Getting Ready
Authentic engagement invites the young people, parents, and kinship caregivers most impacted by group placements to co-design the strategies needed to eliminate them. Lived expertise should drive change at every level of child welfare, from promoting family-focused support in individual cases to transforming policy and practice across systems.
— CRISTAL RAMIREZ, Youth Engagement Manager, National Association of Counsel for Children
People with lived expertise bring a lot of different experiences and insights which lead to deeper questions and thinking on how the system can change
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DISCUSSION GUIDE DOWNLOAD
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
KEY RESOURCES
MEET THE EXPERTS
VIDEO ONE
VIDEO TWO
VIDEO THREE
Alexi Coppinger
Project Coordinator, FosterClub
Founder and CEO, ChiByDesign
Christopher Rudd
Youth Engagement Manager, National Association of Counsel for Children
Cristal Ramirez
Jim Casey Fellow Consultant, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Evan Davis
Jas Snell
Family support partner, Circle of Parents facilitator
Toni Miner
• What does it mean to value youth partners as assets? (Casey Family Programs) • How can child protection agencies deepen partnerships with birth parents to advance systems change? (Casey Family Programs) • Five-part video series: Engaging kinship caregivers with Dr. Joe Crumbley (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) • Authentic youth engagement: Youth-adult partnerships (The Annie E. Casey Foundation)
1. What does it mean to authentically engage partners with lived expertise? 2. Why is authentic engagement with partners with lived expertise essential to help reduce unnecessary group placements? 3. What strategies are you already using to authentically engage partners with lived expertise in reducing unnecessary group placements? 4. What are the biggest challenges you currently face in authentically engaging partners with lived expertise? 5. How will you cultivate trauma-informed engagement that includes psychological safety from the start and seeks to address any existing distrust?
Engaging Partners with Lived Expertise
Valuing Partners with Lived Expertise
Foundations for Authentic Engagement
Grounded in the perspectives of those who have directly experienced group placements, child welfare agencies must be willing to build the trust needed for honest conversations about what needs to change, listen deeply to young people and their families, and partner to turn their recommendations into action.
— JAS SNELL, Jim Casey consultant
I would advise diversifying representation [of lived expertise]. It is a lot of pressure for one or even two lived experts to be in a room full of system workers and system leaders and have the responsibility of speaking for all.
• Tip Sheet: So You Want to Include a Lived Experience Expert (National Association of Counsel for Children) • Family Engagement: Partnering with Families to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes (Child Welfare Information Gateway) • Making Lived Experience Engagement Authentic, Intentional and Mutually Beneficial (National Counsel of Juvenile and Family Court Judges) • How can agencies prepare to share power through authentic youth engagement? (Casey Family Programs) • A Framework for Effectively Partnering with Young People (Annie E. Casey Foundation)
1. What do you think are the most important foundational elements to authentically engage partners with lived expertise? 2. How will your agency ensure a diverse range of experiences and identities among partners with lived expertise, including representatives from communities that have been most disproportionately impacted? 3. What steps will you take to ensure that the perspectives of partners with lived expertise are just as respected and valued as agency leadership and staff? 4. What are some effective strategies to acknowledge and address the power differential between agency decision makers and partners with lived expertise? 5. How will you encourage and support agency staff in actively listening to partners with lived expertise and putting their suggestions into action?
— EVAN DAVIS, Jim Casey consultant
Before you can share power with people who are unlikely to believe you are actually sharing power, trust comes first.
In reversing the decades of policy and practice that perpetuate unnecessary group placements, child welfare agencies must share power with those best suited to create new pathways: young people, their parents, and kin who care for them. First and foremost, preparing for change requires a fundamental change in mindset and culture.
• Constituent engagement assessment tool kit (Family Voices United). Watch this short video for more information about the assessment tool. • How can organizations assess their readiness to co-design? (ChiByDesign) • Away from home: Youth experiences of institutional placements in foster care (Think of Us) • How can agencies and organizations prepare for authentic youth engagement? (Casey Family Programs)
1. What steps can your agency take to assess its readiness for authentic engagement with partners who have lived expertise? 2. What does it mean for a child welfare agency to move at the “speed of trust” with partners with lived expertise? 3. What kind of biases do you think you bring to your interactions with partners with lived expertise and what strategies might you use to overcome them? 4. How do you go from connecting with a few partners with lived expertise to building an agencywide culture that embraces authentic engagement? 5. What data and information will help your agency determine whether its engagement efforts have been successful?
