Permanency Tip of the Week: Permanency for Our Children and Families, Ourselves, and Our Communities
In looking at all the challenges that we face in: Serving our youth and families in foster care; 2) Helping to stabilize those who are at-risk of entering foster care; 3) Further stabilizing those who have successfully exited foster care, it all comes down to Permanency. All three groups of people, along with all of us serving them, as well as the communities that we all live in, fundamentally need increased breadth, depth and strength of Permanency. If Permanency is lacking in any of these areas, then we risk wasting a great deal of the good work that is being done. Let us consider how we can replicate our Permanency efforts beyond those who have been in out of home care the longest and seek it for everyone. Then, we truly can help reshape our communities for the better and in doing so, greatly reduce the need for foster care.
Permanency Success Story of the Week: From Broken to Unbreakable
Fostering Great Ideas – Samantha (18) and Jake (16) have lived in foster care since 2013; between them, they’ve lived in 11 foster placements. Their experiences left them hopeless and broken. Then came Sib-Link.
They began regular visits in 2016. At first, they barely talked to one another; not because they didn’t love each other, but because they simply didn’t know how to interact. They came from a hostile environment of neglect and abuse.
The first few Sib-Link visits were bonding activities at places like Color Clay Café, where they sat down and painted pottery together. Over time, Samantha and Jake began to communicate and open up, as siblings do. They have been in the program for two years now and have developed an unbreakable bond…
Permanency Related Articles:
Instant Family – Major Motion Picture about Adoption
The first trailer for Instant Family introduces a heartwarming and hilarious story based on director Sean Anders’ real life. Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne portray a married couple who are looking to expand their family, just like Anders and his wife did. Wahlberg’s Pete character and Byrne’s Ellie turn to foster care, looking to adopt one child. However, they end up three siblings. The trailer features some of the ups and downs of starting an instant family, especially when one of the kids is a teenager.
More information about the movie – Behind the scenes
Why Involving Entire Families in Child Protection Cases Can Improve the Lives of Endangered Children
Social Work Helper – Annually, about 435,000 children across the United States are taken away from their custodial parents following a confirmed incident of abuse or neglect. In 2015, approximately two million cases of abuse and neglect were accepted for investigation by child protection services agencies in the fifty U.S. states. Although other family members currently care for such children in informal arrangements, the vast majority of children in protective cases are placed with non-biological foster families (now called resource families) until the parent’s home is considered safe…
Children and families who enter the child welfare system often have multiple challenges including behavioral health issues, special educational needs, substance abuse challenges, and delinquency. Often the families are poor, struggle with food and housing insecurity, and may have poor parenting skills or mental health challenges…
The state of Hawai‘i has a state-wide system of family conferencing that is offered to all families entering the child welfare system. Family Group Decision Making is based on an indigenous process developed in New Zealand. In Hawaiʻi, the ʻOhana Conferencing model draws upon western mediation and social work practice, as well as the indigenous Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness…
Using ʻOhana Conferencing has allowed Hawaiʻi to enjoy one of the highest percentages of kinship care in the child welfare system. The state is in the top three for kinship care, and more than two-fifths of children in protective care have been placed with kin since 2008…
Adopted Daughter Meets Dad Who Didn’t Even Know She Existed for First Time
Unilad – Few of us can relate to the experience of not knowing your biological parents can have a serious effect on who you are as a person. Thankfully for 31-year-old Michelle Cehn, who had to grow up not knowing who her birth parents were, she had a blissful childhood after being adopted and raised by Joan and Joel Cehn. But she had always dreamed of meeting her biological parents. She fulfilled that dream after she tracked down her biological father via Facebook in a search that started nearly a decade ago.
Prior to meeting Michelle, her birth father had no idea she even existed. The content creator who was raised in Oakland, California, by Joan, a speech pathologist, and Joel, a nuclear physicist, had began the hunt for her family when she was able to track her birth mother Diane, aged 54, after coming across a family obituary in 2009…
But in April this year, she finally located a first cousin on her birth father’s side. Using Facebook, she tracked down Greg Hicks, 57, a business development professional who she believed to be her biological father…After connecting the dots, Greg confirmed Michelle was his daughter through a paternity test and the pair met at Orange County Airport in California. It was a beautiful experience…
Michelle says she felt fortunate to have grown up with such loving parents in Joan and Joel, but she always felt there was a part of her identity she knew nothing about. Meeting Diane in 2009 was ‘amazing’ but not knowing her dad meant a piece of the puzzle was still missing. Since meeting Greg she also discovered she had a brother which she found ‘cool’, adding ‘I had wished for siblings my whole life’.
Transforming Juvenile Probation – A Vision for Getting it Right
Annie E. Casey Foundation – The Annie E. Casey Foundation presents its vision for transforming juvenile probation into a focused intervention that promotes personal growth, positive behavior change and long-term success for youth who pose significant risks for serious offending. Nearly a half-million young people are given some form of probation annually and it serves as a critical gatekeeper to determine whether young people are placed in residential institutions. Probation plays a significant role in perpetuating the vast overrepresentation of African-American, Latino and other youth of color in our nation’s justice systems.
This report delivers the evidence and rationale for two interdependent approaches. First, it calls for reducing the size of the probation population dramatically by diverting far more youth from the juvenile justice system to community resources. Second, it seeks to transform probation into a more effective intervention for the much smaller population of youth who will remain on probation officer’s caseloads. It describes necessary elements of reform, such as building relationships; embracing families and community organizations; motivating youth through incentives and opportunities; and setting clear and meaningful outcome goals for probation itself.
How to Empower Children by Building Their Resiliency Muscle
Western Youth Services – Did you know that childhood trauma is an epidemic? That one in five children has a diagnosable mental health condition? That childhood trauma is associated, in many cases, with lifelong health and mental health outcomes? This predictive outcome is identified in the ground-breaking Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. The original ACE Study was conducted in 1998 by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente; you can find more information on the ACEs Too High website…
Resiliency is the Antidote – One definition of resiliency is: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Resilience requires the reliable presence of at least one supportive relationship with a caring adult. Through these relationships, children have the opportunity to develop crucial coping skills. Knowing that they are not alone and that they are learning healthy ways to process stress, can help to reverse the physiological changes that are activated by toxic stress. This protects the developing brain, the immune system, and the body from negative effects…
Mentors Are Powerful Advocates – Mentoring is a great way to make a positive impact in the life of a child or young adult. Research indicates that kids that are mentored do better in school, are less likely to get involved with drugs or other addictive behaviors, and spend their time participating in sports or other extracurricular activities. The best part… is that they often become future mentors…
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Take care and keep up the Permanency work – Our children, youth, young adults, families, and communities are depending on it!