Permanency Tip of the Week: Week 5 of 5 – A System of Care Approach to Permanency
Addressing the absence of Permanency is NOT a Child Welfare problem. Using a System of Care model to bring together Mental Health Services, Education, Juvenile Justice and the greater Community in the practice of securing Permanency for ALL youth and families in child welfare is critical and the only way to truly create and sustain such a practice. All of these partners have unique gifts, skills, access to services / funding and perspectives that together represent the comprehensive approach that needs to be adopted in order to address in a sustainable way the challenge of securing Permanency for all our children. In looking at your Permanency efforts, reach out to partners who previously have not been a part of your efforts and be sure to celebrate the continued collaboration of your existing partners.
Permanency Story of the Week: Parents Surprise Foster Kid With Adoption News In Family Court
Haven Dockins has been in foster care for 10 years. The 16-year-old is all too familiar with family court, where she has spent much of her childhood with attorneys, child protective services, and various foster parents. So when her foster parents announced they were taking her to family court instead of school, she didn’t think much of it. Then something amazing happened…For Christmas Haven only wanted one thing: for her foster parents to adopt her. Haven, completely clueless, stood before the judge who announced today was the day the paperwork was being filled out. It was official; Haven was adopted. I haven’t seen an adoption surprise this good since 19-year-old Meredith’s.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
The Paradox of Adoption ~ Academics
Their parents are generally well-educated and affluent. They receive more time and educational resources from those parents than the average child gets from theirs. Yet they get into more conflicts with their classmates at school, display relative little interest and enthusiasm about learning tasks, and register only middling academic performance. About whom are we talking? Adopted children. This is the paradox of adoption in America.
Clinicians Don’t Deviate from Protocol By Providing Supplemental Services
Therapists make small adjustments with all the parents and children we see to meet their specific clinical needs (especially children in the child welfare system). The unique contribution of the TIES clinicians lies in the special information they provide adoptive parents about the challenges of adoption.
Striving for Normalcy
The federal Strengthening Families Act is helping children in foster care have some of the formative experiences that children in intact families may take for granted. What Young People Need to Thrive, a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, says foster children have often lived with restrictions that force them to the margins of normal school activities, community involvement, even friendships. But many of these restrictions were put in place with younger children in mind.
GAO Report: HHS Could Do More to Support States’ Efforts to Keep Children in Family-Based Care
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released the report, “HHS Could Do More to Support States’ Efforts to Keep Children in Family-Based Care”, which highlights eight states’ use of congregate care (Connecticut, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington). This report examines how selected states have reduced their use of congregate care, challenges with reducing congregate care placements, and efforts HHS has taken to help states reduce congregate care. GAO interviewed state child welfare officials and analyzed child welfare data from HHS, reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, and documents
This guide is intended to help caseworkers, foster parents, or other caring adults learn about trauma experienced by youth in foster care and treatment options, including approaches other than psychotropic medication. The guide presents strategies for seeking help for youth, identifying appropriate treatment, and supporting youth in making decisions about their mental health. Additionally, this guide serves as a companion guide to the 2012 Making Healthy Choices: A Guide on Psychotropic Medications for Youth in Foster Care.
Open adoptions benefit both sides
When a child is adopted, his or her birth parents terminate their rights to the child. In the past, that usually meant any further contact with the child was terminated as well. But now open adoptions are becoming more common, giving birth parents a way to know their child is doing well, even if they are not directly involved in their life.