Roadmap for change
A kin-first culture prioritizes young people’s connections with kin or chosen family to promote a sense of belonging and connection to family history and culture. When the decision is made to remove a child from their home, kin should be the first option for placement.
— ANA BELTRAN, Director, Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center, Generations United
Knowing your culture, knowing where you come from, and knowing your connections really matters to children. Children and youth do really well when they have that connection to family and their past.
Adrian McLemore
Program Officer, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Director, Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center, Generations United
Ana Beltran, JD
Deputy Commissioner of Operations, Connecticut Department of Children and Families
Michael Williams
Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Think of Us
Sixto Cancel
Senior Program Associate, Child Focus
Sonia Emerson
Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Children and Families
Vannessa L. Dorantes, LMSW
• wikiHow for Creating a Kin-First Culture (Grandfamilies.org) • Why should child protection agencies adopt a kin-first approach? (Casey Family Programs) • How can we ensure a child’s first placement is with family? (Casey Family Programs) • What are some examples of effective family search and engagement? (Casey Family Programs) • A reason, a season, or a lifetime: Relational permanence among young adults with foster care backgrounds (Annie E. Casey Foundation, Chapin Hall Center for Children)
1. What does a kin-first culture look like? Have you achieved this in your agency? 2. What are key values and beliefs that the agency must embrace to have a kin-first culture? 3. What steps have you taken to fully engage young people and their families in naming and identifying chosen family and honoring their own definition of kin? 4. How does prioritizing a kin-first culture help prevent the need for group placement? 5. How can creating a kin-first culture support your agency’s race equity goals? 6. What efforts should your agency make to restore relationships with communities that have been harmed by systemic racism and bias, particularly Black and American Indian/Alaska Native communities, in order to form trusting relationships with kin?
Advancing a Kin-First Culture
Building blocks for a kin-first culture
Critical supports for kin families
Kin families should have culturally appropriate, community-based services and supports that are tailored to their unique needs but are also equitable to resources provided to foster parents. Children, along with their family and social and community networks, should be included in planning, decision-making, and service provision.
— ADRIAN MCLEMORE, Program Officer, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
If we get a ‘no’ or we get a ‘maybe’ or an ‘I don’t know if I can do this,' I think it’s beholden on an agency to help that kin placement have what they need to care for that child.
• Reinforcing a Strong Foundation: Equitable Supports for Basic Needs of Grandfamilies (Generations United) • Kinship Therapeutic Foster Care Toolkit (Family Focused Treatment Association) • How can we prioritize kin in the home study and licensure process, and make placement with relatives the norm? (Casey Family Programs) • What are kinship navigator programs? (Casey Family Programs)
1. How does your agency engage young people and kin to understand their needs? 2. How does your agency support and strengthen relationships between parents and kin caregivers? 3. What culturally appropriate, community-based services and supports are available to kin families across your service continuum? Are they meeting the needs identified by families? 4. What options are available to support kin caring for young people with therapeutic needs? 5. How do you ensure equity among your kinship and foster parents regarding services and supports? 6. How are you eliminating licensing barriers for kin? 7. What has your agency done to help your workforce understand the unique needs of: a. Kin compared to foster parents (non-kin)? b. Families of color? c. Other families with specific needs? 8. How is your agency engaging the community in developing supports for kin families?
— VANNESSA DORANTES, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Children and Families
When you recognize that your race and equity work is deleteriously impacting families of color, you have to put in firewalls to ensure that the same things afforded to white families are implemented and expected for all families.
Child welfare systems were not originally designed with kin families in mind. In order to advance transformation of mind-set, policy and practice, agencies must reimagine typical approaches and design new processes and solutions with full participation and diverse perspectives of families and kin caregivers.
