How to Become a Foster Parent in Kentucky: Training, Home Study, and Pay

To become a foster parent in Kentucky, you need to be at least 21, financially stable, able to pass state and federal background checks, and willing to complete the state’s pre-service training and a home study conducted by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS). From your first inquiry to a certification letter, the process generally takes three to six months. There is no application fee, and once you are certified, the state pays a daily reimbursement to cover each child’s living costs.

Who Qualifies

Age and finances are the two hard gates. You must be 21 or older, and your household income has to support your current family without the foster care per diem. That reimbursement is for the child’s food, clothing, and personal needs, not your rent or utilities, so it cannot be part of the math that makes your budget work.¹

Beyond that, Kentucky is flexible. Married and single applicants are both eligible. You can rent or own, and houses, apartments, condos, townhomes, and duplexes all qualify as long as the home meets safety standards.² Stability and emotional readiness count for more than square footage.

What Your Home Has to Look Like

The physical standards are set in 922 KAR 1:350, and a social worker will walk through your home to check them. Nothing on the list is extravagant, but every item is non-negotiable:

A separate, age-appropriate bed for each foster child. Infants under one need a crib that meets Consumer Product Safety Commission standards.
No more than four children, including your own, sharing a bedroom. Children of different genders over age five generally cannot share a room unless the cabinet approves an exception for a sibling group with no high-risk behaviors.
No bedroom sharing between adults and foster children unless cabinet staff approves it based on the child’s needs.
A working kitchen and at least one bathroom with a toilet, sink, and bathtub or shower.
Adequate heating and ventilation and compliance with state and local water and sanitation rules.
Access to indoor and outdoor recreation space suitable for the child’s age.

Certain items have to be locked up or kept entirely out of reach: medications, alcohol, poisonous or cleaning chemicals, ammunition, and firearms. Firearms must be stored in accordance with Kentucky law. Every bedroom needs a working smoke alarm within ten feet, and every floor of the home needs one. Gas heat or gas appliances also require a working carbon monoxide detector.³

Pre-Service Training (PS-MAPP)

Before you can be certified, you must finish PS-MAPP, which stands for Permanency and Safety–Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting.⁴ The course covers trauma-informed care, behavior management, working with birth families, and the realities of the foster system. It runs over several weeks and combines classroom instruction with group discussion among other prospective parents.

Treat PS-MAPP as part of the decision, not a formality. It is built to help you and your household figure out whether this is the right fit before a child is placed, which is a far better time to find out than after one arrives.

Background Checks

Every adult in your household must submit to a fingerprint-based criminal records check through the Kentucky State Police and the FBI. The screening also runs the National Sex Offender Registry, a state sex offender registry, and child abuse or neglect checks through Kentucky’s central registry for every state you have lived in during the past five years. Adolescent household members must also go through the child abuse and neglect check.⁵

Kentucky’s disqualifiers go beyond federal minimums. Under KRS 199.462, the cabinet can require fingerprint-based criminal background investigations for all adult household members.⁶ Your application will be denied if an adult in the home has a felony conviction involving a spouse, a child, sexual violence, or death. Felony convictions for physical assault, battery, or drug or alcohol offenses within the past five years also disqualify the household.⁵

Expect this scrutiny to continue. At your annual reevaluation, the cabinet may require updated checks or enroll adult household members in a rap-back system that monitors criminal history on an ongoing basis.⁶

Documents to Pull Together

Alongside training and background checks, you will put together a packet of supporting paperwork. Every person in the household, adults and children, needs a health information form completed by a medical professional who does not live with you. The form has to confirm that no one in the home has a condition that would create a health or safety risk for a placed child or interfere with your ability to parent.³

You will also submit financial records showing your household income and character references from people outside your family. Those references give the assigned social worker an outside perspective on your temperament and suitability, and they get read alongside the home study.

