My Experience with Emergency Placement: Lessons Learned

Your phone rings at 2:47 AM. A caseworker needs a safe place for a seven-year-old tonight. You have forty-five minutes to decide.

This is emergency foster care. No gradual onboarding. No weeks of preparation. Just a child who needs stability, and you.

At Let It Be Us, we connect already-licensed foster families with children in crisis through Emergency Foster Care opportunities. These placements happen fast because the need is urgent. But speed does not mean chaos. Understanding what emergency placement actually involves helps you prepare for moments like that 2:47 AM call.

What Is an Emergency Placement?

Emergency placement happens when a child must be removed from their home immediately due to safety concerns. Abuse or neglect might be the cause. So might parental arrest, a medical emergency, or sudden caregiver incapacity. The child needs somewhere safe within hours, not days.

Illinois DCFS follows a structured Placement Clearance Process before placing any child. The goal is finding the right fit quickly while maintaining the child's dignity. Caseworkers search for:

• Relatives or fictive kin with existing emotional bonds
• Licensed foster homes that can accommodate siblings together
• Families whose skills match the child's specific needs

Only 0.6% of children in Illinois foster care were initially placed in emergency shelters or emergency foster homes in FY2022. The vast majority go directly to kinship placements (75%) or traditional foster homes (17.7%). [1] This means most emergency placements happen with families like yours, not in institutional settings.

Types of Emergency Placements in Foster Care

Emergency placements serve different purposes depending on the situation. Here is how they break down:

The 30-60 day timeframe gives caseworkers space to locate relatives, assess long-term options, or work toward reunification. Your role during this window is providing stability while those decisions unfold.

Short-term does not mean low-impact. A child's first nights away from everything familiar shape how they process the experience for years. Your consistency matters.

What Do Emergency Foster Families Need to Know?

Emergency placements move fast. You might receive limited background information initially. Details emerge over days, not hours.

What you can typically expect:

• The child's age, gender, and immediate medical needs
• Whether siblings are involved (DCFS prioritizes keeping siblings together)
• Known allergies, medications, or urgent health considerations
• School enrollment status (foster parents can enroll children immediately in the resident district)

What may take longer to learn:

• Full trauma history and triggers
• Educational needs including IEPs (which must be implemented within 10 days) [2]
• Extended family dynamics and visitation arrangements
• Permanency goals and timeline projections

You are not expected to have all the answers on day one. Your agency provides weekly support, and caseworkers remain your primary resource for case-specific questions.

Children arriving in emergency placements often display heightened anxiety, testing behaviors, or withdrawal. These responses are normal. They do not reflect your competence or the child's character. They reflect the crisis that brought them to you.

Preparing for Emergency Placements: Guidance for Prospective Foster Parents

Preparation happens before the phone rings. Here is what to have in place.

1. Understanding Regulatory Requirements

Illinois requires foster parents to be at least 21 years old and complete a thorough licensing process. You will need:

• Background checks: Criminal history, child abuse registry, sex offender registry
• Home safety assessment: Fire safety, sleeping arrangements, storage of hazardous materials
• Training: 30+ hours of PRIDE training (online format in Illinois), plus LGBTQIA+ affirming care training for all foster parents
• Health clearance: Physical examination confirming ability to care for children

If you are considering becoming licensed, Let It Be Us provides pre-licensing support to help you determine whether fostering fits your situation and which agency aligns with your goals. This process typically takes 8-9 months, sometimes less.

Already licensed? You can begin accepting emergency placements – work with Let It Be Us by completing this form to get started: https://letitbeus.org/become-a-foster-parent-form/

2. Emotional Preparedness

Emergency placements bring children at their most vulnerable. You will witness their fear. Their grief. Their confusion about what happens next. You might encounter children who test boundaries because past adults failed them.

Questions worth sitting with before you say yes:

• How do you respond when someone pushes back against your help?
• What does your household look like when routines get disrupted?
• Who can you call at midnight when you feel overwhelmed?

Resilience in foster care is not stoicism. It is knowing your limits, asking for help, and processing your own emotions outside of the child's view.

