The idea to re-engineer the child welfare system in Florida began simply enough with a question of "what would you do if you could?"...and the answer "to have the community manage the foster care system". This question and answer came from the hearts of two compassionate leaders in Florida - Governor Jeb Bush and Sarasota Family YMCA President & CEO Carl Weinrich. Through these exchanges in 1994, the concept of Community Based Care (CBC) was born.

Imagine being taken away from your home. Not knowing where you will go. Leaving behind your favorite things. Now, imagine this through the eyes of a child. When you open your heart and home to foster or adopt a child, you open the possibilities for them - you foster hope.

Foster and adoptive parents are needed to provide safe, stable, nurturing homes for the thousands of children in foster care in Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties due to abuse, neglect or abandonment. Children range in age from birth through 17 and are frequently part of a sibling group. There is a critical need for foster parents who will care for sibling groups, teens, infants/toddlers and children with specific special needs. Families who can open their homes to provide temporary care for foster children are needed, recognizing that many will eventually return home to their birth families.

In some cases, children are not able to return home to their birth families, and more permanent adoptive homes are needed. We believe that there are no unwanted children - only unfound families - and that every child deserves a safe, loving "forever family".