Adoption '98: Networking for Children
May 8-9, 1998
Albany Marriott Hotel
Albany, NY

National Trends - Children in Placement
Adapted from Multi-state* Foster Care Data Archive: Foster Care Dynamics 1983-1993
Chapin Hall Cneter for Children at the University of Chicago

• Significant growth in numbers of children receiving state-supported out-of-home care
• Admissions higher than discharges - with concentrations in the major urban centers
• Much of the growth has involved the placement of children with relatives
• Infants and young children are the fastest growing segment of the foster care population - remaining in foster care longer than other age groups, and experiencing many moves while in care
• African American children stay longer in foster care than any other racial or ethnic group

* California, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Texas

Thus, if high levels of removal are indeed necessary to protect infants, then policy and programs must be created to encourage early permanency for them.

Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997

Summary

Philosophy

• Recognizes the power of the family to influence and change the lives of children - birth, kin or adopted
• Framework of PL 96:272 remains - requirements for timely permanency planning and accountability remain

Goals

• Move children who are stuck in the system with no place to go
• Change the experience of children who enter the system today
• Move toward earlier decision-making within shorter time frame - Push to do the work "quicker and better"
• Move towards providing better quality services early on - at the point at which we first meet families

Context of Change

• Dissatisfaction with what was happening in child welfare
  • high profile deaths
  • children and communities at higher risk
  • less access to services and supports
  • persistently higher foster care caseloads
  • confusion and misinterpretation of reasonable efforts requirements
  • increased costs and funding that promotes foster care drift
• Changing expectations for federal/state relationships
  • individual responsibility for work, child support, quick resolution of family problems
  • state/local level flexibility, responsibility/accountability for reform
• Innovations showed promise for change - community partnerships for child safety and family support
  • prevention
  • managed care flexibile funding strategies
  • concurrent planning practice framework
  • community-based services and collaboratives
  • interface between child welfare and substance abuse
  • interface between child welfare and the courts
  • relative care options

Principles and Components of the Law

• Safety is parmount
  • Safety explicit consideration in case plan, case review, decision-making for children
  • Clarifies Reasonable Efforts provisions of 96-272 - identifies those circumstances in which reasonable efforts may not be required: e.g. parents killed another child; parents involved in TPR on another child; aggravated circumstances defined by state law
  • Criminal background checks for foster/adoptive parents, staff in child care agencies
• Foster Care Is a Temporary Setting and Not a Place to Grow Up
  • Affirms that permanency planning includes reunification
  • Establishes new requirements for reasonable efforts to find permanency for children through adoption
  • Creates tighter time frames for permanency planning: 18 month dispositional hearing changed to a Permanency Hearing at 12 months from date of placement
  • TPR for children who have been in care 15 of previous 22 months - except if child is placed safely and stably with relatives, where court finds compelling reasons not to file TPR, or when state agency failed to provide services to family as specified in the case plan
  • Prohibitions against denying permanency when an approved family exists across couty lines
  • Expands health care coverage for almost all children with special needs
  • Adoption subsidy assitance continues for child if adoption disrupts
  • Incentive payments to states to help double numbers of children adopted by 2002 - $4000 for each placement finalized over what was done in 1997 baseline; additional $2000 for each special needs child
• Permanency Planning Should Begin As Soon As Child Enters Care,
  Expedited by Quality and Appropriate Service to Families
  • Efforts to be fair to parents of children in care
  • Reauthorizes Family Preservation and Family Support, renames it the Safe and Stable Families Program - through 2001
  • Modest increase in $ in second and third years
  • Expanded use of $ - Time limited reunification services for up to 15 months
  • Allow $ to be used for post-adoption services
• Child Welfare Systems Must Focus on Results and Greater Accountability
  • Move from process to outcome - Children's Bureau to identify outcome indicators to track and report on annually
  • Children's Bureau to study (6 months) and make proposal (report) on performance-based funding in child welfare services
  • How measure performance on goals of safety, permanency and well-being
• Innovations Must Continue
  • Continue to develop capacity to serve children and families in new ways through Child Welfare Demonstration Waivers - 10 per year
  • Research component to identify and track better outcomes
  • Reports on kinship care, substance abuse and child welfare, and geographic barriers to adoption

What is concurrent permanency planning?

