Transcript CONCURRENT PLANNING

Concurrent Planning:
Innovative Family-Centered
Strategies for Timely
Decision-Making
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CONCURRENT PLANNING:
Innovative Family-Centered Strategies for
Timely Decision-Making
City of Milwaukee Bureau of Child Welfare
National Resource Center for Foster Care
and Permanency Planning
at the
Hunter College School of Social Work
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Training Goals
• Enhance understanding of concurrent planning concepts and
practices as a framework for child welfare practice
• Expand knowledge and skills of engaging vulnerable
families – respect, empathy, genuineness and full disclosure
• Increase differential assessment skills and the ability to
think critically about case potential and progress
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Training Goals
• Enhance professionalism and professional competence in
helping families engage in the process of change
• Enhance understanding of benefits and stages of family
meetings to address safety, permanency and well-being
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Concurrent Planning Training Themes
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Child Welfare mission is to achieve safety, permanency
and developmental well-being of children and families
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No child should grow up in foster care
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The social worker’s role is to engage, assess, plan with,
cheer-on, report, provide feedback, be honest and help
families make the changes that will allow them to safely
care for their own children or to make informed decisions
about who will
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Concurrent Planning Training Themes
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The parents’ role is to change with the right education and
supports from the social worker and other service
providers
Adults should take risks, not children
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What is Concurrent Planning?
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Working towards reunification while at the same time
establishing and implementing an alternative permanency
plan
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To support the safety, and well-being of children and
families
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To promote early permanency decisions for children in
out-of-home care
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What is Concurrent Planning?
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To support the safety, and well-being of children and
families
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Working towards reunification while at the same time
establishing and implementing an alternative permanency
plan
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What is Concurrent Planning?
• To promote early permanency decisions for
children in out-of-home care
• To reduce the number of moves and relationship
disruptions children experience in foster care
• To decrease children’s length of stay in foster care
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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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Crises and time limits as opportunity
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Motivating parents to change
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Early search for absent parents and relatives
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Core Components of Concurrent Planning
(continued)
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Frequent parent-child visitation
Plan A and Plan B – Placement with a permanency
planning resource families
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Options Counseling
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Written Agreements, scrupulous documentation and timely
case review
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Collaboration between social work and legal service
providers
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Why Concurrent Planning Now?
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Children are spending too much time in foster care
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Response to Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of
1980 – PL: 96-272
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Response to Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 ASFA
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Strategies for child welfare agencies to meet National
Outcomes and Performance Standards (Children and
Family Service Reviews)
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Legal Strategies
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Indian Child Welfare Act - 1978
Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act 1980 – PL:96272
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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Principles of Inclusive Practice Models
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Minimizes disruption in a child’s life
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Involves parents and foster parents in placement and case
planning process
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Helps children with feelings related to living away from
their family
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Minimizes risk of placement breakdown
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Principles of Inclusive Practice Models
Helps children to:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Adjust to the transition of placement
Adjust to unfamiliar environments
Maintain connections
Answers 3 questions:
1.
2.
3.
Where am I?
How did I get here?
Where am I going?
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Children’s Developmental Needs
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Security
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Protection from harm
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Food, clothing, shelter, health care
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To be nurtured, loved, and accepted
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Spiritual and moral framework
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Children’s Developmental Needs
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Opportunities to grow intellectually, emotionally, socially,
physically and spiritually – and to reach their maximum
potential
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Stability, consistency, continuity and predictability in family
relationships – secure attachments with at least one significant
adult
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Lifetime family connections – a sense of belonging to a family
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Connections to the past, security in the present, and …
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Hope for the future
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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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The Cycle of Change
Pre-contemplation
Maintenance
Contemplation
Relapse
Action
Determination
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Full Disclosure
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Is a process that facilitates open and honest communication
between the social worker, biological parents, extended
family members, foster parents, attorneys, the court, and
service providers
Is a skill and a process of sharing information, establishing
expectations, clarifying roles, and addressing obstacles to
the work with families
Helps everyone understand what is happening and why –
and in what time frames
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Full Disclosure
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Informs families of the agency’s concurrent activities
intended to prevent extended stays in foster care
Addresses detrimental effects of out-of-home care,
separations, loss and unresolved grief
Discusses the urgency of reunification and the significance
of visiting the child
Asks parents: Who would you want to care for your child
if you could not do it?
