Transcript Slide 1

Concurrent Planning
Innovations in Concurrent Planning and
How to Enhance Permanency Outcomes
in Your County
UC Davis
Center for Human Services
Webinar
Lead by Rose Wentz
Permanency Planning
• Begins at the time of removal and involves a set of goal
directed activities designed to ensure that children exit
temporary care as soon as possible and that they do not
re-enter the foster care system in the future.
• In order for a child’s safety and well-being to be
complete, they must have emotional and legal
permanency as soon as possible.
• That children need connection with their biological family
even if s/he will not be raised by that family.
• Based on the research that shows a child’s well-being
and safety are compromised when the child’s
permanency is not obtained in a timely manner.
Concurrent Planning
• A practice model which addresses a child’s need for expedient
family reunification while, at the same time works toward an
alternate permanent placement (adoption, relative care,
guardianship)
• The case plan is designed to provide services that are reasonably
able to help a family reunify by improving the parental skills and the
family’s safety net.
• There are not TWO different case plans in this model but one plan
that provides reasonable effort services with the primary goal of
reunification.
• In the concurrent planning model the parent’s ability to improve
his/her skills in a timely manner is the primary information in
determining the child’s final permanent plan (not the completion of
services but the changed behaviors demonstrated by the parent.)
• In order to expedite reunification the parents will likely have to
participant concurrently in treatment programs or services, i.e.
attend addiction treatment and parenting counseling at the same
time.
Attachment to Families
• Both Concurrent Planning and Permanency Planning
are built on the belief that children can have strong
attachments to more than one family. It is not a
contradiction for a child to have a strong and healthy
relationship with his/her resource family (relatives are
first preference) and with his/her birth family.
• In fact most all children do this every day by attending
day care, school and involvement with other adults.
• The key to successful attachment, for children in care, is
when all the adults take on the responsibility of ensuring
all types of connections are allowed and nurtured.
• The birth and caregiving families must be willing and
committed to work together in the best interest of the
child.
What Does a Child Lose?
When a child is placed with a family
unknown to the child, what connections
might the child lose?
Legal Permanency:
Preferred Order
1. Reunification with Birth Parents
(custodial or non-custodial)
2. Adoption (relative and customary
adoptions have priority)
3. Legal Guardianship (relative has priority)
Legal Permanency
Planned Permanency Living Arrangement
(PPLA) and Long Term Foster Care (LTFC)
are NOT forms of legal permanency. PPLA
can meet CFSR expectations.
What does that mean
for ongoing case
planning for these
children?
Emotional Permanency
• Emotional permanency is when an adult and child have
developed an attachment that provides long lasting love,
trust and commitment. This commitment does not
require a legal relationship or living together.
• How children define permanency
– I belong to a family and do not worry that they will ask me to
leave.
– These adults are reliable.
– I can depend on my family and people whom they entrust to
educate and spend time with me.
– I am rewarded for being competent, for my curiosity, and for my
positive states.
– I can get help with psychologically overwhelming events and
feelings.
Does you staff know how to assess for
emotional permanency?
Three Types of Caregiving Families
• Foster Care – True short term placements usually used
at time of initial emergency placement. Do not plan to
adopt.
• Resource Family – Willing to actively support
reunification including having a relationship with the birth
family, teaching/modeling parenting skills, willing to
adopt/guardianship if reunification cannot occur, willing
to maintain connections post permanency, and able to
handle the unknown.
• Adoption Family – Willing to adopt after permanent
plan is determined. Able to support a child’s ongoing
need to have connections with family and other with
whom the child has emotional connections.
• Fost/Adopt does not work in the CP model if the
family is not willing to do the role of Resource
Family.
CFSR Rounds One and Two
First the key outcome items related to
permanency are:
State-Level Data: 32 States – Round Two CFSR
Outcomes
Average Percent Achieved Across States
Outcomes most linked to
Permanency.
