Tennessee Foster Care Services: Training, Home Study, and Payments

To become a foster parent in Tennessee, you apply through the Department of Children’s Services (DCS), meet the state’s eligibility rules, complete 25 to 30 hours of pre-service training called TN-KEY, and pass a home study. Once your training is done and the home study is complete, DCS has 90 days to issue a final approval decision.¹ Most families finish the whole process in three to five months.

Who Qualifies to Foster in Tennessee

You must be at least 21 years old, pass a criminal background check, and show enough income to cover your household’s expenses without relying on foster care payments.² There’s no fixed income threshold. DCS just needs to see that your family’s basic needs are met on their own, so the board payment goes entirely to the child.

Marital status doesn’t matter. Single, married, and divorced applicants all qualify. What matters is whether the home is stable and safe. Every adult living in the household has to pass a background check, and the home needs enough space for a child along with basic safety features: working smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and locked storage for chemicals and medications.²

Kinship foster care follows slightly different rules. If you’re a relative of the child within three degrees (by blood, marriage, or adoption), you can qualify at 18 to 20 years old as long as your spouse or partner in the home is at least 21. Kinship applicants also go through fingerprint-based criminal history checks run by both the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI.³

Starting the Application

The process begins with the Foster Home Application for Parenting, form CS-0688. DCS makes it available as an online form on its website.⁴ The form asks for detailed information about every person in the household, including residential history and income.

Accuracy on the application matters. DCS uses what you submit to run screenings, and any mismatch between your form and the supporting documents will slow things down. Gather these before you submit:

Proof of residency and income, such as recent pay stubs showing your household covers its own needs
Fingerprints for every adult in the home, which feed into state and federal criminal history checks
A physician’s health screening confirming you’re physically and mentally fit to care for a child
Registry checks verifying no one in the home appears on the Tennessee Sex Offender or Abuse Registry
Personal references from non-relatives who can speak to your temperament and reliability as a parent

Fingerprinting and registry checks take time to come back, so start them early. Submitting a complete packet is the single biggest factor in how fast you move through the rest of the process.

Completing TN-KEY Training

Once your paperwork is in, DCS enrolls you in TN-KEY, which stands for “Knowledge Empowers You.” This is Tennessee’s mandatory pre-service training for prospective foster parents, and it runs roughly 25 to 30 hours.⁵

The curriculum covers trauma-informed care, child development, working with birth families, CPR and first aid, and how to navigate the child welfare system. Sessions are usually held in groups, which gives you a chance to meet other families going through the same approval process.

The Home Study

While you’re working through TN-KEY, a DCS caseworker conducts your home study. Expect multiple visits. The caseworker inspects your living space, checks safety basics like smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and secure storage for hazards, and interviews everyone in the household. Visits are scheduled around your family’s availability, not sprung on you.

The caseworker is looking at whether your home has adequate space, whether the environment is stable, and whether the adults in it can meet a child’s needs. The home study and the training together give DCS what it needs to make a final decision.

Approval Timeline

After you finish TN-KEY and the home study is complete, DCS has 90 days to issue its final approval or denial.¹ Three to five months from start to finish is typical. Complicated situations can take longer, and incomplete documentation is the usual reason for delays.

What You Can Be Approved For

DCS places children in several arrangements, and your approval covers the type that fits your situation:

Traditional foster care, where a licensed, unrelated adult provides full-time care
Kinship foster care, where an approved relative within three degrees of the parent cares for the child. Tennessee law requires DCS to prioritize finding a suitable kinship placement for at least 30 days after a child is removed from the home.³
Respite care, short-term care that gives a child’s primary foster family a break

Board Payments and Medical Coverage

Approved foster parents receive daily board payments to offset the cost of caring for a child. The regular rates are $32.62 per day for children ages 0 to 11 and $37.40 per day for children 12 and older. Children with higher needs qualify for special circumstance rates of $35.88 and $41.14 per day for the same age brackets. In extraordinary cases, the rate can go up to $60.00 per day on a case-by-case basis.⁶

Payments are intended for food, clothing, basic necessities, and activities. Clothing is generally covered through the board rate, though foster parents can request additional funds through DCS’s fiscal department when a child has unusual clothing needs. Homes approved on an expedited basis, used when a placement is urgent, start at a reduced rate of $14.12 per day per child until full approval is granted.⁷

Every child in foster care is automatically eligible for TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, which covers medical, dental, and vision care at no cost to the foster family. The TennCare Kids component provides checkups and health services from birth through age 21.⁸ Foster children also qualify categorically for free school meals under the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, regardless of household income, and schools can enroll them automatically through direct certification.⁹

How Foster Payments Affect Your Taxes

Board payments from DCS are not taxable income. Under federal law, qualified foster care payments are excluded from your gross income entirely, including both regular board payments and difficulty-of-care payments for children who need extra support.¹⁰ The exclusion applies as long as the payments come through a state program and the care happens in your home.

A foster child who lives with you more than half the tax year may also qualify you for the Child Tax Credit, worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child. The child must be under 17 at year’s end and must be an “eligible foster child” placed with you by a government agency or court.¹¹ Short-term placements that don’t reach the half-year mark won’t qualify for the credit.

1
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Tennessee DCS Administrative Policies and Procedures – 16.4 Foster Home Selection and Approval
2
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Training for Potential Foster Parents
3
Justia. Tennessee Code 37-2-414 – Kinship Foster Care Program
4
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Foster Parent Pre-Approval Forms
5
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. State Launches New Training Curriculum for Prospective Foster Parents – Introducing TN-KEY
6
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Board Rates
7
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. DCS 16.29 – Foster Home Board Rates
8
kidcentraltn. TennCare
9
Congress.gov. S.3307 – Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 131 – Certain Foster Care Payments
11
Internal Revenue Service. Child Tax Credit