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Values of Full Disclosure
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Parents ultimately decide the outcome of the case
Parents have a right to know the permanency time line
Parents can handle the truth
Parents need to give and receive data in order to make
informed choices
Parents are our partners
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Mutual Respect
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Valuing another person because he or she is a human being
Implies that being a human being is a value in itself
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Genuineness
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Involves being aware of one’s own feelings and making a
conscious choice about how to respond to the other person,
based on what will be most helpful in facilitating
communication and developing a good relationship
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Empathy
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Is a two-stage process whereby one person attempts to
experience (step into) another person’s world and then
communicate understanding of and compassion for the
other’s experience
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The Full Disclosure Process
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Provides positive information about strengths (UP)
- Builds the family member “UP” by verbally
acknowledging his or her achievements and struggles in
child rearing
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Addresses the difficult information or the concerns/worries
(DOWN)
- Brings the family member “DOWN” by defining the
current concerns and worries, and the impact on the
children and their parenting abilities
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The Full Disclosure Process
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Summarizes with positive information about strengths
(UP)
- Builds the family member “UP” again by supporting his
or her strengths, self-efficacy, and self-confidence to make
the right choices for the best interest of the children (safety,
permanency, and well-being)
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Family Meetings Can Be Used To:
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To help families find their strengths and resources which
can be beneficial to children
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To help parents identify family members
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To have families hear the same thing at the same time
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To help families talk about concerns
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To encourage families and empower them to be involved in
the plan and the decisions about their children
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Underlying Beliefs Guiding Family
Meetings
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Respect for the integrity of the family unit and extended
family
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Respect for diverse cultures and the ability to maximize
cultural competence
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Children need continuity in their family relationships for
their healthy growth and development
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Best outcomes for children come from the sharing of
power between the state and family
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Underlying Beliefs Guiding Family
Meetings
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Opportunities for parents to feel responsible for their
children and themselves
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Crisis as Opportunity and Motivator for Change
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Families have strengths that can be tapped to make positive
changes
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People can change with the right education and support
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Phases of Family Meetings
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Pre-Meeting Planning Activities
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Beginning or Information Sharing
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Middle or Private Family Time
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Endings or Decision Making
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Post-Meeting Tasks
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Family Meetings Emerging Considerations
• How is a ‘family meeting’ defined?
• What are the varying purposes of family meetings?
• When in the life of the case should family meetings be held?
• When should a family meeting not be held?
• Who will facilitate the family meetings?
• Who should attend?
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Family Meetings Emerging Considerations
• Who should decide who attends the family meeting?
• Where should family meetings be held?
• How will confidentiality be protected?
• How will self-determination be promoted?
• What should the role of the caseworker and supervisor be?
• Do we need the Court to buy-in to this type of social work?
• Other stakeholders
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Checklist for Family Meeting
Need
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Case History
Reason for the Referral
Purpose
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Structure
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How many meetings in the
life of the case
Time and place where the
meeting is held
Family needs (language,
transportation, etc.)
Other logistics (food,
family cultural traditions,
child care, etc.)
Have the worker and the
family agreed to the
purpose
Composting
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Content
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Agenda
Who will facilitate
Key issues to be discussed
What if there is conflict
How we will know it is
over
How is family defined
Who attends (informal and
formal supports)
Pre-Meeting Contacts
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Record Keeping
Have the relevant people
been invited
Will the child attend
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Summary of Concurrent Permanency
Planning
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Promotes Principles of Best Practices
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Considers Developmental Needs of Children
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Full Disclosure
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Differential Assessments
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Promotes Mutual Respect, Genuineness, Empathy
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Promotes Concept of Family Group Conferencing
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Conclusions
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Involving children, youth, and families is critical from start
to finish of the case
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Achieving permanency for children and youth is possible
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Systemic change takes time
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It is only by working through our our fears and willingness
to take risks that families can be transformed
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Each of you have the ability to change lives
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