Permanency Tip of the Week:
What if you learned early on that you could NOT count on others (especially your primary caregivers) to have basic needs for survival met? You would likely focus on getting those needs met however and whenever possible – with less focus on the cost to you or your relationships. When we see these behaviors, especially in our Foster Youth, it is often classified as manipulation. This is a powerful, negative and incorrect description of our Youth’s focus on getting their survival needs met. A more compassionate and accurate way to classify these behaviors is that they are getting there needs met in a way that bothers or offends us. Instead of punishing the “manipulation”, let’s instead focus on validating their efforts to get their survival needs met and coaching them on ways to get their survival needs met in ways that enhance their relationships.
Permanency Story of the Week:
Reflections on My Adoption Experience
Experiencing the process of making an adoption can be extremely overwhelming. You feel alone; you think you’re a bad mother because you’re even thinking about adoption. But, the important piece to this is to ensure you’re receiving professional and caring counseling during the pregnancy. Surround yourself with positive influences who will encourage and support you through your pregnancy. It’s not easy! But, if you are fortunate enough to have those positive influences around you, you are in an excellent position emotionally. It does not mean that you still won’t have negative thoughts or feelings…
Current Permanency related articles:
Darla Henry – We Do Not Confront Denial in Grief Work
The more grief to process, the more denial will be present in reconciling those losses. Letting kids do the work requires of us the power of listening and affirming as they tell their stories. We do not need to agree with or restate their words, or challenge their denials or fantasies. Ours is to listen as they tell and retell their story, allowing them to make sense out of it as they move through the events and people of their lives.
It is an inconsistent process with no logical time progression, but a going forward and backward, in the present, with lots of detours as they untangled their feelings and the understanding of what has happened to them. This empowering work assists them in reconciling many losses and enables them to determine more realistically who will be the more permanent connections in their lives.
With no time limit for grief, we cannot speed up acceptance of the loss by confronting the denial. Grieving is an individualized activity that can be determined only by the individual experiencing the loss. On the premise, however, that children and teens want relief from their pain, clarification of life events and integration of significant relationships, will provide the opportunity and activities to explore their lives in a safe way that honors their feelings. As they more clearly understand what happened and who they now are, their denial lessens. The work, especially in making a life book, becomes autobiographical and reflects the value of self and others, as they successfully grieve their losses.
UCLA professor – Website connects L.A. social workers and service providers
Her latest project at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs is a monster of a job with a task list that seems to grow just as quickly as she can check off the boxes. The associate professor of social work is helping families, whose children are being or have been removed by child protective services because of child abuse or neglect, get the urgent assistance they need — whether it’s counseling, parenting classes or substance abuse treatment — to reduce the amount of time their children have to spend in foster care.
For the past year, Freisthler and her team of dedicated doctoral students at UCLA have been working to develop the Needs Portal, a web-based program for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) that enables caseworkers to find out in real time which community agencies are available to help families whose children have already been or are on the verge of being removed from their homes.
Joo Yeun Chang, Associate Commissioner of ACF’s Children’s Bureau recently testified before the Subcommittee on Children and Families Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to share HHS’ response to two serious issues confronting the field of child welfare: the practice of adoptive parents “re-homing” their adopted children & human trafficking.
Preying on the Vulnerable: Foster Youth Face High Risk of Identity Theft
Child advocates say that foster youth are particularly vulnerable to identity theft because they bounce from one home to another, giving an expanding group of adults access to their private information. There are no national figures on the problem, but one Los Angeles County study found that eight percent of 16 and 17 year old foster kids had fraudulent charges on their credit reports.
In a Year, Child Protective Services Checked up on 3.2 Million Children
Every year, the Department of Health and Human Services published statistics on the work of child protective service agencies in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. The most up to date report available is Child Maltreatment 2012.
Adoption Triad – Fathers’ involvement in adoption
Fathers play an important role in children’s lives, whether or not they live with their children. Ethical adoption practice requires that adoption professionals and agencies actively seek out and engage first fathers. By engaging fathers, professionals can not only learn important information about children’s medical history, eligibility for benefits, or Tribal status, they may also learn about the availability of paternal kin who could offer other permanence options. Even if a father chooses to relinquish his rights to his child or his parental rights are involuntarily terminated, the father or the paternal relatives may be able to safely engage in an open adoption that would benefit a child or youth. Find resources below for birth, kin, foster, and adoptive fathers.
Final Report on the Summit Permanency Collaborative
This final report highlights the Summit Permanency Collaborative (SPC), a permanency program created to address the needs of children at risk for aging out of foster care in Summit County, Ohio. The program was successful in achieving the goals of finding permanency for long-staying youth, reducing the number of children who enter Permanent Custody, and establishing a “culture of permanency” within Summit County. This report includes information on SPC’s history and program development; discusses SPC’s goals and objectives; details outcomes and cost savings analysis; and shares success stories, recommendations, and lessons learned.