Transcript Document

940: Concurrent Planning for Resource
Parents
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
 Define concurrent planning and its value
 Identify the eight core components of concurrent
planning and how the role of resource parent fits into
each component
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Competencies
 940-1 The foster parent understands their role as a
part of the Child Welfare team to empower,
strengthen, and preserve the families of children in
foster care and understands how they can be a
supportive resource to the family of origin.
 910-2 The foster parent has a thorough understanding
of foster care, the reasons for placement and the
importance of reuniting families.
 914-4 The foster parent knows ways to work with and
help families of origin, can contribute to the case
planning process and can implement activities to
support reunification.
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Basic Permanency Assumptions
• Children have a right and need to live and develop
within safe, secure, and permanent families.
• Children have a right to live with parents/caregivers
whom they can love, trust, and depend upon.
• Separation for extended periods of time may result in
tremendous psychological and developmental
disruption.
• A child's perception and experience of time are
determined by his level of cognitive developmental
maturity.
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What is Concurrent Planning?
Concurrent Planning is a process of working towards one
legal permanency goal (typically reunification) while at
the same time establishing and implementing an
alternative permanency goal and plan that are worked on
concurrently to move children/youth more quickly to a
safe and stable permanent family.
(Permanency Roundtable Project, 2010)
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Goals of Concurrent Planning
• To promote the safety, permanency and well-being of
children and youth in out-of-home care;
• To achieve timely permanency for children and youth
through early permanency decisions;
• To reduce the number of moves in the foster care
system for children; and
• To engage families and relatives early and foster
significant relationships between children in out-ofhome care and their family/kin.
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Who Gets a Concurrent Plan?
Effective July 1, 2015 all children entering foster
care with a goal of reunification will have a
concurrent plan for permanency established within
90 days of their placement; and
Effective January 1, 2016 all children who were
already in out-of-home care will have a concurrent
plan for permanency, regardless of their courtordered permanency goal.
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Don’t Let Ideas Get
Away!
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Eight Core Components of Concurrent
Planning
• Full disclosure to all participants in the case planning process
• Family search and engagement
• Family Group Decision Making/Family Group
Conferencing/Teaming
• Child/family visitation
• Establishment of clear timelines for permanency decisions
• Transparent written agreements and documentation
• Committed collaboration
• Specific recruitment, training and retention of resource
parents
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Family Group Decision Making/Family Group
Conferencing
• Family-focused, culturally sensitive approach to
planning
• Involves meeting with immediate and extended family
members and any parties important in child’s/family’s
life
• Family is “in charge” and responsible for identifying
attendees and creating the plan
• Private family time is part of the meeting
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Visitation: What Does the Research Tell Us?
Visitation:
• Is the single most important factor in maintaining the
relationship between the child and the parents;
• Enhances the child’s emotional well-being;
• Improves parent’s positive feelings about the placement;
• Decreases parents’ worries about their children; and
• Is associated with achieving permanency and decreasing
time in care.
(Hess, P.M.1999)
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What is Collaboration?
A process to reach goals that cannot be achieved by one
single agent. It includes the following components:
• Jointly developing and agreeing on a set of common
goals and directions;
• Sharing responsibility for obtaining those goals;
• Working together to achieve those goals, using the
expertise and resources of each collaborator.
(National Summer Learning Association, 2013)
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What does Collaboration Look Like?
• It involves exchanging information, altering activities,
sharing resources and enhancing each other’s capacity
for mutual benefit and to achieve a common goal. The
qualitative difference between cooperating and
collaborating is that in collaborating, organizations
and individuals are willing to learn from each other to
become better at what they do. Collaborating involves
sharing risks, responsibilities and rewards. It requires
a substantial time commitment, very high level of
trust, and sharing turf.
(Adapted with permission from National Summer Learning Association)
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Bridging the Gap: Families Working Together
Video (DVD) from:
National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections,
September 16, 2009
Used with permission
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Specific Recruitment, Training, and Retention
Take 5 minutes to reflect on the following questions:
1. What parts of teaming and collaborating do I feel
comfortable with?
2. What parts of teaming and collaborating do I feel
uncomfortable with?
3. Can I commit to teaming and collaborating even if I
feel uncomfortable with some parts of it?
4. Can I commit to helping children in my care reunify
with their birth parents and at the same time commit
to being a permanent resource for the child(ren) if
they are unable to return home?
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Full Disclosure
• Discussion with Resource Parents should include:
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Circumstances that led to child’s removal from home
Child’s needs
Foster care is temporary
Timelines for permanency planning
Primary goal and concurrent goal
Requirement for county agency to search for relatives
Licensing and training requirements
Rights and responsibilities
Needs of the resource family and services to provide
support
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Family Search and Engagement
• Relative – to the 5th degree of blood, marriage, or
adoption
• Kin – God-parent, tribe member, any individual with a
significant, positive relationship with child or family
• Important to establish and maintain connections
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Clear Timelines
• According to the concurrent planning bulletin,
“permanency should be achieved for a child within 12
months of out-of-home placement.”
• ASFA – if permanency not achieved for child who has
been in out-of-home care for the last 15 of most recent
22 months, petition is filed to terminate parental rights
and identify permanent family for child
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Transparent Written Agreements and
Documentation
• Resource parents should actively participate in the
development and review of the Child Permanency Plan
• Resource parents roles, responsibilities, and activities
should be defined on the Child Permanency Plan
• Resource parents should receive copies of the plans
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Don’t Let Ideas Get
Away!
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