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Home > Enhancing Permanency for Older Youth in Out-of-Home Care: A Bulletin for Professionals > Strategies for Permanency Planning With Youth
Enhancing Permanency for Older Youth in Out-Of-Home Care
A Bulletin for Professionals
3. Strategies for Permanency Planning With Youth Supported by Federal legislation, States and localities have worked to develop programs and practices that offer better permanent outcomes for older youth in foster care and services for successful transition to adulthood. The following are some strategies that have emerged from the literature. Strengthen Family Preservation/Reunification Services Maintaining the child safely in the home with the birth family remains the first priority. For youth still living at home but at risk of being removed due to their own behavior or a parent's behavior, family preservation services may help to support the children and the parents, so that these youth can remain in their homes. The array of services needed depends on each family's circumstances but may include:
Most youth have a goal of reunification with their birth families, and support services to promote this goal should be provided to youth in out-of-home care and their families. Such services should be part of the case plan that addresses the unique circumstances and needs of each youth and family, so that safe and successful reunification can be supported. Reunification can still be an option for youth who have been in care for years, as the elapsed time may have allowed the family to address the issues that brought the youth into care. However, in cases where steps toward reunification have not been successful, reunification should not be used as a default option for youth who are aging out of care without other permanency options. A practice that has shown success with a number of families in promoting family preservation, permanency, and connectedness for youth is family group decision-making (FGDM). In FGDM, extended family members and other important people in the life of the youth come together to establish and implement a plan for the safety, well-being, and permanency of the child or youth. Typically, a family conference is arranged and facilitated by a child welfare worker or agency. The family meets to develop or revise a permanency plan, including the roles of family members in implementing the plan. The proposed plan must ultimately be approved by the agency (and court, if there is court involvement); however, the family's participation helps to garner their commitment to the youth and to the plan's success. A recent synopsis of research on FGDM found the following (Merkel-Holguin, Nixon, & Burford, 2003):
One resource for FGDM is the website of the National Center on Family Group Decision Making, a program of American Humane, found at www.americanhumane.org/fgdm. Other resources for FGDM are available on the website of the National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/info_services/family-group-conferencing.html. Consider Open Adoptions While adoption is the most legally permanent family arrangement, some youth may resist it because they believe it requires severing relationships with their birth parents or siblings. Open adoptions allow for both a permanent legal family for the youth and continued connections with birth parents, siblings, or other relatives. Make Kinship Care a Priority While informal kinship care has always been an option for some families, more formal arrangements, made by the child welfare system, have become more prevalent since the late 1980s. Most States now have policies that require agencies to seek out placement with relatives when possible (Geen, 2003a). In terms of permanency, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 provided guidance to States in recognizing the importance of permanent placements with relatives as a permanency option (Geen, 2003b). In cases where the caregiving arrangement requires the child to stay with the family into adulthood, the family may pursue guardianship or adoption. Relatives of youth and other adults important to them can take some effort to locate but may be happy to be found. The literature is replete with anecdotes of relatives and others who had lost contact with youth or who had tried to maintain contact but were rebuffed by child welfare agencies in the past. When located and asked to provide a permanent connection or to be involved in helping the youth transition, many were delighted to do so. Paternal relatives may not have received adequate emphasis initially from the child welfare system, but may provide the needed family connection. States vary in the services and support they offer to kinship caregivers. When the caregivers are licensed foster parents, they may receive the standard foster parent stipend for their jurisdiction. Some States have alternative arrangements for kinship caretakers that provide various levels of support. Offer Guardianship and Subsidized Guardianship as Options For youth who are reluctant to have legal ties permanently severed with their birth parents, even when the birth parents are unable to care for them, the option of guardianship may provide the necessary legal and permanent family. Guardians may be relatives or nonrelatives, when provided for in State law, who assume parental responsibility and authority for the youth, as established by a court. A limited number of States have applied for and received time-limited Federal waivers that provide them with more flexibility in using Federal funding, and they offer subsidized guardianship programs. Other States fund guardianship programs with their own State money. This type of program may enable caregivers who have been receiving a foster care subsidy to become legal guardians without losing necessary financial support. Expand Permanency Options Ideally, permanency for youth should include a permanent legal connection to a family, such as reuniting with birth parents, adoption, kinship care, or legal guardianship. However, when these options are less likely, workers may want to help youth pursue other permanent connections concurrently with caring adults. Such adults may provide lifelong support that will help the youth in transitioning to adulthood. Youth may build on connections with maternal and paternal kin, teachers, former foster parents, employers, and others for support, and eventually may be able to pursue a legal connection. In such instances, formalizing the permanent connection can help clarify what the youth can expect from the caring adult. A study with California youth in care gave youth the chance to talk about their views on permanency (Sanchez, 2004). Not only did youth desire permanent connections, but they also made distinctions among the different types of permanency. When choosing among relational, physical, and legal permanence, most youth felt that relational permanence was most important. Two resources that may be helpful are:
