Welcome to the
Family Urgent Response System
This hub is intended to provide background information, resources, and links about the Family Urgent Response System program.
The Family Urgent Response System is a coordinated statewide, regional, and county-level system designed to provide collaborative and timely state-level phone-based response and county-level in-home, in-person mobile response during situations of instability, to preserve the relationship of the caregiver and the child or youth.
How the Family Urgent Response System Helps and Why It’s Important:
- It provides current and former foster youth and their caregivers with immediate, trauma-informed support when they need it.
- Prevents placement moves.
- Preserves the relationship between the child or youth and their caregiver.
- Provides a trauma-informed alternative for families who previously resorted to calling 911 or law enforcement.
- Reduces hospitalizations, law enforcement contacts, and placement in out-of-home facilities.
- Promotes healing as a family.
- Improves retention of current foster caregivers.
- Promotes stability for youth in foster care, including youth in extended foster care.
Family Urgent Response System Services Include:
- A toll-free hotline available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week staffed with caring counselors trained in conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques for children and youth impacted by trauma.
- County Mobile Response and Stabilization Teams also available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- In-home de-escalation, stabilization, conflict resolution, and support services and resources.
- Ongoing support services beyond the initial mobile response.
- Hotline and mobile response staff trained in working with children and families who have experienced trauma.