Making a difference for children and young people in care
MATRIX Foster Care Services provides foster placements and residential care for children and young people in the care of Children's Aid Societies, across eight Ontario regions.
Our services Talk to usEmpowering families, nurturing futures
At MATRIX Foster Care Services, we believe every child deserves a loving and supportive home. Our mission is to build strong bonds within families and transform lives through fostering.
We are licensed under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, and regulated by the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Every home we run is inspected, every serious occurrence is reported, and every child file is kept to the standard the ministry sets.
More about usFoster placements
Approved foster parents caring for a young person in their own family home, with monthly supervision and 24-hour support behind them.
Residential care
Small staffed homes where one to four young people live, with waking overnight staff and a named Program Supervisor.
Specialised and ISA homes
Dual modality and specialised placements for young people who need more than a family home alone can provide.
Eight regions across Ontario
We offer emergency, short term, long term, respite, parent and child, semi-independent and adult care, so a Society can place a young person at the level of support they actually need.
See all our services"We would rather tell you it is not for you in week one than in month nine."
Our approach, with foster parents and staff alikeWhat we hold ourselves to
Compassion
We approach every situation with empathy and understanding.
Integrity
We uphold the highest ethical standards in all our interactions.
Collaboration
We work together with families, communities and agencies to create positive outcomes.
Empowerment
We empower individuals to make a difference in the lives of children.
Most of them have done this four times before
A young person arrives with a bag, in a house they have never seen, with adults they have never met. They already know how this usually ends.
The whole job is what happens in the months after that. Not a better first night. A hundredth night that is the same as the first, in the same house, with the same people still there.
Eighty people, and one of them is on the end of the phone at 2am
We do not publish photographs of the young people in our care, and the images on this site are illustrative rather than of named individuals. What follows is the work itself, and who does it.
Holds the plan of care
Writes the plan within 30 days, reviews it every 90, and signs the decision on whether anyone may work unsupervised with a young person. Nothing moves past them.
Answers at 2am
Every home and every foster parent has a number that a real person picks up, every night of the year, weekends included.
Does the actual day
Cooks, drives to school, sits through the bad nights, and writes it up before handover. Most of our eighty are these people.
Become a foster parent
You care for a young person in your own home, with a daily care rate, full training, and a worker who answers.
Join our team
Child and Youth Workers, Support Workers and Program Supervisors across our homes.