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About Carpe Diem
Carpe Diem Residential
Therapeutic Treatment Homes for Children is a specialized program
designed to provide treatment foster care for emotionally distressed
children. Our commitment to create a caring, encouraging, and
structured environment – that meets and exceeds the child’s needs –
allows the goal of supporting and assisting children to grow in all
areas of their lives to be continually and effectively met.
The professionals at Carpe Diem are dedicated to directing children
down the path of achieving an individual balance emotionally,
intellectually, physically, and spiritually. The Case
Managers who support our dedicated foster parents all have a sound
background in child development and behaviour problems, and many years
of experience working within the child welfare system. Carpe
Diem is also assisted by a consulting psychologist, and the resources
of our sister agency, Branching Out, which provides behavioural
assessments, therapeutic groups, and play therapy for children.
Working as a liaison between the Children’s Aid Society, the Carpe Diem
family places hard-to-serve foster children in caring and nurturing
homes. Adhering to our belief that each child is unique, all
of our children are inspired to strengthen their very own person in
their day-to-day lives.
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What is treatment foster care?:
Treatment refers to planned intervention with the aim of assisting and
supporting change in a family or individual’s behaviour and
attitude. To achieve this, a written, individualized
treatment plan that contains clear goals, a set of procedures for
achieving those goals, and a process for regularly assessing the
result, is developed.
 Our Carpe
Diem children enjoy a well-structured family environment with
consistency and predictability, as well as a therapeutic milieu where
they can feel secure to resolve some of their inner conflicts and
problems and learn to change their patterns of inter-relationships.
Foster parents are therapeutic when they provide “the rituals, smiles,
the interest in little things, the daily routines, the talents they
nurture, the interest they stimulate, the hobbies they encourage, the
friendships they support, the
sibling ties they preserve” and they certainly “make a
difference. All of these little things may foster in a child
the vital senses of belonging, of mattering, of counting.” (Robbie
Gilligan, 2000 as presented in ONLAC training by Hamilton CAS, 2006).
Children who need foster families have been removed for reasons of
neglect, abuse, abandonment or other issues endangering their health
and safety. Foster parents provide a temporary, safe home for
children in crisis. They are an integral part of the child’s
support, treatment, and care programs. Being a foster parent
is not simply a passive act of opening one’s home and providing food,
clothing, and shelter. It is a proactive statement of nurturing,
advocacy, and love. It is the act of opening your home and
heart to a child in need.
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The Children:
Children come to Carpe Diem through a referral from a Children’s Aid
Society or Family & Children’s Services. Carpe Diem
has serviced children from Toronto,
the Durham region,
Simcoe region to the north, Brampton
and Mississauga
area, Hamilton, Brantford, Guelph and
others. Sometimes children are referred by child welfare
agencies specific to a certain religion or culture: we have
had Catholic, Muslim, Jewish and Native children in our care.
 Children
come to Carpe Diem with a history of problems within their
family/system. These problems might include: violence, substance abuse,
homelessness, mental health issues, abusive parenting methods, to name
a few. Of course, the children struggle with the results of
abuse, neglect, abandonment, and chaotic living situations.
Some children may also have issues like attention deficit disorder,
Tourette’s syndrome, developmental delays, autism, and fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder.
You may see these behaviours in foster homes:
- Lack of trust, not engaging with
others
- Anger, aggression, temper
tantrums
- Sleeping, eating, and toileting
difficulties
- Sexual acting out
- Problems with peers, school,
activities
- Defiance, opposition, ‘not caring’
- Excessive affection, superficial
attachments
Our children cannot trust
adults. Many have developed an “attachment disorder” which
means that they are unlikely to form the same kind of meaningful
relationships with people that you would hope or expect.
Others are diagnosed with problems like “oppositional defiance
disorder”, or “conduct disorder”. In every case, these
children deserve to live free from the fear of being abused or
abandoned.
Carpe Diem tends to specialize in children from birth to about 10 years
of age. Many of our foster children, however, have grown up
within our family system, so of course we also deal with teenagers
(adolescents). We now offer programs for 18 year old crown
wards who are ill equipped to live on their own: Independence
Preparation Groups, a foster home for teenage girls of colour, and a
semi-independent home for low functioning youth. Although it is very
rare that babies come to our agency, those who do tend to have multiple
medical needs and usually return to their birth parents, or are adopted to a waiting family
through the child welfare agency.
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A Brief History:
 Jim Lewis worked for many
years in the child welfare system, and became a Professor at Mohawk
College
within the Child & Youth Work program. When he
retired, Jim and Kathy Lewis started Carpe Diem Therapeutic Residential
Treatment Homes for Children on June 1, 1999. They started
with 15 children in 9 homes and a keen desire to “seize the day” and
make a real difference for children.
By June 1, 2000 there were 40 children in 17 homes. Although they
didn’t want to expand quickly, Jim has always found it difficult to
turn away from children (or “characters” as he would say) in
need. As a result, Carpe Diem expanded into different
geographical areas and new staff was hired in those areas. By adding
homes and staff slowly but surely, we now have over 100 children in
over 50 homes.
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Carpe Diem Locations
- Central North East: Brampton, Burlington, Mississauga, Milton, Barrie,
Wasaga Beach, Richmond Hill, Pickering, Oshawa, Scarborough, Toronto,
Mount Forest, Palmerston, Harriston
- Grand West: Hamilton, Brantford, Cambridge, Stoney Creek,
Grismby, Woodstock,
Each of these areas has at least
one Case Manager assigned to assist and support the foster
parents. These Case Managers live within the area and so are
readily available for assistance. There are also monthly Resource
Meetings within the area designed to provide ongoing training and
support to our foster homes.
For more information about how to become a foster parent or assist our
children and agency in other ways, please see our section Join Us.
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