S1
S2
P1
P2
WB1
WB2
WB3
Permanency Outcome 1
Permanency Outcome 2
Well-Being Outcome 1
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Permanency Outcome 1
Items Associated with Stronger Performance
in Permanency Outcome 1
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Item 20
Additional Associations Related to
Caseworker Visits with Parents
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Differences In Serving Mothers and Fathers
State-Level Data: 32 States
Permanency Outcome 1
Item 9
Making concerted efforts to achieve a finalized
adoption in a timely manner
Mean: 37%
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Permanency Outcome 1
Item 9 Concerns
• Lack of effective concurrent planning (especially when goals
of reunification and adoption identified)
• Lack of effort to identify pre-adoptive families
• Worker turnover/lack of urgency on part of agency to pursue
adoption goal
• Court delays: multiple and ongoing continuances; lengthy
TPR appeals; parents given more time for reunification;
changes in bench officers
• Challenges to achieve timely adoptions where practice
dictates that adoption goals are not put in place until after
TPR
• Progress on adoption goal delayed due to child staying in
care to keep services in place
• Lack of clarity regarding availability of subsidies
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Permanency Outcome 1
Top Three Metro Sites: Qualitative Findings
Foster
care
reentry
Stability of
foster
care
Permanency goal
identified
Item
5
• Provision of post-reunification
services
• Utilization of risk
tools/reintegration assessments
Item
6
• Utilization of relative placements
• Improvement of independent living
services for youth
Item
7
• Ongoing and meaningful
concurrent planning
• Goals established and case plans
developed quickly
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Permanency Outcome 1
Top Three Metro Sites: Qualitative Findings
Reunifica
tion, kin,
guardianship
Adoption
Item
8
• Multi-system collaboration
• Early emphasis on reunification
• Utilization of relative placements
Item
9
• Ongoing and meaningful
concurrent planning
• Filing TPR prior to 15 months of
child entering foster care, when
appropriate
• Permanency (including option of
adoption) addressed meaningfully
in family team meetings
• Early search for adoptive families
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Permanency Outcome 1
Top Three Metro Sites: Qualitative Findings
Other
PP
Living
Arrangement
Item
10
• Engaging youth in independent
living services at a young age
• Emphasis on utilizing
standardized assessment tools
Case-Level Data: 32 States
Involvement in Case Planning
Child welfare agencies are making concerted efforts
to involve children and parents in case planning in:
Mothers
Fathers
74% of
applicable
cases
Children
48% of
applicable
cases
71% of
applicable
cases
Challenges with CFSR PIP Development
and Implementation
Challenges with CFSR PIP Development
and Implementation (continued)
Challenges with CFSR PIP Development
and Implementation (continued)
DATA
• Do you know your county’s permanency
data?
• Do your supervisors, staff, legal
professionals and others know the data?
• Do you track children in institutional
settings?
• Do you track other data or do a regular
review of your data?
Updates in CP
It is not just what we do but focusing on WHEN
it is done.
• Front loading of services
• Finding family members (esp. fathers and their
families) ASAP and then engaging all of them in
case planning
• Thoughtful selection of alternative permanent
plan and the Resource Family within weeks of
initial placement.
• Providing reasonable/active effort services NOW
and assessing early on whether services are
working for this family.
• Each case has measurable changed behaviors
identified for the parents by Jursi/Dispo hearing.
Updates in CP
2008 Fostering Connections Federal Law
• Find and engage families in case planning
process within 30 days of placement (full
disclosure/family engagement)
• Sibling visits must occur (all types of siblings per
CA law)
• Tribal connections – not just ICWA staffings
• School – efforts to maintain a child in same
school
Making Change Happen…One Step at a Time
Degrees of Change
Personal Changes
Communication
Changes
Resource/Structural
Changes
Whole System
Changes
1. Early Identification
of Resource Families
Ask the child & parent,
“Who does your family go
to for support?” “Who
cares most about your
family and wants to see it
succeed?”
Look at the child’s
history and contact
people who have
shown an interest in
the child’s life.
Dually approve resource
families as foster care
home & adoptive home.
Search for relatives using
web-based tools. Preservice & ongoing training
& support for Resource
Families.
Re-educate other
systems about what
youth need to promote
permanency.
2. Promoting Healthy
Connections for Youth
Ask the child & parent,
“Who is important in the
child’s life?”
Set up meaningful
visitation plan with
input from family.
Conduct planned and
purposeful visitation.
Honor cultural and
community connections.
Engage community to
support neighborhood
based care.
3. Family-Centered
Practice: Engaging
Families in Planning &
Decision-Making
Show respect for family
strengths, acknowledge
successes. Genuinely
invite family to give their
perspective, share their
knowledge about own
children and offer their
insights.