3. Practical Support

No family does this alone. Build your network before you need it.

Essential support systems:

• Your licensing agency's on-call staff
• Fellow foster families who understand the specific challenges
• Respite care arrangements for when you need a break
• Mental health resources for both you and the children in your care

Let It Be Us offers ongoing support for foster families throughout your fostering experience, connecting you with resources and other families who understand this work.

Practical preparations:

• Keep basic supplies on hand: clothing in multiple sizes, toiletries, a few comfort items like stuffed animals or blankets
• Know your local emergency medical facilities
• Have a plan for school enrollment and transportation
• Understand your work flexibility for appointments and emergencies

Lessons Learned From Emergency Placements

At Let It Be Us we have watched families navigate emergency placements for years. Here is what the successful ones share in common.

Flexibility beats perfection. The family with spotless routines sometimes struggles more than the family that adapts on the fly. Emergency placements require pivoting. The child who was supposed to sleep through the night does not. The dietary restrictions you prepared for turn out to be wrong. You adjust.

Connection happens in small moments. It is not the elaborate welcome or the carefully planned activities. It is sitting quietly while they eat breakfast. It is remembering they mentioned liking dinosaurs. It is giving them space when they need it and presence when they are ready.

Your feelings matter too. Exhaustion is part of this work. So is frustration. So is grief when a child leaves your home for reunification or a different placement. You will feel that loss. Acknowledging it does not make you less capable. It makes you human.

Information asymmetry is real. You will sometimes operate with incomplete information while being expected to make judgment calls. This gets easier with experience, but it never fully disappears. Trust your instincts. Document what you observe. Communicate with your caseworker.

The system is imperfect. Some placements will feel like failures. Some children will return to situations that concern you. Some decisions will make no sense from your vantage point. Your job is not to fix the system. It is to provide stability for one child during one moment in their life. That matters more than you will ever fully know.

FAQs About Emergency Placements

How quickly do emergency placements happen?

Emergency placements can happen within hours of a child's removal. Caseworkers search for available homes immediately once a child enters care. If you accept, you may need to receive the child that same day or night.

Do I need special training for emergency placements?

If you are already licensed as a foster parent in Illinois, you can accept emergency placements without additional certification. Your existing 30+ hours of PRIDE training and LGBTQIA+ affirming care training prepare you for these situations.

How long do emergency placements typically last?

Most emergency placements last 30-60 days. During this time, agencies and DCFS work to identify permanent placement options, assess reunification possibilities, or locate relative placements.

Will I know the child's history before they arrive?

You will receive basic information including age, immediate medical needs, and any urgent safety considerations. Full history often emerges over subsequent days as caseworkers compile records and conduct assessments.

What if an emergency placement is not working out?

Contact your agency immediately. Caseworkers understand that not every placement fits. Your honest communication helps them find better options for the child and protects your ability to accept future placements that match your strengths.

Can I adopt a child who comes through emergency placement?

Possibly. Some emergency placements become long-term foster or adoptive placements if reunification is not possible and you are identified as the best permanent option. This path is never guaranteed at the start.

Taking the Next Step

Emergency foster care is not for everyone. It requires availability, flexibility, and the emotional capacity to form attachments you may need to release.

But if you feel ready, the need is real. Children in Illinois are removed from their homes every day. They need somewhere safe to land.

If you want to learn more about emergency foster care or express interest in becoming an emergency foster family, Let It Be Us can help you take the next step. Whether you are already licensed or just beginning to explore fostering, we provide the guidance to help you decide what is right for your family.

The need is real, and you could be part of the answer.

References

[1] Yu-Ling Chiu & Shufen Wang. "Examining Initial Placement Types, Placement Stability, and Permanency." Children and Family Research Center, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, January 2024. https://cfrc.illinois.edu/pubs/bf_20240125_ExaminingInitialPlacementTypesPlacementStabilityAndPermanency.pdf

[2] Illinois DCFS and Illinois State Board of Education. "School Enrollment and Placement Guidelines for Children and Youth in DCFS Care." Illinois State Board of Education, July 2015. https://www.isbe.net/documents/guidance-DCFS-ISBE.pdf