Concurrent Planning for Timely Permanency for Children - Arizona

Defining Concurrent Planning

This issue is not addressed in the statutes and regulations reviewed.

State Approaches to Concurrent Planning

Citation: Rev. Stat. § 8-845(D); DCS Pol. Man., § 3.2

Notwithstanding § 8-845(C) that requires the court to reunify the family if possible, reasonable efforts to place a child for adoption may be made concurrently with reasonable efforts to reunify the family.

In policy: Concurrent permanency planning shall occur for all children in out-of-home care with a permanency goal of family reunification when family reunification is unlikely to occur within 12 months of the child’s initial removal.

An assessment of the prognosis of family reunification shall be completed within 45 days of the child’s initial removal.

Maintain a goal that infants who are taken into custody by the Department be placed with a prospective permanent caregiver within one year after the filing of a dependency petition.

If there is a poor prognosis for reunification, a planned set of concurrent planning activities will be implemented to ensure that potential or identified alternate caregivers are prepared to care for the child on a permanent basis if needed. These concurrent planning activities will assist in selecting the final concurrent permanency goal.

Within six months of actively working with the family on both the reunification plan and concurrent planning activities, a final concurrent permanency goal must be established.