In which Sims can try to get back children taken away by CPS, report neglectful parenting, foster children, surrender their children to the foster home, and more.
This is a MOD (nonofficial content) for the Sims 4 game, and while it tackles serious subjects, it does not try to recreate the foster systems or CPS systems of any existing countries, or to imitate reality completely. It is rather built to expand on what the game already has in a manner that fits it.
— Basic Mod Info —
MENU:
- If you use mods from the RPO Collection, the CPS menu puts itself under the main RPO menu
- If you don’t, the CPS menu is not in any submenu
— Losing and Recovering Children —
There are three ways Sim social services can take away a Sim’s children:
- via the game itself triggering neglect (when hunger is death-low)
- via Sims reporting each other
- via a random visit (optional – can happen once per sim)
A sim can also voluntarily surrender a child to the Foster Home, see “Foster Home” section
LOSING CHILDREN TO CPS
— Losing children Due to NEGLECT —: Details
Setting: Death Or Intervention
First thing to note is you have a setting in the mod to decide if children Sims should be able to die from hunger, or if they should be picked up by Social Services upon reaching critical hunger.
If the Death setting is on, CPS does not visit and the child dies. Later, authorities learn what happened.
Otherwise:
CPS INTERVENTION
When the game triggers neglect rescue (hunger failure), if you did not turn on death from child hunger, instead of the child Sim being taken away somewhere unknown, agents come to address the situation.
Eventually, the player gets to choose:
- Foster in another household (choose which family they go to).
- send to Foster Home (sim is not in sent to a household yet – they can be selected to be fostered when playing other households)
- send far far away (Sim disappears and will never return)
Relationship statuses are added, and the parents can later apply to get their child back.
— Losing children Due to OTHER SIM MAKING A REPORT –: Details
If a Sim is reported to CPS, they will receive an investigative visit.
Reports can happen:
- When player uses the interaction to “report a sim to cps”
- autonomously if a sim witnesses something that’s cause for alarm, if you enable that in settings, there is a small chance they’ll prompt to report.
THE CPS INVESTIGATION
For details on what matters to agents during visits, check out the section “What Matters to Agents During Visits” a bit further below.
The agent goes to observe and talk to the children.
Then, he goes to check out the furniture and how well the house is equipped.
During this process, your Sim mostly follows the agent around.
NOTE: if the agent notices violence against children during their visit, they will automatically conclude that the household is unsuitable.
CONCLUSION OF THE VISIT
When the agent is done visiting, the following notification appears and the agent comes to talk with your sim.
Entirely based on what the agent observed during the visit, he will either:
- dismiss concerns
- give a warning
- Validate the report & Relocate the children for fostering into another household
REACTIONS TO CPS INTERVENTION
Sims’ reactions depend in part on their relationships with each other (parent to child, etc).
- Depending on relationship with parents, children sims taken away can react more sad or more hopeful to both being taken away and being returned to their parents.
- Depending on the relationship between a child and their returning sibling, they can be happy to see them return or angry.
- Parents can share blame or sadness, the response depending on relationship, general context mood and traits.
— Losing children Due to a RANDOM VISIT –: Details
This is almost identical to when being reported (CPS comes to visit the Sim’s household) – the difference being the text of the intro and conclusion notification.
Random visits are OPTIONAL: you can turn them off in settings.
Note: What Matters to Agents During Well-Being Visits
Beds
The agent looks for child-adapted beds, one per child.
NOTE: babies don’t need one, and teens either.
Equipped bathroom
The agent looks for a functional toilet and shower / bathtub.
Relationships
The agent checks that the child has no terrible relationship with any adult in the household.
Toys
The agent text that there are toys in the household.
Money (OPTIONAL)
A household with less than $10 000 in cash is considering as lacking money to take care of child sims. If you don’t like that for your gameplay style, you can turn it off in settings.
School Grades
For Sims of schooling age, their grades also matter. Failing grades count against the parents.
Psychological Well-being
When child Sims are yelled at, if they have been yelled at several times by their parents in the day already, they can get special moodlets.
When Social Services agents do a household visit to check the well-being of children, they notice psychological distress if a child has been yelled at a lot in a day, and that counts against the parents.
Additional elements
- If a child gets yelled at by parents in front of the agent, the agent counts that heavily against the parents
- If there are broken items in the household, the agent notices and comments on it
RECOVERING CHILDREN
While Sims have a child fostered away, for the first few days, they can get occasional moodlets about it. So can the child fostered away.
Note: a warning that “Evil” and “Hates Children” Sims have a chance to get a rather horrible (insensitive) moodlet in which they don’t really mind that their child is gone; the rest of Sims don’t risk getting this moodlet.
Sims who want to do their best to get their children back can do so.