• Supporting Kinship Caregivers Training Series (Dr. Joseph Crumbley) • How did A Second Chance Inc. transform kinship care in Allegheny County? (Casey Family Programs) • User’s guide to essential kinship data (Annie E. Casey Foundation) • Toolkits for working with families (Generations United): • Working with American Indian and Alaska Native Families • Working with African American Families • Working with Latino Families
1. What agency processes should be reexamined to ensure that they address the needs of young people and their kin? 2. In what ways do your placement priorities and licensure/approval policies align with the gold standard principles of the Indian Child Welfare Act by prioritizing placement for all children with their extended families and communities? 3. What expectations do you set for exploring the paternal and maternal side of a young person’s family, as well as important connections that are not related by blood, marriage, and adoption? 4. What opportunities currently exist to partner with grassroots community organizations that kin families trust, while also helping traditional child welfare providers build and strengthen their kin-first practice? 5. How have you disaggregated your data to understand kinship trends by race and ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, language, and other relevant youth and family characteristics? 6. What benchmarks and outcome goals will help your agency assess and improve your kinship practice? What percentage of children are in licensed kin placements now? How much will you seek to increase that in a year? Two? 7. What could be possible if your agency redirected the resources spent on group placements to kin families?
SELECT TAB TO EXPLORE THE LEVER
Ending the Need for Group Placements is a collective effort by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs and community partners across the nation to ensure all children grow up with their families in a safe, supportive home. To address the findings of Away from Home and explore key levers of change, our Learning Exchange offers short videos and discussion guides, and opportunities for leaders and lived expert partners to learn about and share high impact strategies that build equitable systems of caring and support. This effort is grounded in diversity, equity, anti-racism, and anti-discrimination; authentic youth and family engagement; and ICWA as the gold standard.
Ending the Need for Group Placements
Strategies that work
Young people have critical perspectives about mental health and healing that can test traditional assumptions about what makes a difference for their well-being. Understanding these perspectives can provide insight into the range of clinical and non-clinical healing supports that are needed.
— YUSEF PRESSLEY, New Deal for Youth Changemaker, The Center for Law and Social Policy, and Youth Advocate
There are a lot of different forms of healing. For me it was going outside and shooting some hoops or listening to my music. Everyone heals differently.
Nia West-Bey
Director, Youth Policy, The Center for Law and Social Policy
New Deal for Youth Changemaker, The Center for Law and Social Policy, and Youth Advocate
Yusef Pressley
Parent and Family Support Partner, Iowa Department of Human Services
Edwin Daye
Principal, California Children’s Trust
Alex Briscoe
Chief Equity and Partnership Officer, Stanford Sierra Youth & Families
Ebony McClinton
Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Children and Families
Christine Norbut Beyer
• Youth-Centered Strategies for Hope, Healing and Health (National Black Women’s Justice Initiative and the Children’s Partnership) • Changing the Beat of Mental Health: Amplifying Our Voice (Communities United) • PATH and MOMD: Lessons for Mental Health Systems Change (The Center for Law and Social Policy) • Crosswalk: Youth Thrive & Healing-Centered Engagement (Youth Thrive, an Initiative of the Center for the Study of Social Policy) • Healing and Wellness (Tribal Information Exchange of the Capacity Building Center for Tribes) • Understanding Trauma to Promote Healing in Child Welfare (California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership)
1. How can your agency develop a more holistic view of mental health to incorporate clinical and non-clinical supports, as well as culturally sensitive supports? 2. What steps have you taken to engage young people in identifying the mental health supports? 3. How do you acknowledge the history of racism and oppression that is embedded in the systems in which young people interact, and how this impacts trust and engagement in mental health services? Do you engage schools, caregivers, and others to understand the roots of trauma – including as a result of institutional and systemic oppression, racial bias, and community violence? 4. Have you considered how mental health supports can be made available in places important to young people – home, community, schools, virtually, etc.? 5. How can the definition of who can provide healing-centered supports be expanded to include religious and tribal leaders, peer supporters, and others? 6. Are there indigenous healing practices that families and communities can access as a complement to clinical services?
Developing Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered Mental Health Services
Healing-centered mental health supports
Shifting the narrative
Often the behaviors of young people are labeled as a mental health issue rather than a normal response to trauma. Using less stigmatizing language and pushing beyond a clinical model can allow for trauma-informed and healing-centered approaches that are more culturally responsive, developmentally appropriate, and individualized.
— EDWIN DAYE, Parent and Family Support Partner
We place these kids and then we leave them and say ‘he’s broken, he’s hard’ and that’s how they’re feeling: left out and alone.
