Mid-Florida
Services Offered
Adoption of Children from Foster Care
A dedicated team of highly motivated professionals works closely with families to best serve the children in our care. In North Central Florida, more than 120 children are waiting for their forever families. Most are or older or may have siblings, and some have physical, emotional or mental challenges. All long for the love and security only a forever family can provide.
To learn more about the adoption process, please visit our
Adoption page.
Contact:
Crisis Response Team
The Crisis Response Team offers flexible services designed to address therapeutic and environmental issues in the family to stabilize crisis situations quickly, with the ultimate goal of promoting family stability, preventing out-of-home placements and preserving the family unit. This includes therapy, domestic violence information and referral, anger management, child behavior management, emergent mental health and/or substance abuse issues, financial crises, and linkage to community resources and supports.
Dependency Case Management
Offers full-service case management to children and families in which abuse and neglect has caused court involvement. Services include monthly in-home supervision, preparation of court reports and court representation, case plan development, permanency planning and staffing, case documentation and data management, and coordination with other providers and community resources.
Family Partners and Family Team Coaching
Intense in-home counseling for families whose children have been identified as being at risk for abuse or neglect. Program provides counseling, parent education and support services.
Family Treasures Thrift Shop
The Family Treasures Thrift Shop raises funds for CHS programs and helps families in our programs by providing them with donated items.
Family Visitation Centers and Visitation Interaction Program
Family Visitation Centers provide a warm, homelike centers provide a safe place for children and their parents to spend time together during court-ordered supervised visits. At Family Visitation Centers, caring caseworkers demonstrate positive role modeling for parents while ensuring children are safe. Additionally, these centers allow divorced parents to exchange their children in a neutral setting without seeing one another, saving the children from exposure to more parental acrimony.
The Visitation Interaction Program (VIP)is an in-home program where visitation coaches provide safety, stability and support for supervised visits between parents and children. Visitation coaches also demonstrate positive parenting techniques and work with families to help them make the most of their visits together.
Volunteer and Intern Opportunities:
For more information on volunteer and intern opportunities, please visit our
Get Involved page.
Haven House - closed
After serving children and youth through Haven House for 11 years, we regret to announce that we have closed this program. Clients may request their records by calling Christy Gibbons at (866) 437-5451 or visiting us at 711 NW 1st Street, Gainesville, FL 32601.
Healthy Families
Healthy Families Lake Sumter Marion
Helping families prepare their children for success
What is Healthy Families Lake Sumter Marion?
Healthy Families Lake Sumter Marion is part of the nationally accredited Healthy Families Florida statewide home-visiting program sponsored by the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida and the State of Florida Department of Children and Families. In Lake, Sumter and Marion counties, the program is implemented by Children's Home Society of Florida.
What services are available through Healthy Families?
Healthy Families provides free, voluntary home-visiting services that increase parenting knowledge and skills. During regularly scheduled home visits, parents learn about healthy child growth and development and other important information to help their child reach their full potential. Home visitors provide information on a wide range of topics including: age-appropriate activities and discipline options, home safety, dealing with everyday stress, and planning for the future. Home visitors help families identify and achieve goals like furthering their education, completing job training and securing stable employment so they can provide for their children’ needs.
In addition to the quality home-visiting service, Healthy Families provides resources and referrals to meet specific family needs through the support of private donors and a variety of community-based partners including local agencies, community centers, schools and faith-based organizations.
Being a parent is a big job...How can I become a participant?
Contact Healthy Families for a free assessment to see if you are eligible for services. If you are expecting a new baby, or have a baby less than 3 months of age and are experiencing stressful circumstances that indicate you could benefit from home-visiting services, we would like to welcome you into our Healthy Families family.
For more information contact:
If you live in Marion County:
352-732-1355
If you live in Lake or Sumter counties:
352-742-6170
Pictures from the 2009 Healthy Families graduation ceremony.
Contact:
READ!
READ! is an educational intervention program designed to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect for increasing numbers of children. Based loosely on the “Born to Read” program developed by the Florida Library System, READ! includes all youth (ages 0-18) Children’s Home Society of Florida serves.
When families spend time together reading and discussing issues in their homes, they develop an open forum for growth and development.
Contact:
If you're interested in the READ! program or would like to donate new or gently used books, please e-mail
READMidFlorida@chsfl.org or call 800.300.9567.