All Star Children’s Foundation seeks six couples to become foster parents in six single-family homes on the site of its new Campus of Hope and Healing in Sarasota County.  Interested applicants should contact Lindsey May, the foundation's program director, at (941) 217-6503.

All Star’s campus will be a continuum of trauma-informed care for children. That means that when a child walks onto the campus, each person the child encounters will have been trained to understand trauma and its impact. Clinicians will utilize evidence-based and best-practice treatment therapies shown to facilitate recovery from trauma. Children living in the residential homes on campus will be cared for by foster parents who have been trained in trauma care. 

Foundation foster parents must agree to a two-year commitment, starting mid-October 2019. The foster children in their care will range from infancy to 18 years old. Each home on the foundation's campus will have five bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths. Foster parents can work if it doesn’t interfere with their responsibilities, and each residence will be licensed for up to five foster children.

Foster parents will be required to complete foundation's eight-week training session. The course will educate foster parents on meeting the needs of displaced children, while offering useful strategies on strengthening the relationship between the child and their biological parents and relatives. They must also be licensed by the State of Florida through the Safe Children Coalition.

All Star began treating children this month on an outpatient basis, and anticipates accepting children into its family foster homes by the end of 2019. The foundation predicts that 225 children will be treated in its first operational year.