Greetings Permanency Champions,
Story of the Week:
Kinship Center / Seneca Family of Agencies – Family Finding Story
NIPFC – Online Training ~ Meeting Mandates to Locate and Notice Family
We are excited to announce the release of a new online training entitled Relatives Matter – Meeting Child Welfare Mandates to Locate and Notice Family. This FREE two-hour training will cover notice requirements under the Fostering Connections Act and California’s mirror legislation, AB 938; how we can ensure fathers are identified, located and engaged for every youth; and how family involvement helps to foster not only permanency but safety and well-being. This training will provide all participants with two California Board of Behavioral Sciences Continuing Education Units and/or a completion certificate!
Child Trends – Family Finding Case Management Database
Child Trends is pleased to offer the use of their Family Finding Case Management Database to public and private agencies interested in storing, compiling, and analyzing data on Family Finding’s relative search and engagement practices. The database serves as a repository allowing for continuous program monitoring, as well as research and evaluation. It also includes a random assignment module which can serve as an important tool for rigorous evaluation designs. Users access the database via the web and can enter data on an ongoing basis. Data are collected on the children and families served and the specific case practices which comprise agency models.
A variety of cost packages are available based on program needs. For more information, contact Sarah Catherine Williams at Child Trends at swilliams@childtrends.org or 240-223-9230.
You Gotta Believe – Adoption for Teenagers
You Gotta Believe’s mission is to find adoptive parents for young adults, teens and pre-teens before they age out of the foster care system and run the extremely high risk (50%+) of becoming homeless.
New CA Policies Intend to Reduce Group Home Utilization
The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has released two All County Letters (ACLs) addressing significant statutory changes regarding foster youth placed in group care.
ACL No. 13-86 describes the two methodologies CDSS will be utilizing to identify the population of youth in group care for one year or longer based upon information contained within the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS). The ACL provides instructions to counties on their role of assessing suitability and appropriateness of group home placement based upon children’s identified needs and strengths, and outlines the corresponding documentation process required of counties in the CWS/CMS. Download ACL No. 13-86 here.
ACL No. 13-87 focuses on the way in which AB 74 amended the requirements for placement in a group home for children ages twelve and under. Prior to the passage of AB 74, approval for placement of this age group was required by the caseworker’s supervisor. Now, when placing a child age twelve and under in a group home, the county must have approval from a director-level employee of the county child welfare agency or probation department. AB 74 also made a number of other amendments to these requirements, including that a child under the age of six who is being placed in a group home must have a case plan that indicates the treatment is not only specialized, but also short-term and intensive. The ACL instructs counties to put processes in place as soon as possible or before the child’s next review hearing, to ensure these and the other provisions described in the ACL are being implemented for new and existing cases of children ages twelve and under in group homes. Download ACL No. 13-87 here.
The Intersection of Child Welfare and Disability: Focus on Parents
The Fall 2013 issue of CW360°, “The Intersection of Child Welfare and Disability: Focus on Parents,” from the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) is now available online. This CW360° explores issues impacting parents with disabilities and/or mental illness who are at risk of involvement or who are involved in the child welfare system. It is intended to provide practitioners with the broadest understanding of the strengths and challenges, unique assessment and service needs, and environmental factors faced by these families.
CASCW’s annual CW360° magazine provides comprehensive information on the latest research, policies, and practices in a key area affecting child well-being to communities, child welfare professionals, and other human service professionals. CASCW will also produce a special issue this summer focusing on parents with disabilities in the child welfare system.
Help available to adopt special needs kids
Associations offer grants to help defray costs for would-be parents – Adopting a healthy child can put a huge dent into your bank account. If you adopt a special needs child, you add a lifetime of medical bills. Fortunately, help is available. In the last decade, many nonprofit associations have been formed to grant money to help with the adoption of special needs children. Other funds and financial resources are available through adoption agencies and the state and federal governments. Each organization has different criteria, though, so parents must do their homework.
Unpacking the ‘No’ of Permanency / Supervisory Support for Promoting Permanency for Older Youth and Young Adults – See Attachment
Check out the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections website to find (1) a web section that allows professionals to learn about and listen to youth voices and find ways to involve youth in their permanency plans and (2) a newsletter that features articles on “Unpacking the ‘No’ of Permanency” and “Supervisory Support for Promoting Permanency for Older Youth and Young Adults”:
Caring for LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care
This PowerPoint presentation by Tracy Serdjenian, LMSW, Director of Information Services, National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections (NRCPFC), provides foundational knowledge about LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) youth, as well as strategies for working with LGBTQ youth in foster care and their birth families and foster families.
Please feel free to forward this blog to other Permanency Champions and those that could use a healthy dose of Permanency. Take care and keep up the Permanency work – Our children, youth, young adults, families and communities are depending on it!