Transcript CONCURRENT PLANNING

Understanding and Using
CONCURRENT PLANNING
To Achieve Permanency for
Children and Youth
ABA Conference
Best Practices to Implement
ASFA: Creative Strategies for
Practitioners
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Major Changes in Foster Care
in Past Decade
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Signing of Adoption and Safe Families Legislation, 1997
Creation of Child & Family Service Review System in States,
2001
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Movement Toward Dual Licensure, 1998
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Signing of Chaffee Legislation, 1999
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Focus on Permanency for Older Youth, 2002
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New Law 683- Fostering Connections, 2008
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Some National Statistics About
Youth In Foster Care
AFCARS (Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and
Reporting System) data, as of August, 2009,
indicates that there are:
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496,000 children in care
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130,000 awaiting adoptive placement
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51,000 children/youth are adopted annually
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However these figures do not include the number of
children in LTFC/APPLA who are not in permanent
homes and for whom no one is seeking permanency
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Some National Statistics About
Youth In Foster Care
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293,000 children enter care annually
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287,000 children exit care annually
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60% of children adopted by their foster parents
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25% by relatives
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Homes for the remaining 15% recruited at state, local,
and national level – “waiting children”
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Race/Ethnicity
Nationally, 56% of the children and
youth in care are children and youth of
color:
32% African American; 19% Latino;
Indian Children in many states are overrepresented as well, especially in South
Dakota where 3% of the population
identify as Indian and 63% of the
children and youth in the foster care
systems are of Indian ancestry.
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Permanency Planning Goals
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Reunification – 53%
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Adoption – 17%
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Relative care – 11%
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9% or 26,517 youth had a goal of emancipation.
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Child & Family Services Review
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The guiding principles of the CFSR are consistent with
A Systems of Care framework.
Child safety, permanency, and well-being are closely
tied to principles of service delivery for effective
practice including:
prevention services
family-focused and community-based services
Flexible, accessible, and coordinated services;
culturally appropriate services;
strengths-based and individualized services.
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Defining Permanency
Permanence is not a philosophical process, a
plan, or a foster care placement, nor is it
intended to be a family relationship that lasts
only until the child turns age 18.
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Defining Permanency
Permanence is about locating and
supporting a lifetime family. For young
people in out-of home placement,
planning for permanence should begin at
entry into care, and be youth-driven,
family-focused, culturally competent,
continuous, and approached with the
highest degree of urgency.
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Defining Permanency
Child welfare agencies, in
partnership with the larger
community, have a moral and
professional responsibility to find
a permanent family relationship
for each child and young person
in foster care.
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Defining Permanency
Permanence should bring physical,
legal and emotional safety and
security within the context of a family
relationship and allow multiple
relationships with a variety of caring
adults.
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Defining Permanency
Permanence is achieved with a
family relationship that offers
safe, stable, and committed
parenting, unconditional love and
lifelong support, and legal family
membership status.
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Defining Permanency
Permanence can be the result of
preservation of the family,
reunification with birth family; or
legal guardianship or adoption by
kin, fictive kin, or other caring and
committed adults.
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Definition of Concurrent
Planning
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To work towards family reunification while, at the
same time, developing an alternative permanent
plan.
Concurrent rather than sequential planning.
It involves a mix of family centered casework and
legal strategies aimed at achieving timely
reunification, while at the same time establishing a
concurrent permanency plan if reunification cannot
be accomplished.
It is not a fast track to adoption, but to permanency
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Pathways to Permanency for
Youth
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Youth are reunified safely with their parents or relatives
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Youth are adopted by relatives or other families
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Youth permanently reside with relatives or other families as
legal guardians
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Youth are connected to permanent resources via fictive
kinship or customary adoption networks
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Youth are safely placed in another planned alternative
permanent living arrangement which is closely reviewed for
appropriateness every six months
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Goals of Concurrent Planning
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promote safety,
permanency, wellbeing of children;
achieve early
permanency;
reduce # of moves;
continue significant
relationships
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Goals of Concurrent Planning
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To develop a network of foster parents
(relatives and non-relatives) who can
work toward reunification and also serve
as permanency resource families for
children and youth
To engage families in early case planning,
case review, and decision-making about
the array of permanency options to meet
children and youth’s urgent need for
stability and continuity in their family
relationships
To maintain continuity in children’ and
Youth’s family, siblings, and community
relationships
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Why Concurrent Planning Now?
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Children are spending too much time in foster care
Response to Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare
Act of 1980 – PL: 96-272
Response to Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 ASFA
Major strategy used for child welfare agencies to
meet National Outcomes and Performance Standards
(Children and Family Service Reviews)
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Success Redefined
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Permanency is the Goal.