• The Future of Healing: Shifting from Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement (Shawn Ginright) • Beyond the Numbers (Mental Health America) • Recommendations about the Use of Psychotropic Medications for Children and Adolescents Involved in Child-Serving Systems (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)
1. How can you adopt less stigmatizing language around trauma that is not harmful to young people’s feelings of self-worth and use language that focuses on the potential for young people to heal and lead promising and productive lives? 2. In recognition of the significant role that family plays in creating a healing pathway, how can your agency improve its practice to prioritize youth re-establishing connections with family and engage family members to be involved in the healing process? 3. How do you remain vigilant about and address issues in broader society that might be contributing to mental health challenges, including racial injustice, social media, the COVID-19 pandemic, and poverty? 4. How can we ensure that families have all the resources and supports they need to be able to care for youth with significant unmet behavioral/mental health needs? 5. What policies does your agency have to evaluate whether psychotropic medications are over-prescribed and how this impacts the way young people respond to mental health services?
— NIA WEST-BEY, Director, Youth Policy, The Center for Law and Social Policy
One of the biggest healing-centered, culturally responsive supports that we’ve consistently heard is really helpful from young people is peer support.
Young people have been clear: a broader array of healing-centered mental health services is needed. This includes mobile response services across the continuum of child welfare; indigenous healing practices; equipping teachers, foster parents, and other youth serving individuals with the skills to manage trauma responses; peer mental health supports; creating single points of access for support; strong screening and assessment; in-home stabilization services; and telehealth.
• Joint Letter to States from Federal HHS Agencies on Opportunities to Coordinate Federal Funding for Youth Mental Health (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) • What is New Jersey’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Services intervention? (Casey Family Programs) • How are some child protection agencies attending to Qualified Residential Treatment Program requirements? (Casey Family Programs) • Building a mental health delivery system by the people, for the people (California Children’s Trust) • What is Connecticut’s trauma-informed approach, CONCEPT? (Casey Family Programs) • Making the Case for a Comprehensive Children’s Crisis Continuum of Care (National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors)
1. Does your agency invest in mobile response services, including clinical and non-clinical mental health supports? 2. Do you have a partnership with your behavioral health system for assessment and leveraging Medicaid for the full range of mental health supports, including mobile response, school based mental health, and peer support services? 3. Can families access mental health supports by phone and virtual platforms? 4. Has your agency fully implemented the QRTP provisions of Family First, and what mechanisms are in place for holding providers accountable? 5. Are you collaborating with other state agencies to coordinate and leverage funding, and seek new funding to expand trauma-informed and culturally responsive services? 6. How have you worked with partner agencies to create a continuum of care for children and families, to include a comprehensive assessment and array of services and supports?
Connecting the dots with other levers
Building trusting, collaborative relationships between public child protection agencies and private providers is essential for ending the need for group placements. Ongoing communication is critical when the work involves fundamentally changing service expectations and models, as both entities have important roles to play in the change process.
— KEITH FANJOY, Chief Executive Officer, San Mar Family and Community Services
The partnership between the local department of social services and a community provider is the secret sauce, but they have to be on the same page.
Joe Ford
Chief Program Officer, Sycamores
Director, Washington County (Maryland) Department of Social Services
Michael Piercy
Children's Library Associate, Chicago Public Library and 2022 Outstanding Young Leader, Foster Club
Winther Polk
Credible Messenger and Program Facilitator, Bravehearts, The Children's Village
Robert Ramaseur
Chief Executive Officer, San Mar Family and Community Services
Keith Fanjoy
• Developing a Theory of Change: Practical Guidance (Annie E. Casey Foundation) • Building and Sustaining Collaborative Community Relationships (Capacity Building Center for States) • Building Bridges Initiative (provides a framework for achieving positive outcomes for youth and families served in residential and community programs) • Can we re-envision residential care? (Casey Family Programs) • No Place to Grow Up: How to Safely Reduce Reliance on Foster Care Group Homes (The Children’s Village)
1. What steps have you taken to engage current and potential providers in change efforts toward supporting families and meeting the needs of young people in family-based rather than group and institutional placements? 2. Have you developed a theory of change or logic model for this work? 3. How have you engaged providers who may express concern regarding reducing group placements, or connected them to early adopters or champions who can offer examples of what is possible? 4. Have you engaged young people and their families as critical partners in articulating the need for change with providers? 5. What communication and accountability mechanisms do you have for regularly meeting with providers, tracking progress toward divesting from group placement, and learning about provider needs to successfully make that shift? 6. What data do you consistently share with providers to demonstrate progress toward or barriers to making the shift toward family support?
