FAQ

It’s worth asking. When you’re contacted about a placement, you can ask whether there will be a pre-placement visit so the child can see your home before they move in. A visit isn’t always possible — emergency placements in particular leave no time for one — but where there is time, it can help the child settle.

If a visit isn’t an option, ask what will help the child feel at home instead: favourite foods, comfort items, and any routines or preferences the social worker knows about.

Sources: Foster Family Handbook; Foster Caregiver Orientation Guide

Ask whether the child is in good health and about any known allergies, medical conditions, or medications, along with their immunisation and recent dental history and when they last had a physical examination. You’ll also want the child’s BC Services Card (Medical Services Plan) number and the names of their doctor and dentist.

Two documents matter early: the medical referral form, which is to be completed within 72 hours of placement, and the Health Care Passport. Check whether both have been provided, and follow up with the child’s social worker if they haven’t.

Sources: Foster Family Handbook; Foster Caregiver Orientation Guide

A one-time-only payment covers a single expenditure, or a short-term cost that is unusual and unlikely to recur — for example, accompanying a child to another city for a medical procedure, or a one-off piece of medical equipment. It can’t be used for an ongoing, known expense.

An exceptional ongoing payment is for a cost that genuinely needs to be covered every month as part of a child’s Plan of Care — such as day care above the available subsidy, or recurring medical travel. Ongoing payments are time-limited, tied to the specific child’s needs, and reviewed as circumstances change. Your resource social worker can help you work out which fits your situation.

Sources: Foster Family Handbook; Foster Caregiver Orientation Guide

Day-to-day clothing — replacing worn items, seasonal basics, and ordinary repairs — comes out of the regular family care rate. But genuinely unusual clothing needs tied to a specific activity in the child’s care plan can be considered for an exceptional payment. Examples include clothing for a graduation or formal event, a cultural activity, or specialised athletic or sports wear that goes beyond ordinary recreational clothing.

Speak with your resource social worker, who assesses whether the need is genuinely exceptional and aligns with the care plan. For a child in continuing custody, the same kinds of clothing needs may instead be handled as a guardianship expense through the child’s social worker.

Sources: Foster Family Handbook; Foster Caregiver Orientation Guide

Yes. A separate Master Insurance Program — Aboriginal Program Certificate — is available for Aboriginal foster parents and for caregivers of Aboriginal children.

For details on how this certificate applies to your situation, contact the BCFFPA.

Sources: Foster Family Handbook; Foster Caregiver Orientation Guide

For questions about either BCFFPA insurance programme, contact the BC Foster Parents Association toll-free province-wide at 1-800-663-9999, or in the Vancouver area at 604-660-7696. The BCFFPA website also has the current Master Insurance Policy wording, the Rider Insurance booklet, and a questions-and-answers document covering common situations.

If property damage occurs and the cost falls above the Rider deductible, a claim can be submitted through the Rider. It’s also a recommended step to let your resource social worker know whenever property damage happens.

Sources: Foster Family Handbook; Foster Caregiver Orientation Guide

Yes — many children come into care without a complete developmental history or a formal diagnosis, and you may notice patterns that suggest brain-based differences related to prenatal alcohol exposure even when no one has said so. No single behaviour confirms FASD, but it can be worth discussing your observations with the child’s social worker, healthcare provider, or assessment team when several of these appear together and continue over time: trouble remembering instructions or repeating the same mistakes; consequences not changing behaviour; impulsivity; difficulty with transitions; emotional regulation struggles; learning something one day and forgetting it the next; seeming younger than their age; sensory sensitivities; or stories that don’t match what happened.

A useful first step is simply documenting what you notice — specific examples of behaviour, what tends to happen before it, and what helps the child recover. Sharing those observations with the care team gives them concrete information and helps you see patterns over time.

Source: CFS FASD Practice Notes

When clinicians assess a child for FASD, they look at ten specific areas of brain functioning, often called the ten brain domains. The Canadian FASD diagnostic guidelines evaluate: nervous system (response to stress and sensory input), cognition (thinking and reasoning), language, academic achievement, memory, adaptive behaviour (practical life skills), executive functioning (planning, organising, impulse control), focus and attention, affect regulation (managing emotions), and motor skills (coordination and balance).

A child with FASD may have differences in several domains at once, which is why their abilities can look uneven — strong in some areas, much harder in others. Understanding the domains helps you reframe “won’t” as “can’t,” point toward the right kind of support, and describe what you see to social workers, school teams, or assessment professionals. A child does not need a formal diagnosis for this framework to be useful day-to-day.

Source: CFS FASD Practice Notes

FASD can affect several brain domains at the same time and to different degrees, so a child’s abilities often look uneven — capable in some areas, much harder in others. That is also why a strategy that works for one challenge may not work for another. A child struggling with executive functioning needs visual schedules and step-by-step prompts, while a child struggling with affect regulation needs a calm adult and a chance to settle before any teaching.

The domains rarely work in isolation. An after-school meltdown, for example, may involve nervous system overload, exhausted executive functioning, and affect regulation all at once. Thinking in terms of “which domain is making this hard right now?” gives you a more accurate map of what is happening underneath the behaviour, so your response can match the actual need.

Source: CFS FASD Practice Notes

When a child with FASD becomes overwhelmed quickly, struggles to calm after getting upset, or reacts strongly to noise, lights, or textures, the brain domains usually involved are the nervous system and affect regulation. In FASD, the nervous system can be flooded more easily by sensory input, stress, or change, and once it is overloaded, emotional regulation tends to follow. The child may move from coping to dysregulated very quickly, often before any adult notices the trigger. These are brain-based responses, not chosen behaviour.

The most useful response is almost always calm body first, conversation later. Reduce the demand, lower the sensory load, stay close without crowding, and use a calm voice to help the nervous system settle. Once the child is regulated, there is space for connection and, when appropriate, for talking about what happened.

Source: CFS FASD Practice Notes