Treatment Foster Care and Traditional Foster Care are two distinct programs intended to serve two different populations of children. Treatment Foster Care (TFC) is a foster care system with a twist; it provides foster homes for adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders rather than sending them to institutions to be treated. TFC is also a parent-training program that works with foster care parents so that they may provide up to six-month placements for 12-18 year olds referred to this program because of a history of chronic delinquency. These children are placed in homes where the foster families have been carefully selected and then trained to provide the care that these certain foster children need. The teen's biological parents or legal guardians are also worked with during the six-month period their children are in care, and then again for a twelve-month after care period. .
A TFC family does receive support and assistance from Human Service professionals; their reimbursements are higher than that of typical foster parents. TFC families, on average, receive a $1,200 a month reimbursement in comparison to the approximate $300 a month the traditional foster family receives.
TFC started out as an idea to move treatment technologies out of institutional settings and into a foster family setting and to then research its" effectiveness. In November 1985 a conference was held in Ashville, North Carolina, at this conference, the host agency, Professional Parenting, introduced their Treatment Foster Care suggestion to the Human Services agents who were in attendance.
With the progress of the 80's TFC programs began to show up in every state, pre-existing programs evolved and the research continued to stay on top of competitive outcomes and cost-effectiveness. The growth of TFC increased the interest of understanding of all the features TFC provides; and a higher demand for an organization to oversee their progress, establish a set of norms, values and rules to this organization.