Accelerating Provider Transformation toward Family Support
Partnering with providers
Strategies to divest from group placement
Shifting business models doesn’t happen overnight. Moving from a focus on residential placement to upstream, family-based services and placements requires assessment and analysis, collaborative planning, and capacity-building, as well as blending and braiding resources, in order to build a flexible continuum of community-based support.
— JOE FORD, Chief Program Officer, Sycamores
We’re working on that one plan, that one team, and a child and family team meeting. We’re sharing the risk and we’re putting in the supports that give us confidence we can reunite the family.
• Using Government Procurement to Advance Race Equity (Harvard Government Performance Lab) • Can a residential treatment provider transform into a model for prevention? (Casey Family Programs) • Contracting for Outcomes (Results4America) • How does Children’s Village keep New York City children safe with their families and connected to their communities? (Casey Family Programs) • Transforming Congregate Care: A White Paper on Promising Policy and Practice Innovation (Leadership for a Networked World and Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota)
1. What is the process for understanding barriers to meeting young people’s needs, and how are you partnering with providers to create a common agenda for removing these barriers at both the individual and the systemic level? 2. Have you conducted formal and informal information-gathering to better understand providers’ values, capacities, and expertise to inform allocation and alignment of resources where there may be an identified gap? 3. What steps are you taking to update existing contracts that previously funded group placement, or issue new RFPs for delivering community-based supports? 4. How are you addressing scaffolding that providers may need — such as technical assistance, bridge funding, and support for program planning, certification, staff training and professional development — to ensure alignment and capacity? 5. Are you exploring a broader array of trusted, community partners to provide upstream support to families, including engagement of a family’s natural support systems; trauma-informed, healing-centered supports; and organizations located in the communities in which families live? 6. How is your agency working with allied systems and funding (Medicaid, behavioral health, public health, education, etc.) to leverage resources and expertise?
— ROBERT RAMASEUR, Credible Messenger and Program Facilitator, Bravehearts, The Children’s Village
We needed therapy as a family because of the traumatic things we went through together and apart …. That should have been the focus, instead of separation.
To end the need for group placements, providers must engage partners with lived expertise, and support kin placements and a community-based mental health service array. Partnering with foster care providers, young people, parents, other systems, and non-traditional organizations will help create a system that is racially just, minimizes system involvement, and effectively supports families.
• Meeting Teens' Needs and Preventing Unnecessary Out of Home Placements in Delaware (Annie E. Casey Foundation) • How did New Hampshire use a Request for Information to generate innovations in prevention programming? (Casey Family Programs) • How are states building community-based pathways to prevention services through Family First? (Casey Family Programs) • Family Engagement: Partnering with Families to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes (Child Welfare Information Gateway)
1. How is your agency working with providers, other agencies and system partners to eliminate siloes and create multidisciplinary teams that explore and coordinate support to young people and their families? 2. How is your agency working with providers to engage parents and young people in conversations about the services they need, and where and how they feel most comfortable accessing those services? 3. How do you coordinate with providers and other agencies to engage parents and young people to co-design new programs and policies to prevent group placement? 4. What role can Family Team Meetings play in ensuring that a child is safe with community supports needed to remain in a family setting? 5. How can paid peer supporters — i.e., youth, parents, and caregivers — help families build the trust needed to engage in services that will help young people stay safely in families and communities? 6. What opportunities are you giving parents, caregivers, and young people to clearly state what they need to minimize child welfare involvement?
High quality legal representation
Too often, young people are placed in group settings because insufficient questions have been asked about options for meeting their needs in families. Reducing the use of group placement requires strong judicial leadership and deeper probing with child welfare agencies, advocates, young people, and parents.
— JUDGE KIM BERKELEY CLARK, Fifth Judicial District Allegheny County – Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania
Judges can minimize the use of congregate placement by just demanding that something else happens. No kid goes into placement – whether it’s in foster care, kinship care, or congregate care – without the order of the court.
Melissa Mayo
President of H.O.P.E.S Youth Leadership Board in East Hawaii, and Pono Process Lead at EPIC ‘Ohana Inc.