Conduct outreach to
extended family,
natural helping
network and others
family identifies as
part of their support
system.
Chose preferred model of
family-centered team
decision making. Put in
place structures and
resources to support
successful teaming (e.g.,
trained facilitators).
Those impacted by
decisions are involved
& empowered to made
decisions. Courts
aligned with Concurrent
Planning philosophy.
4. Full Disclosure
Identify decision to be
made. Determine who
will be impacted, thus who
needs what information to
make informed decisions.
Define roles and
responsibilities in
decision-making.
Determine how
decisions will be
made.
Establish agency policy &
protocols to ensure
respectful sharing of
information. Use
mediation to resolve
conflict through nonadversarial means.
Align other systems
with expectation of full
disclosure. Address
confidentiality across
disciplines & systems.
No decision about me
without me!
Elements of
Concurrent Planning
Wentz/Hay 2006
Fully Implementing CP
Systemic reform is essential
All members of the child welfare system need to
be involved in this reform:
– Caregivers
– Birth parents and their extended family
– Children
– Legal professionals
– County agency
– Community service providers
Models for Implementation
1. Ground Up and Top Down
2. Stakeholder Workgroup
3. Learning Circles or Breakthrough
Collaborative
What has worked in your
county to implement
systemic reform?
What the Models have in Common
•
•
•
•
The lead group/committee must agree to
common values, principles and definitions
early in the process.
Develop the vision, goals and measurements
of successful Concurrent Planning beyond the
federal measurements.
An evaluation and continuous quality
improvement process are designed into the
change process from the beginning.
Able to work collaboratively across systems
and agencies.
What the Models have in Common
Have the support and/or authority to implement a multi-year
process across the different parts/agencies of the child
welfare system in your community.
–
Able to review the entire system and not just the parts of the system
that may be currently viewed as responsible for permanency. CP
happens at every step from intake to final permanency of all types
including “aging out of the system” and children involved in juvenile
justice and other type of group settings.
Conduct an assessment of the barriers to CP implementation.
Example of an assessment is determining if it is ALL
children are having difficulty achieving timely permanency
or does our community need to make changes based on a
subset of children who are having problems (children of
color or other subsets of children, or types of cases)
Use local and national expertise, and evidence based practices
to build on successes and learn from challenges.
What the Models have in Common
Able to coordinate or collaborate with other change efforts,
i.e. Court Improvement Projects, CDSS expectations,
etc.
The leaders of the change process must be willing to make
changes in their own competencies, job description or
daily activities. The leaders cannot just expect the
other people to make the changes if they are not
willing to make changes themselves.
Training is usually one of the actions needed to implement
the change process but by itself training does not lead
to the successful systemic implementation of
Concurrent Planning.
CP Implementation Tools
• Center for Human Services – A CP
Checklist you can use to assess what
changes might need to occur.
• Wentz/Hay CP Activity Checklist – A
checklist to determine if you are doing the
CP activities in the correct time frame to
ensure timely permanency.
• CP Competency List – A list of
competencies needed by caseworkers,
supervisors and others to implement the
CP Practice Model.
Common Challenges to
Implementation of CP
• Belief that we have tried CP and other PP methods and they do not
work.
• Value/attitudes about permanency
– Older youth, children of color, behavior problems – permanency is not
possible or likely
– Our caregivers will not become resource parents
– It is not possible to find or engage birth parents in the process
– It is not fair to the birth parents or is an adoption only process
•
•
•
•
Locating and supporting resource families
Competency development of professionals
Workload (county, legal, caregivers)
We have too many other change efforts and cannot do this one also.
See UC Davis list of 10 Pitfalls of Current Planning at
• http://www.humanservices.ucdavis.edu/news/pdf/091_252_ro.pdf
Resources
• Center for Human Development –
UC Davis
http://www.humanservices.ucdavis.edu/news/pdf/091_25
2_ro.pdf
• National Resource Center for Permanency
and Family Connections
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/info_service
s/concurrent-permanency-planning.html
• Children’s Bureau - Federal Web Site
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb
Next Steps
• Monkey Survey – please complete
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MFCTFSL
Please complete this survey/webinar
evaluation as soon as possible
• TA and Training available from UC Davis
Contact us for any additional help you need