• Working towards reunification while at the same time establishing an alternative permanency plan
• Concurrent rather than sequential palnning efforts to more quickly move children from the uncertainty of foster care to the security of a permanent family

What are the goals of concurrent permanency planning?

• To support the safety and well-being of children and families
• To promote early permanency decision for children
• To decrease children's length of stay in foster care
• To reduce the number of moves and relationship disruptions children experience in foster care
• To develop a network of foster parents (relatives or non-relatives) who can work towards reunification and also serve as permanency resource families for children
• To engage in early case planning, case review and decision-making about permanency options to meet children's urgent need for stability and continuity in their family relationships
• To maintain continuity in children's family, sibling and community relationships

Principles of Concurrent Permanency Planning

SUCCESS REDEFINED

• Early permanency for children is the goal

DIFFERENTIAL ASSESSMENT

• Culturally respectful family and child assessments - strengths, needs, core problems
• Tentative, reasoned hypothesis about the probability of the child's returning home, andthe family's capacity to benfit from reunification services

FULL DISCLOSURE

• Respectful, candid discussion early on about impact of foster care on children, clarity about birth parents' rights and responsiblities, supports agencies will provide, permanency options, and consequences of not following through wth case plan
• Open, honest discussions with all parties - biological families, relatives, foster/adoptive families, attorneys, other service providers
• Use of family group decision-making/conferencing strategies to involve families in planning and review of permanency options

CRISIS AND TIME LIMITS AS MOTIVATORS

• Clarity about time limits designated by law
• Using time limits and the "crisis" of placement as a motivator to encourage families in planning
• Based on children's urgent need for a stable, caring and permanent family

FREQUENT PARENT-CHILD VISITATION

• Parents who vist regularly have the best chance of reunification with their children
• The more structured the visitation plan, the more likely parents will participate
• Involving foster parents in parent-child visits promotes more supportive relationships and oportunities for continuity in meaningful relationships

PLAN A AND PLAN B

• Having a back up contingency plan
• Early search for and involvement of immediate and extended family

PERMANENCY PLANNIG RESOURCE FAMILIES

• Foster parents as permanency resources if reunification doesn't work out
• Partnerships between biological parents, agency workers and foster parenats

WRITTEN AGREEMENTS, SCRUPULOUS DOCUMENTATION AND TIMELY CASE REVIEW

• Short term immediate goals and long term permanency goals
• Who will do what, when and how
• Writing down goals, tasks and time frames helps motivate parents to follow through
• Documentation of services provided and case progress - behaviors, not promises is the only evidence that can be reported in court
• Early and ongoing case review to assess progress, review continuing needs, plan for the future

LEGAL/SOCIAL WORK COLLABORATION

• Consideration of due process and parental rights when children first placed in care
• Consultation and support from legal staff assures legally sound case work and case planning
• A good social work plan is a good legal plan
• Use of non-adversarial child welfare mediation strategies to resolve conflicts

Concurrent Permanency Planning
Steps to Implementation

Assess Data: Gather data to understand foster care population demographics and to assess need for expedited permanency plannign efforts; develop baseline data and indicators to track progress over time

Review Laws/Regulations/Policies Needed: Assess whether statutory and/or regulatory changes are needed to support timely decision-making and changes in federal law

Strengthen Commitment to Permanency Philosophy: Assess organizational committment to implement family and community-centered practice; child-focused permanency planning; as well as open and inclusive approach to workng ith birth parents and foster/adoptive parents

Provide Leadership: Identify and agency "champion" to guide the initiative

Develop Stakeholder Support: Identify internal and external stakeholders who need to be involved and informed of philosophical, organizational and practice shifts (all levels of agency staff, courts, attorneys, community services)

Develop Specialized Recruitment and Retention Strategies: To find and support resource families

Build Community Service Linkages: Identify and develop linkages with drug treatment, domestic violence, mental health and health care services for families and children - so services can be front-loaded

Identify Program Policies/Procedures: Identify policies and procedures as well as case review systems needed to make the shift to concurrent from sequential case planning, case review and decision-making efforts

Provide Training and Support: Develop strategy to train staff, foster parents, stakeholders in concurent permanency planning program and practice shifts

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NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
410 East Upland Road • Ithaca, NY 14850
607-272-0034 • office@nysccc.org
7/14/05