The Martin Pollak Project was founded in 1980 starting our Therapeutic Foster Care program. The Martin Pollak Project has focused on serving foster children and youth with the most intensive needs and challenging life circumstances, kids who have often been abused and whose parents may have struggled with substance abuse problems.
The Martin Pollak Project, Inc. provides services to children that ensure protection, nurturing, and personal development. Services are designed to help strengthen and support birth families as they move toward achieving family stability. Substitute care, foster care, is provided in community based foster homes and other family-like settings for children in need of short term or longer term out-of-home placements.
We recruit and train foster parents and match them to kids who need the intensive community-based program that we provide. Our case managers, all whom are licensed Social Workers, are in contact with each family on at least a biweekly basis. All of our young people work with therapists, many receive special tutoring, work with a mentor, and receive a range of other services.
The majority of our foster kids are teenagers and most come from Baltimore City. They range in age from seven to twenty-one. Some are on their way to college but many struggle to read and do math at a basic level. Few have had many successes in their lives, but we strive to change that.
Foster parents come from all walks of life. Some are new parents; others have children already in their home; still others may be grandparents. Most of our parents take in one child but some may take in one or more brothers and sisters, too. Our foster parent trainers and support team help new foster parents get the training they need to work with kids who may have been through some very difficult experiences from a young age. Foster parents are part of the “treatment team,” working with a young person’s case manager and treatment team
Click here to learn more about how you can become a foster parent.