Implement Concurrent Planning Sequential case planning may involve delays in permanency outcomes for youth in out-of-home care. For most children and youth, the primary goal is family reunification. With concurrent planning, a secondary goal is pursued simultaneously. If the secondary goal is placement with relatives, child welfare workers can begin to identify and contact relatives even while continuing to work toward family reunification. For information on concurrent planning, see:
Recruit Foster and Adoptive Families for Older Children Recruitment efforts for foster and adoptive families for older youth may focus on (1) getting the message to the public about older children available for fostering or adoption, (2) the benefits of adopting older youth, and (3) finding permanent connections for specific children. Recruiting foster parents for older youth carries great potential for finding permanent adoptive or guardianship families for these youth: In FY 2003, foster parents became adoptive parents for more than 60 percent of the children who were adopted from foster care that year (U.S. DHHS, 2005). The use of the media to present children waiting for adoption has grown tremendously. Photolisting on the Internet has become a prevalent practice that provides information to anyone with Internet access. Prospective families reading the listings find enough information on a particular youth to pique their interest so that they follow up with the youth's agency. The AdoptUsKids photolisting service (www.adoptuskids.org), in English and Spanish, is a national photolisting campaign funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In addition, agencies have found some success with television campaigns such as Wednesday's Child, print campaigns, and videos and videoconferencing. Marketing to families most likely to adopt children from foster care also has become popular. Several organizations have begun to make use of both marketing (media presentations, bulletin boards, etc.) and market research, which is used to identify families or communities most likely to adopt (Capriccioso, 2004). Those families can then be targeted through direct advertising methods. Creating opportunities for families and adults to come into contact with adolescents who need homes is the key to broadening the pool of potential adopters. Activities sponsored by the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program like job fairs, teen conferences, employment mentoring, and life skill groups provide excellent opportunities for youth to meet caring adults who might become permanent connections. Adults who may never have considered adopting may become more open to the idea once they meet a particular child in need. Supportive relationships, such as mentoring, may also become long-term placements when adults find they have grown more connected to the youth. Other ways of creating opportunities to bring youth and prospective families together include adoption parties in which waiting youth and families meet during scheduled fun activities. In some cases, agencies or States have organized events in which workers for waiting youth meet workers for prospective families with completed home studies. Involve Youth in Their Plans The literature shows that involving youth in planning for their own permanency outcomes can greatly facilitate the process. The use of a team approach in which the adolescent is an active team member can help identify possible permanency resources. Youth can supply information about family members, distant and near, as well as other people (e.g., teachers, former foster families, neighbors) with whom they feel a connection. In addition, talking to youth and actively involving them in the permanency planning process can help to prepare them for the transition to a new family or situation. Youth who are involved in the planning process may take more responsibility for the success of the arrangement. One resource for involving youth in permanency planning is FYI Binder from Foster Club (http://www.fosterclub.com/fyi3/binder/flash/binder.cfm). Focus on Pre- and Postplacement Services The provision of appropriate and timely services may make the difference in whether permanency outcomes are successful for youth. Preplacement services should focus on:
The availability of postplacement services may make adoption possible for many families and youth that require financial assistance and services after adoption. (See the Child Welfare Information Gateway publication Postadoption Services: A Bulletin for Professionals at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_postadoptbulletin/index.cfm.) Adoptive families may need services in any number of areas, including:
Provide Staff Enhancements Staff who are overburdened with caseloads are not able to provide optimum services to youth and families. A summary of CFSR findings identified frequency and quality of caseworker visits to youth and birth families as being significantly associated with better permanency outcomes (U.S. DHHS, 2004). In addition, stability of caseworker assignment can impact casework. Frequent changes in the worker assigned to a case may result in disruptions in permanency planning for youth (Landsman, Tyler, Black, Malone, & Groza, 1999). Training for staff should include training in working with teens and in recruiting and working with families for teens. Robert Lewis and Maureen Heffernan (2000) note a number of training topics for supervisors to cover in training staff to find permanent homes for adolescents:
The National Child Welfare Resource Center for Adoption (http://www.nrcadoption.org/) also offers training curricula for staff who work with teens through their Family Bound curriculum, which emphasizes cultural competency, knowledge of issues facing youth, easy rapport with youth, and a firm belief in the family permanence potential of all teens. Promote Court Reform The literature points to the court process as one of the impediments to achieving timely permanency outcomes for children and youth. The recommendations of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care (2004) included a number of recommendations for improving the court system, such as the use of court performance measures, collaboration between courts and child welfare personnel, effective representation of children and families, and leadership from Chief Justices and other State court leaders to reform the system. More recently, a number of leading national judicial organizations partnered to produce a curriculum for caseflow management for cases involving children in foster care (Salyers, Somerlot, & Conner, 2005). The curriculum is designed to promote collaboration among court personnel, attorneys, and child welfare personnel so that they can develop strategies to address delays in the court process. A companion paper (Fiermonte & Salyers, 2005) explores the ways that courts across the country are collaborating with child welfare agencies to expedite the court process and improve permanency outcomes for children.
This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare Information Gateway. |
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