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CHARLOTTE – Thousands of foster families are needed as budget cuts force children out of group homes.

The move will leave more than 2,000 children needing families, so nonprofit groups across the state have come together to create a database in hopes of speeding up the process.

“Half of the kids we see have depression,” Craig Bass, the CEO of Alexander Youth Network, said. The youth home treats children for various problems that range from behavioral to psychiatric.

“They’ve had so many disappointments, so many traumas in their lives that they’re depressed,” Bass said.

After leaving Alexander, many children will go directly into therapeutic foster care.

“What we’re talking about is not your traditional foster care,” Bass said. “It is a high quality treatment program that’s carried out by well trained people in their own homes.”

Alexander Youth Network, Barium Springs Home for Children, Easter Seals UCP and Lutheran Family Services have joined forces to create Rapid Resources for Families, a database to help place foster children with therapeutic foster families in the Carolinas.

The parents are trained and are an active part of treatment. Now, more of those families are needed as state budget cuts force group homes to close, leaving 2,100 more children in immediate need of foster care.

Bass said the group home model does not work for children because it doesn’t provide the necessary individualized attention that a home can provide and children often acquire new behavioral problems from their peers.

“The research in terms of treatment for kids tells us that kids in groups like that tend not to do as well as they would do in an individual home where they would have a benefit of a family that’s focused just on them,” Bass said.

Unlike traditional foster care, there are a lot more resources allocated for therapeutic foster care. The participating families have four weeks of training.

The process in becoming a therapeutic foster parent includes a criminal check, home visits and a month long training. They also ask that one parent be willing to stay home.

Children are usually placed in families from six months up to two years.