Waterford ― After providing foster care to southeastern Connecticut for the last 40 years, Waterford Country School learned earlier this year it was not awarded a contract to continue providing service to Windham County families.

The school applied to the state Department of Children and Families for the contracts to continue operating foster care in both New London and Windham counties.

The school was not awarded either contract, but no provider has yet been given the New London County contract. A new provider will offer foster care in Windham County.

The Windham County contract covered one third of the roughly 80 foster homes the school oversees. In order to continue providing care to the remaining homes it oversees in New London County, the school has re-applied for a new contract to fund the program.

The school’s current New London County contract is set to expire at the end of the month and proposals for the new one were due on Aug. 19. After DCF awards a new contract on Sept. 1, it will provide $871,486 in funding to a foster care provider for the next 1 to 3 years. The length of the contract, which takes effect Sept. 15, is at the discretion of DCF.

The school’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Lacey said that $871,486 in funding, which is the same amount as the Windham County contract, will cover the entire cost to operate the New London County program.

“We got to meet with DCF and hear what didn’t work well for them with our original proposal,” Lacey said. “It’s sorta like getting to take a test over again in school.”

Not securing the contract would only impact the therapeutic foster care program and not any of the other nine programs the school offers.

Lacey said he’s holding out hope for the new contract after the school re-worked it’s proposal.

“We just don’t know the ending of the story yet,” Lacey added.

If the program is forced to shutdown, those involved in the foster program said relationships built over four decades will be lost and opportunities to forge new ones will cease to exist.

“The relationship we have with our foster parents is what makes that program,” Lacey said. “The staff and the foster families knowing each other, trusting each other, being able to work well together.”

Priscilla “Beany” Peabody was a foster parent for 20 years with Waterford Country School and after parenting dozens of boys, five of whom she remains in contact with, she said she still houses children for short periods.

“That would be such a loss for the state of Connecticut you can’t even imagine,” she said of the school potentially losing its foster care funding.

Peabody said the school provides services and offers a level of care that DCF workers cannot, largely due to their large case volumes. She remembers DCF workers barely checking in on her and her foster children, while Waterford Country School called daily. She recalled a time when a child needed to get to baseball camp in the morning, but Peabody had to go to work. She said the school made sure the child was picked up and brought to camp so she could work without canceling the child’s camp.

Peabody credits Waterford Country School for hiring workers with instinctual skills to work with children and said she’s never worked with a bad case worker. She said her involvement in the program has provided her with a fuller life as well and wants to see the program continue for the sake of the children.

“Waterford Country School is doing good things and they just need to keep doing it,” she said.

If awarded the new contract, the foster program will not look exactly the same as it does now. The school’s current program has worked very well and “has had a lot of great outcomes,” Lacey said, but he said it is based on methods the school believes works best.

In comparison, the program DCF is proposing is evidence based, meaning it is backed by research to prove there are predictable and repeatable, successful outcomes.

DCF’s new model of care combines in-home treatment by licensed therapists alongside the work foster parents normally do. Lacey explained the program involves a two-person team for each child compared to the single case worker as it currently stands. Lacey said more details will emerge about the new model which prescribes treatment in a more scheduled fashion.

The largest change would be training the staff, which Lacey explained could take up to a year. The new model also requires clinicians to have masters degree, which a large portion of the current staff posses.

The model also focuses on completing family therapy with both the foster family and the birth family, and once again with the birth family upon reunification. This part of the program is expected to last between six and nine months with an additional three to four months of clinical treatment following re-unification.

DCF predicts a quarter of current children in the program will not re-unify and will continue with their current course of foster care.

“If we want to continue foster care, then that’s the model we’re going to do,” Lacey said.

Lacey described the new model of care as “more of a tweak of what we do,” and said the families currently involved in the program will stay and receive service.

The school would have to determine which children fit into the new model and require this level of service. Lacey explained how a non-verbal child, or a child nearing adoption, would not benefit from a program like this and would likely not qualify.

Those who do not fit into the new program will receive a shortened version of the service the school currently offers, Lacey said, but once those children leave the program — either through adoption or aging out — that type of service will no longer exist as the school fully transitions to the new model.

“We’re just in the middle of a change to a system that really hasn’t changed in a long time,” Lacey said. “It’s probably scary for a lot of people that are in the system as to what’s going on because nobody likes change.”

The situation is less clear if the school is not awarded the New London County contract.

Lacey said he’s not too sure what will happen to the foster parents and children in homes currently approved by the school. He said the school may be able to negotiate with DCF to continue service, or the new service provider may take responsibility.

“There’s definitely some uncertainty there because we just don’t know,” Lacey said.

k.arnold@theday.com