The Home Study

Once your application is on file with the local CHFS office, a social worker is assigned to conduct a home study. That means multiple in-person visits and face-to-face interviews with every household member, including your own children. The worker is looking at family dynamics, your reasons for fostering, and how your household handles stress and conflict. The conversations tend to be candid rather than formal. Being straightforward about both your strengths and your limitations helps you.

During the walkthrough, the worker checks the safety standards: smoke alarms, locked storage of hazardous items, and the sleeping arrangements you have planned for a placement. The worker then writes a narrative report that pulls the interviews and inspections together. That report becomes the primary document the cabinet uses to match children to your home.

A supervisory team reviews the home study along with your training records and background check results. If everything is in order, you receive a certification letter approving your home for placements. From first inquiry to certification, the full process generally runs three to six months.⁴

What You’ll Be Paid

Kentucky pays a daily per diem to cover each foster child’s food, clothing, shelter, and personal needs. Under the most recent published rate schedule, basic foster care pays $24.10 per day for a child from birth through age 11 and $26.20 per day for children 12 and older. Advanced foster parents with additional experience earn slightly higher rates. Care Plus and medically complex placements pay roughly $42 to $51 per day depending on your credentials.⁷

When a child first arrives, you receive a one-time clothing allowance ranging from $100 for infants to $290 for children 12 and older. School-age children also qualify for an annual supplemental clothing allowance of $50 to $100.⁷

Those payments are not taxable. Under 26 U.S.C. § 131, qualified foster care payments made through a state program are excluded from gross income entirely, so the per diem and clothing allowances do not raise your tax bill.⁸ A foster child who lives with you for more than half the tax year may qualify you for the federal child tax credit, worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child under 17 for the 2025 tax year, with inflation adjustments beginning in 2026.⁹

Medical costs are not something you need to plan for out of pocket. Foster children in Kentucky are automatically enrolled in Medicaid, currently administered through Aetna for children and youth in foster care and out-of-home care.¹⁰

After You’re Certified

Certification is the start of your training obligations, not the end. In your first two years as a certified foster parent, you must complete at least 30 hours of cabinet-approved training covering trauma-informed care, psychotropic medications, sexual abuse, behavior management, advocacy and self-care, and cultural connections. After the first two years, the requirement drops to ten hours annually. The cabinet or your private child-placing agency offers or approves these courses, and some can be done online. Missing a deadline can put your certification at risk, so track your anniversary date.¹¹

If you want to take placements with higher needs, you can pursue a therapeutic or Care Plus designation. Both require 12 extra hours of specialized pre-service training (covering crisis intervention, de-escalation, the effects of sexual abuse and human trafficking, and the impact of substance use) plus 12 extra hours of specialized training each year on top of the standard annual requirement.¹¹ The higher per diem rates for those placements reflect the added skill involved.

How to Start

Submit an inquiry through the KY FACES website at kyfaces.ky.gov, the cabinet’s online portal for foster care and adoption.¹² A worker from your local CHFS office will reach out to answer questions and connect you with upcoming PS-MAPP sessions. You can also call your regional CHFS office directly if you would rather talk through it first. There is no cost to apply or to complete the required training, and Kentucky does not charge licensing fees for foster homes.

1
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Foster and Adoption Certification Requirements
2
AdoptUSKids. Kentucky Foster Care and Adoption
3
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Administrative Regulations 922 KAR 1:350 – Requirements for Public Child Welfare Agency Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Respite Care Providers
4
ICPC State Pages. Kentucky Licensing/Certification/Approval
5
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Administrative Regulations 922 KAR 1:490 – Background Checks for Foster and Adoptive Parents and Relative and Fictive Kin Caregivers
6
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Revised Statutes 199.462 – Criminal Background Investigation of Applicant to Provide Foster Care or Adoption
7
Kentucky Just in Time (JIT). DCBS Reimbursement List
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 131 – Certain Foster Care Payments
9
Internal Revenue Service. Child Tax Credit
10
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. KY RISE – Health
11
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Administrative Regulations 922 KAR 1:495 – Training Requirements for Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Respite Care Providers for Children in the Custody of the Cabinet
12
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. KY FACES – Home