Director of Governmental Relations, National Center for State Courts
Chris Wu
Hinds County Youth Court, Mississippi
Judge Carlyn McGee Hicks
Fifth Judicial District Allegheny County – Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania
President Judge Kim Berkeley Clark
Parent Advocate, Center for Family Representation
Elliot Williams III
• Reducing congregate care placements: strategies for judges and attorneys (American Bar Association) • Congregate care and placement issues in juvenile court proceedings (National Association of Counsel for Children) • Every kid needs a family, including a video outlining the role of judges in embracing the principles of Every kid needs a family and Institutional placement decisions in the dependency system: a benchcard for judges and legal partners (National Center for State Courts) • A Quiet Revolution: How Judicial Discipline Essentially Eliminated Foster Care and Nearly Went Unnoticed (Columbia Journal of Race and Law)
1. What are some ways judges can use their authority in the courtroom to routinely ask parents and children what they need to support their safety and well-being, and any treatment needs they may have? 2. How are judges and attorneys in your jurisdiction involved in agency efforts to end the need for group placement? 3. What role can judges play in holding caseworkers accountable for providing support to youth in their own homes or identifying kin as placement resources, prior to considering group placement? 4. How can judges hold child welfare agencies responsible for oversight of group placements to ensure they are safe, only used to meet treatment goals, and have a workable discharge plan? 5. How can judges use their discretion and available tools to emphasize the importance of family, including the legal requirement that children be placed in the “least restrictive setting” possible, as well as provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act and the Fostering Connections Act?
Facilitating Court Partnerships
Family support and engagement
Family and community-based solutions
Judges have impact in individual cases, and they also carry significant credibility in the community. Judges can leverage their influence for system-level change by convening key stakeholders, requiring strict adherence to laws, and ensuring all partners understand the trauma of group placements.
— JUDGE CARLYN MCGEE HICKS, Hinds County Youth Court, Mississippi
Every child who falls under my court’s jurisdiction, I’m responsible for their well-being, and much like I would do for my own child, I want to know what resources are available.
• The Urgency of Placing Children with Relatives (Judge Leonard Edwards, Ret., National Association of Counsel for Children) • Legal Professional Roles: Implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act (American Bar Association) • Congregate Care in the Age of Family First: Family Engagement (Capacity Building Center for States) • Engage Us: A Guide Written by Families for Residential Providers (Building Bridges Initiative) • A Building Bridges Initiative Guide: Finding and Engaging families for Youth Receiving Residential Interventions (Building Bridges Initiative)
1. How can judges and attorneys partner with child welfare agencies, parents and young people to raise awareness about the harms of group placement and the importance of family connections to young people’s well-being? 2. How can judges make space to meet with young people to hear about their questions and concerns about their placements and the quality of services and supports available? 3. How can judges hold group placement providers accountable for short-term treatment stays, with family involvement, and a commitment to transition young people back to the community as soon as possible? 4. How can judges and attorneys become part of the chorus of stakeholders advocating for healing-centered, community-based therapeutic interventions with families? 5. What role can judges play to convene key stakeholders across systems to fully understand and adhere to all laws governing child welfare decision making? 6. What can judges do to learn more from families and communities about the supports available and the gaps that exist so they can ensure families have access to the right supports to meet their needs?
— Elliot Williams III, Parent Advocate, Center for Family Representation
It’s important for people to understand parent advocacy, and the importance of having a person with lived experience be part of a legal team to bridge gaps and get to places (with families) that social workers and attorneys can’t get to.
High-quality legal representation for parents has many benefits, including increased parental engagement, more frequent visitation, better access to services, and reduction in length of stay. When combined with peer supports, quality legal representation can help parents effectively advocate for themselves and their children.
• How does high-quality legal representation for parents support better outcomes? (Casey Family Programs) • How can pre-petition legal representation help strengthen families and keep them together? (Casey Family Programs) • Study of parent legal representation in New York City (Casey Family Programs)
1. How has your jurisdiction engaged attorneys in efforts to end the need for group placement? 2. What type of assessment has been done as to whether parent and child attorneys advocate for the least restrictive setting or whether they believe that therapeutic interventions can only be met in a group setting? 3. How can attorneys learn from the research about negative outcomes from group placements? 4. What role can attorneys and peer supporters play in advocating for treatment services to be delivered in families and communities? 5. How can parents who have experienced the system provide peer supports that enable families to understand the child welfare decision making process, including placement decision making, so they can advocate for their children?
