Denali Family Services’ therapeutic foster program offers intensive behavioral health services and supports within a healthy family setting, enabling youth to thrive in their community.
Today, Alaska has nearly 2,500 youth in foster care, with many waiting to be placed. Some of these youth live with mental and behavioral health issues that need specialized treatment. In the past, some of these youth have been institutionalized or sent out of state for treatment due to several factors, including a lack of homes available for placement.
Denali Family Services’ (DFS) therapeutic foster care program offers these youth (aged 3 to 21), and the families that care for them, invaluable support within a community-based family setting.
Therapeutic foster parents fulfill all of the roles and responsibilities of traditional parenting, while also working with the youth’s therapist, case manager, and other treatment team members to ensure they understand the unique developmental and behavioral health needs of each youth so they can nurture and support growth and progress in the lives of the youth they serve.
Therapeutic foster care is a more specialized form of fostering, where parents are trained to care for children with emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges. Therapeutic foster families can be either single-parent or two-parent homes, and can provide either full-time or part-time care.
Becoming a therapeutic foster parent offers many benefits, both for the foster child and parent, such as:
The State of Alaska, Office of Children’s Services has licensed DFS as a Child Placement Agency. This means that we recruit and license foster homes to care for youth with emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs enrolled in services with DFS.
As a potential therapeutic foster parent, DFS will:
As a foster parent, you are part of the treatment team for the foster child with the goal of helping them thrive in their respective homes, schools and communities.
Anchorage (907) 274-8281
Wasilla (907) 376-3275
Serving Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley since 1995.
2025 © All Rights Reserved. Denali Family Services is a 501c(3) organization. EIN: 92-0155751