WHOM WE SERVE

TLC Child & Family Services provides safe places where children and youth can heal, learn, and grow. Our residential, educational and community-based programs offer therapeutic interventions to children, youth, and families who have endured abuse, neglect, birth trauma, and mental illness. Agency-wide, TLC programs embrace a Philosophy of Treatment - "Connections to Self, Others and Community" that provides a framework for building relationships with youths served by our programs.

In California alone, there are nearly 100,000 children in the foster care system. Over 70,000 of these children will never return to their family of origin. These children are waiting for the one thing they need the most - a permanent, loving family. Without this permanence, their future is grim. Children age out of the foster care system at 18 years of age into a world for which few of us would be prepared. Statistics show that children without homes will often not complete high school. Children without love will be under-employed or will have difficulty keeping a job. And without a stable adult in their lives, there is a 50-50 chance that they will be homeless or incarcerated within two years of aging out of the foster care system.

Many of the children we serve are considered special needs. What does this mean? Being "special" refers to many categories of children including healthy children, children aged three or older, children of ethnic or minority groups that need families, children with brothers or sisters who should be placed together, and those with physical, mental, and emotional challenges and those that are drug-exposed. Most of these children have been removed from their birth families due to abuse or neglect.

For over 30 years, TLC Child & Family Services has been a guardian of the futures of these children. We would like to share some success stories of foster care children who have overcome great obstacles to become self-sustaining and contributors to their local communities.