Before a Sim is able to apply to get their children back:
- at least three days must have passed since CPS intervened
- the Sim must have attended a Parenting Workshop
- the Sim must have attended a Parent Counseling Session
Additionally, if the Sim is hoping for a positive outcome for the second visit that will determine if they can get their children back, they need to have fixed the problems noted at the first visit.
- For example, if the problem was lack of money, the Sim must now have more money
- if the problem was bad relationships with the child, the relationship must have improved
- etc.
Otherwise, children won’t be returned.
The return of the child can be a happy event, but some resentment and doubts can remain if the relationship between child and parent is bad, and moodlet reactions for child and parent depend on that.
Letting go of Parental Rights
A Sim can declare their child adoptable if it’s been taken away by Child Social Services. This lets the foster household, if any, adopt the child if they so choose.
— The Foster Home —
A sim can voluntarily surrender a child to the Foster Home.
- voluntarily surrender a child to the Foster Home
There are two ways a Sim can foster children:
- via applying to foster a child in the Foster Home
- via being selected as foster household by another household losing their children
VOLUNTARILY SURRENDERING A CHILD TO THE FOSTER HOME
Sims can decide to surrender a child to the Foster Home if they feel they aren’t fit to take care of them at the moment. This impacts the relationship with the child negatively, so be careful!
To do so, a Sim must have their partner’s agreement.
Sims willingly hosted in the Foster Home can be retrieved anytime.
APPLYING TO FOSTER A CHILD FROM FOSTER HOME
There are two ways for Sims to end up fostering a child:
- they’re selected as foster household when a Sim is taken away from another household, if the player has opted for immediate transfer to another household
- OR they apply to foster a child sent to the Foster Home (to do this, they need their partner’s approval if their partner lives with them)
APPLYING TO FOSTER
Once a Sim is ready to foster a child, they can go apply. Sims with a criminal record (from “Law & Disorder”) or with a CPS record cannot do this. It also requires having 30 000 simoleons at least.
Then, you choose who to foster. Choices are all the Sims in the Foster Home (played sims taken away from other families, and generated NPCs).
Your Sim comes home with the selected foster child.
FINANCIAL COMPENSATION
Every few days, your Sim gets a payment to help take care of foster children. The payment is proportional to how many foster children the sim has.
SENDING BACK OR ADOPTING FOSTER CHILDREN
Adopting
For a Foster Child to qualify for adoption:
- If the foster child ended up in foster care because played Sims had a CPS visit, these played Sims must declare the sim adoptable for the foster parents to adopt.
- If the foster child came from the Foster Home without having been in a played household (= a generated NPC), and is an Orphan, they can be adopted as soon as they have spent 7 sim days fostering with that family
- If the foster child came from the Foster Home without having been in a played household (= a generated NPC), and is not an Orphan, CPS might call some day to say the child is now adoptable (you can use a cheat for it to happen, too).
Once a Foster Child qualifies for adoption, the Foster Parent has an interaction on the child “Talk about Adopting“.
If the child agrees, the adoption is complete!
Sending Back (willingly or not)
- If the foster child ended up in foster care because played Sims had a CPS visit, sending them back will send them to the Foster Home, not to their original household (since presumably those Sims haven’t taken the steps for that yet)
- If the foster child came from the Foster Home without having been in a played household (= a generated NPC):
- The fostering sim can send back the child to the Foster Home,
- CPS might call some day to say the child MUST be returned because their original parents have fixed the problems of their household (you can use a cheat for it to happen, too).
- NOTE: In this case you have a choice: vanish the foster child Sim forever, or have them join a household not in world with their parent(s) (household which you can place in the world at any time)
Foster House NPCs: Orphan/ Non Orphan
30% of the foster house NPCs are Orphans. They will never be able to return to their family of origin.
Non-orphans might have to return to a family of origin at some point.
If Foster Child ages up to Young Adult
At young adult age, Sims are old enough to not need a legal guardian anymore, so the foster system ends for them.
A few choices are possible to a Foster Child, and are offered to the player when the sim ages up:
If you want the Sim to move back in with their original parents, or to move into their own household alone, use the last option.
Foster Home Cheats
There are cheats for you to manipulate the setup of the Foster Home.
Interactions between Foster Family and Foster Children
Foster children and foster families have a chance of getting certain moodlets when having interactions with a foster child.
Depending on relationship, foster parents are more supportive in their replies, or less, in the interaction “Share Sadness about Being Taken From Home”:
— Relationships and sentiments —
The mod comes with several relationship labels to make it easy to keep track of who is fostering who from who.
There are also a few sentiments possible from children to parents and between sims.
There is tracking of yelling / meanness (psychological abuse) from parents to children; too much yelling in a day will give special negative moodlets to the children.
There is also Orphan Tracking: Sims who become Orphans are automatically labeled as such.
Examples of some relationship statuses
