can truly help a young child prepare for school success!


211 is a vital service that connects millions of people to help every year. To get expert, caring help, simply call 211 or visit 211.org

Medical and Dental

Medical and Dental

Log in, find doctors and dentists/providers/hospitals, learn about Healthy Kids and more at sunshinehealth.com.  Contact Member Services at (866) 796-0530 or TDD/TTY: (800) 955-8770. Business hours are Monday - Friday 8AM - 8PM.

Needing any assistance with Sunshine Health? Contact Heartland for Children's Nurse Care Specialist at 863-519-8900 x 236.

Be sure to check out the latest Sunshine Health Newsletter.

Helpful Links

Helpful Links

 

 

Payment Calendar

Payment Calendar
  • 2022 Payment Calendar - Foster Parent Board Rate (download)
  • 2023 Payment Calendar - Foster Parent Board Rate (download)