County officials approved a contract for child-placement services and discussed an additional funding agreement between the county’s Job and Family Services (JFS) and a foster-placement contractor.
These items matter because they extend county-contracted services that place and support foster families and children in the county’s care.
The board approved a contract with Better Life to Embrace LLC (referred to in the agenda as 8BLE) for child placement services, described on the record as a 4(e) contract with a not-to-exceed amount of $500,000 for a term stated in the agenda materials. The clerk read a separate agenda item to increase a JFS agreement with Adriel (referred to as Gabriel/Adriel school in the agenda) by $297,000, for a term described as Jan. 1, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2025.
A commissioner explained that Adriel functions as a placement broker that certifies homes and performs testing and follow-up for foster placements. “This is who we go through the contract. And they do all of the testing and all the follow ups,” the commissioner said. The commissioner added the county hopes eventually to certify more foster homes locally but that the certification process has taken years.
Meeting discussion noted that the contract work includes reimbursements in some cases for phone and incidental costs and that the contracts cover what the clerk described as typical foster placement services rather than high-cost residential placements.
The resolutions related to these contracts were introduced on the agenda and carried; the transcript shows motion and approval but does not record detailed roll-call tallies on these items.