Reunification is a primary but only
one of several acceptable permanency
goals.
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Core Components of Concurrent
Planning
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Success redefined
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Differential assessment and prognostic case review
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Full disclosure
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Frequent child-family visitation
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Crises and time limits as opportunity
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Early search for absent parents (including fathers)
and relatives (including paternal resources)
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Core Components of Concurrent
Planning (continued)
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Plan A and Plan B – Placement with a
permanency planning resource families
Written Agreements, scrupulous
documentation and timely case review
Collaboration between social work and legal
service providers
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Legal Strategies
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Indian Child Welfare Act - 1978
Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act 1980 –
PL:96-272
Adoption and Safe Families Act 1997 – (ASFA)
Multi-Ethnic Placement Act – (MEPA) and Inter-Ethnic
Placement Provisions (IEP) – 1994 [Amended in 1996
to remove barriers]
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
1996
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Response to Legal Strategies
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Family-Centered and Strengths-Based Practice Models
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Community-Based Service Delivery
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Cultural Responsive Practice Models
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Open and Inclusive Practice
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Non-Adversarial Approaches ~ Solution-Focused
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Concurrent rather than Sequential Consideration of all
Permanency Options
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Principles of Strengths/Needs Based
Practice
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Children belong in families, and need nurturing
relationship with adults
Children should be helped to stay with (or return to)
their families
People can change with the right services, education
and supports
Families (biological, foster and adoptive) should be
viewed as partners
Foster care and other placements used for family
support
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Principles of Strengths/Needs Based
Practice
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Child’s attachment needs can be addressed through
strengthening family resources
Comprehensive and individualized services focused on
family empowerment – considering family strengths
and underlying needs in developing individualized
family service plans
Culturally responsive services
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Differential Assessment
Is a Process of:
 Individualizing our understanding of the individual,
family, or group in the context of their present
circumstances, past experiences, and potential for
future functioning
 Deepening our family-centered understanding of the
child in the context of their family, culture, and
community
 Strengthening our understanding of the personal,
interpersonal, and environmental context in which
children and families live and interact.
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Differential Assessment
(continued)
• Engaging families in culturally competent, early
comprehensive assessments, case planning and
services needed to achieve timely permanency –
reunification or an alternative plan b
• Engaging in a “Differential Prognostic
Assessment” process to identify family situations
in which a concurrent permanency
plan/placement with a resource family is needed.
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Differential Assessment
(continued)
• Using the crisis of placement as a motivator to
engage families in case planning and to make
behavioral changes.
• Increasing birth and foster parent partnerships in
case planning
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Differential Assessment
(continued)
• Recruiting, training, and supporting permanency
planning resource families in addition to other types
of foster families.
• Engaging in discussions with foster families about
the need for a concurrent permanency plan and
their interest in serving as a back-up permanency
resource for children who may not return to their
birth parents.
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Differential Assessment
(continued)
• Identifying relatives and tribal resources who can be
placement/permanency resources early on in the case
planning process.
• Respectfully using full disclosure with birth families
and foster/adoptive families throughout the life of
the case.
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Differential Assessment
(continued)
• Collaborating with courts, attorneys, and service
providers to better serve children and families.
• Determining when to pursue the alternative
permanency plan such as adoption or guardianship
when it is clear the parent(s) can not or will not
care for their children.
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Benefits
To the child
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Reduced placements
Earlier permanency
through reunification
or other permanency
option
To the Parent
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Creates sense of
urgency
Parent benefits from
early accessible
services outcome is
determined by parent.
When outcome is not
reunification, lays the
groundwork for
openness with
permanent caregiver
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Current Challenges
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Decision-Making when child is placed
early and attached to non related
caregiver and relative requests
placement
Foster Parents intervening when
reunification planning occurs
Continued training needs:staff turnover
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Reflections
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Consider and normalize the language in concurrent
planning,i.e. assessment, backup plan, resource
foster families
Collaborating with courts, attorneys, and service
providers to better serve children and families
Determining when to pursue the alternative
permanency plan such as adoption or guardianship
when it is clear the parent(s) can not or will not care
for their children.
Early Potentially Permanent Kinship Placements
Use concurrent planning for all forms of permanency,
not only adoption
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Gerald P. Mallon, DSW
Professor and Executive Director
National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice and
Permanency Planning
at the Hunter College School of Social Work
A Service of the Children’s Bureau\ACF\DHHS
129 East 79th Street, Suite 801
New York, New York 10075
(212) 452-7043 – Private line
(212) 452-7051 - fax
[email protected] - Email
www.nrcfcppp.org
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