Permanency Tip of the Week: Timeline for Permanency
When working with Youth on Permanency, sometimes we can get overly excited or overly negative about a Permanency option. This can sometimes lead us to pursue Permanency at a rate that matches our reaction instead of at a rate that matches both what is in their best interest and what is equal to their the youth’s willingness and ability. Some of our Youth will want to pursue Permanency at a break neck pace no matter the risk, others at a very slow pace and some Youth may not want to seek it out at all no matter how good it might seem. The rate that we pursue Permanency must balance what is in the Youth’s best interest and rate at which the Youth is willing and able to pursue Permanency. All of this requires open, frequent, truthful and coordinated lines of communication.
Permanency Story of the Week: Bakersfield – Reunited families celebrate being together
Robert McMinn hugs his youngest son, Dylan, at the “Family Reunification Day” celebration held Friday at East Bakersfield High. Robert McMinn, right, and his two sons Johnny, left, and Dylan, front, participate in Friday’s “Together Again Family Reunification Day” at East Bakersfield High School. The party celebrates parents reuniting with children who were taken into the child welfare system.
Dylan McMinn holds the hand of his father, Robert McMinn, during the “Family Reunification Day” celebration Friday at East Bakersfield High School.
Robert McMinn, 55, remembers very clearly the day he knew he had to get sober and stay that way for the good of himself and, especially, his young boys. It was Feb. 24, 2011, and he was lying in a jail cell, having been arrested after a drug-fueled argument with his then-girlfriend, the mother of Johnny and Dylan.
“I was thinking, ’What can I do to get clean and stay clean?” he recalled Friday. “Then I told myself, ’This is Day One.’” It was a long and sometimes complicated process but the life plan McMinn put himself on succeeded beautifully and Friday his was among a half-dozen local families that celebrated “Family Reunification Day” at a second annual event put on by county and juvenile court officials.
The party, held at East Bakersfield High’s career center, recognized the hard work onetime-troubled parents put in to get their kids back officially after losing them to Child Protective Services for various reasons.
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Rewards in Foster Parenting: Rewards in Love – Dr. John DeGarmo
A successful foster parent is one who provides a caring environment while a birth family works on their caseload for reunification. Foster parents not only provide a caring environment, but a safe and stable one, as well. During this time, as a foster parent, you will agree to carry out all functions of the birth family. These day to day functions include assuring that the child’s medical, nutritional, educational, and parental needs are met. Foster parents may also provide social activities for the child, as well, such as extracurricular events after school, city and county sports, and church related activities, to name a few. Without question, there can be much joy in being a foster parent. Watching a child in foster care smile the first time after years of abuse; teaching a child in foster care how to ride a bike; sharing a foster child’s first real birthday with him after so many had been ignored in the past; helping a child heal from horrific trauma.
Family Finding Program Connects Homeless Arizona Youth with Relatives
Homeless youth often lack connections with family members, which is why staff at the Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development in Phoenix — a Valley nonprofit that works with homeless young people — recently underwent training in a program called Family Finding. Its goal is to help some of these young people re-connect with family members and supportive adults from their past.
Family Finding was developed by Kevin Campbell, founder of the Center for Family Finding and Youth Connectedness in Berkeley, California. Campbell, who has been working with youth for decades, said he developed this program because he didn’t feel like his efforts were paying off. “One of the experiences I had years ago was being a foster parent for older teenagers and my personal experience, both as a foster parent and also as a professional, was working incredibly hard for young people that I learned to deeply care about and then learning later that their adult lives were not what I had hoped for,” said Campbell.
In the Family Finding process, young people who have been through significant trauma identify adults from their past who provided some kind of positive influence. In some cases, this includes family members they didn’t know they had.
Beautiful Photo Campaign Raises Adoption Awareness in a Big Way
Many social service providers are worried that families are uninterested / afraid to get involved in foster care, which is why Together We Rise created a beautiful new photo campaign designed to bust stereotypes. Together We Rise features videos and photos of youth in the foster care system, focusing in on the big day: adoption day. Instead of highlighting trauma narratives, Together We Rise focuses on children’s strengths. The goal is to move people away from the idea that foster care youth are beyond help, beyond reach, beyond compassion. Instead of flying halfway across the world to adopt a baby (who may or may not have been acquired legally), the campaign encourages parents to considering adopting and caring for children right here at home.
Senators Push to Keep Kids Out of Foster Care
The Family Stability and Kinship Care Act would change how states can use money provided under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. States would be able to pay for services such as family skills training or counseling, or concrete goods and services such as a washer or dryer that could help a child stay at home, return home or live with relatives.
Pediatricians screen parents for ACEs to improve health of babies
It turns out that just 14 questions about the childhood experiences of parents provide information critical to the future health of their baby. The answer to the questions can help determine not only if the child will succeed in school, but when the child becomes an adult, whether she or he is likely to suffer chronic disease, mental illness, become violent or a victim of violence.
If parents have grown up with a lot of adversity in their lives and little help in understanding how that adversity affects their behavior and how they react to stress, they’re more likely to pass that on to their children, even if they don’t intend to, by reacting without thinking in typical “fight, flight or fright (freeze)” mode. They may hit the child, walk away from the child who’s asking for attention (albeit in a negative way), or freeze, only to be bitten or hit some more. None of that helps grow a healthy child or a healthy relationship between the parent and child.
Photographers Focus on Life After Foster Care in New Book
For most 18- to 23-year-olds in the United States, trying to figure out life is enough of a struggle. But for the more than 4,000 young adults aging out of the foster care system in California each year, young adulthood comes with even more hurdles.