Intensive Placement Stabilization

Providing services and interventions for issues that may put foster care placements at risk

About

Cunningham Children’s Home partners with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to offer Intensive Placement Stabilization (IPS) services in Champaign, Vermilion, Ford and Iroquois counties. The IPS program aims to support DCFS’s goals of safety, permanency, and well-being for children and youth. It provides short-term services and support to those facing emotional or behavioral challenges, aiming to prevent placement disruptions. Cunningham collaborates with families, schools, and communities to address issues that may jeopardize foster care placements and helps youth find stable living situations.

Older couple with a young boy at a bar-be-cue and dad has arm around son.

Support

Services offered include stabilizing placements, intervening in crises, connecting with the community, supporting foster parents, providing school help and tutoring, advocating in court, offering mentoring, organizing enrichment activities and providing short-term counseling for both foster and biological families.

Eligibility

Children and youth in the custody or guardianship of DCFS who meet the following criteria:

  • reside in, or return to Local Area Network (LAN) 24 or 25
  • meet one of the following:
  1. Youth living in foster care with a caseworker ensuring services, still under DCFS, facing risk of relocation to another placement or more restrictive living conditions.
  2. Placed in a more restrictive setting and requires more clinically intensive services
  3. Stepping down from residential care or youth in specialized foster care may be eligible by exception
  4. Needs continuing or expanded post-hospitalization services that are not part of the Screening, Assessment
  5. Support Services (SASS) program or whose needs exceed the service timelines of the SASS provider

Learn more

We collaborate with families, schools and communities to address issues in a effort to keep families together.

Contact/Referral

Cunningham’s Intake/Admissions Specialist
(217) 337-9059; Fax (217) 367-5910
Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Leave a message for call back.

Cunningham Children’s Home will process the referral and notify you via email or fax whether the referral has been accepted or deflected within two business days. An initial referral is NOT complete until the caseworker has forwarded the IPS referral form, integrated assessment and CFS 497 Service Plan, and has discussed the referral with a Cunningham representative.

Print the IPS flyer