Permanency Tip of the Week: Why does he / she have more Permanency than I do?
When working with Youth in foster care, especially congregate care, one of the challenges we can face is supporting our Youth when they perceive that other youth around them have more Permanency than they do. Their feelings and reactions to this real or perceived discrepancy can include disappointment, frustration, confusion and anger. We need to support and affirm their feelings and help them to keep alive their hope of increasing their own permanency. This can be achieved by identifying whatever progress has been achieved for them, review the current efforts and encouraging them to strive to be happy for another person even when they may not be happy themselves (yet!).
Permanency Story of the Week: Finally, a family for Davion
For a long time after he was sent back to Florida, Davion didn’t want to talk. Not to the counselors the agency sent to console him; not to the guys from his old group home or the teachers at his new high school. Not to the foster parents who took him in; he knew they didn’t plan to keep him. Or to the church people he had stood before when he asked someone — anyone — to adopt him.
When Davion got into a fight with one of the minister’s kids, the family changed their minds — and flew Davion back to Florida. He returned to the state system, where he had lived with strangers his whole life. He was 16. Too old, he thought, for anyone to want him. Too old, he kept telling himself, to care.
Then, on a sticky evening in late July — after being shuffled between four homes and four schools in a year — Davion finally needed to talk. On a phone the foster agency had given him, he dialed the only number he knew by heart, of the only adult who was a constant in his life, the woman who had been his caseworker since he was 7. The only person he thought might still care. “Hey . . . Miss Connie . . . it’s me,” he stammered softly. “Do you remember what I asked you before? Well . . .”
Current Permanency related articles:
Conference on Innovations in Family Engagement
NIPFC is proud to be an official sponsor of the International Conference on Innovations in Family Engagement Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 27-30, 2015.The full conference brochure and registration will be available in May, 2015.
For almost two decades, the current Kempe Center faculty have been at the forefront of supporting communities with the implementation of FGDM and differential response, two strategies that innovate child welfare systems. We have also conducted research and served as a dissemination center. In addition, we have hosted annual conferences on both innovations. Beginning in 2015, these annual conferences will be combined into one event: International Conference on Innovations in Family Engagement.
For more information, please contact:
Amy Hahn – Amy.Hahn@childrenscolorado.org
Anita Horner – Anita.Horner@childrenscolorado.org
What an Adoptee Wants You to Know About Adoption
Disclaimer: I am but one person with my own experience. Adoptees are human beings, so of course our feelings and experiences vary from black to white to every shade of gray. I cannot and do not speak for everyone, but will always stand up for everyone to have a chance to speak.
When I was a baby, I lived in a car for a time. My birthmother left me behind one day and did not return. I was adopted when I was a little over a year old. Adoption is how I came to be with my family. I know people in supermarkets and school registration lines always seem to have a lot of questions when they see a family that was obviously built through adoption, and I certainly get a lot about mine, so in case you were wondering and because I have shared it with people since I was very young, this is what I want you to know in response to years of questions.
AB 12 Convening in LA: What’s Best and What’s Next – April 29th
Don’t miss the Alliance for Children’s Rights “What’s Best and What’s Next” AB 12 convening on April 29 at the California Endowment in Los Angeles. The all-day conference on extended care seeks to arm an array of supportive adults including social workers, probation officers, advocates, attorneys, caregivers, transition-aged youth providers and educators, with key information to best serve DCFS and Probation youth eligible for AB 12.
The workshop topics are both expansive and practical. In addition to updates on extended foster care, the conference addresses critical themes such as higher education, transition planning and placement resources and supportive housing. They offer deep dives into emerging best practices for serving pregnant and parenting TAY, the commercially sexually exploited population and young adults with disabilities.
New Breed of Foster Parents Essential to Normalcy Initiative
The effort to improve the lives of America’s foster children may hinge on whether state and local agencies can recruit enough skilled, dedicated foster parents who buy into the concept. Under a federal bill enacted last fall, child-welfare officials are directed to promote “normalcy” for foster children — encouraging their caretakers to let them engage in a full range of extracurricular activities on par with other children. This could mean a happier, livelier household, but it also entails greater decision-making responsibilities. In the eyes of some experts, that requires a higher level of parenting skill than has been expected of foster parents in the past.
Residential Settings for Young Adults in Foster Care
Since 2012, California’s Fostering Connections Act (based on the Federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act) has given youth in foster care the option to remain in care past their 18th birthday. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago published a report on a study that examined the residential settings of California’s young adults who choose to remain in care.
Promoting Sibling Connections in Foster Care
Recognizing that sibling relationships are critical for the healthy development of a child, child welfare agencies make efforts to keep siblings together in foster care whenever possible. Sometimes, however, not all siblings can remain together. The Coalition for Children, Youth and Families, in collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, developed a tip sheet for foster parents regarding ways to support sibling connections for the children and youth they are fostering who have been separated from their siblings. The tip sheet also addresses challenges resulting from these separations.