MANCHESTER — The Annie E. Casey Foundation will close its Casey Family Services centers by June 30, 2013, including two in New Hampshire with 46 employees.

Based in New Haven, Conn., Casey Family Services provides foster care services to about 400 children under state contracts in Maryland, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Lorraine A. Bartlett, administrator for Child Protective Services, part of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said the Casey Family Services was responsible for 104 of the state’s 1,287 children currently receiving services.

“What we would do is meet with Casey Family Services and then begin planning to work with our other agency providers around which of those providers can best meet the needs of those particular children,” she said.

Casey Family Services also helped 100 families maintain licensure as foster homes.

“Casey Family Services has been a genuine advocate and partner with the Division for Children Youth and Families for 35 years,” Bartlett said, “and they provided a wide array of services from home-based community services to foster care services and post-adoption services.”

Casey’s Concord and Littleton offices will work with the state over the next six months to transition the children it serves to other nonprofit agencies, spokeswoman Lisa Hamilton said.

The Baltimore-Md. based Annie E. Casey Foundation said Tuesday it would shift to a grantmaking strategy to help hundreds of foster care and other nonprofit human services agencies adopt innovative, proven approaches to improve child welfare practices.

“The decision to change our strategy to focus on helping nonprofit human services agencies improve their service to families instead of operating our own foster care agency is a significant milestone in our organization’s history,” Patrick T. McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation, said in a statement.

“We are proud of the contributions Casey Family Services has made in supporting families, working with foster parents, collaborating with public agencies, and providing outstanding care to children,” he said.

The foundation said it would provide the 280 employees affected by the decision with resources and support to pursue new employment, further education or retirement.

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