This lever's content is forthcoming
Creating alternative pathways for families
Kinship care is the preferred placement option when children can’t safely live with their parents. Instituting internal processes – like a kinship firewall or director’s approval process – builds accountability into the system and can ensure that kinship is the priority and residential placements require the highest level of review before being approved.
— Lisa Ghartey Ogundimu, Deputy commissioner of child welfare and community services, Office of Children and Family Services, New York State
If the decision is for placement other than with the relative, then there is administrative review of the decision. We’re removing the weight from just the caseworker alone.
Colleen Puckett
Member of the Birth Parent National Network and Birth and Foster Parent Partnership, Parent Navigator and CEO of Families' Anchor
Chief Program Officer, Intervention Services, Children and Families First
Brenda Smith
Deputy Commissioner of Child Welfare and Community Services, Office of Children and Family Services, New York State
Lisa Ghartey Ogundimu
Commissioner, Philadelphia Department of Human Services
Kimberly Ali
Chief of Staff, Philadelphia Department of Human Services
Katherine Garzon
• New York State Kin-First Firewall Practice (New York State, Office of Children and Family Services) • Tennessee Protocol for Kinship Exception Request (Tennessee Department of Children’s Services) • Rhode Island DCYF Policies and Operating Procedures see: Placement Referral Process (Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families) • Policy Regarding Placement of Children in DHR’s Care (Maryland State, Department of Human Resources) • Kinship Promising Practices (ABA Center on Children and the Law, and Generations United)
1. Do you have internal policies or procedures that hold staff accountable for seeking kinship placement before placing in non-kin foster care or group placement? 2. Is there a requirement that staff go through a formal process to seek approval for any non-kin placement? 3. Beginning when a child is initially involved with child welfare, do caseworkers document (in the data system, case file or elsewhere) family connections that have been identified, including the use of a genogram? 4. Has your agency created a process for high level review of all recommendations for group placement to ensure that these placements are based on a clinical assessment and only used as a short-term treatment option for a need that can’t be met in a family? 5. Does your agency have any policy or procedure to prohibit placement of younger children in a group setting?
Creating Administrative Barriers
Implementing firewalls to make group placement difficult
Engaging families in decision-making
Family team meetings can be utilized at all stages of a family’s involvement in the child welfare system to ensure that families have a voice in the decisions that impact their child. Effectively engaging families before and during placement can result in positive outcomes for both children and their parents.
— Colleen Puckett, Member of the Birth Parent National Network and Birth and Foster Parent Partnership, parent navigator and CEO of Families' Anchor
It’s easy to say ‘I gave a parent an opportunity to speak’, but it’s a whole other thing to say ‘I actively listened to them… I heard their wants, their dislikes, and their celebrations, and then I’m actively doing something as a result.’
• Advocacy for Parents at Family Team Meetings (American Bar Association) • Four Approaches to Family Team Meetings (Annie E. Casey Foundation) • Team Decision Making May Empower Child Welfare Decision Making and Improve Outcomes for Families (ChildTrends) • Family Group Decision-Making: Implementing the Family Group Conference (Child Welfare Information Gateway, podcast) • The Team Decision Making Model (Evident Change)
1. How does your agency engage families and their natural resources in the child welfare decision making process, including finding alternatives to group placement within the family network? 2. Does your agency have a process that allows families to bring their support networks to the table to build consensus on the best course of action to ensure safety, permanency and well-being for the child? 3. Has your agency dedicated staff resources to plan and facilitate family meetings, and to conduct follow-up on any action steps created in these meetings? 4. Do staff who support family meetings have training on developing ground rules, mediating conflict, and developing family-centered action steps? 5. Does your agency hold family meetings in spaces and during times that are convenient for families?
— Kimberly Ali, Commissioner, Philadelphia Department of Human Services
We want everyone to have foundational training so they can implement anti-racist principles and incorporate that into their practice.
Too often, young people are in foster care – and by extension in group placement – because there is no other way for parents to access the services they need. Families need equitable pathways for support that don’t include involvement with the child welfare system.
• How can helplines serve as a better pathway for families to access support? (Casey Family Programs) • How are states building community-based pathways to prevention services through Family First? (Casey Family Programs) • How does San Diego’s child protection agency partner with 2-1-1 to better serve families and children? (Casey Family Programs) • Differential Response in Child Protective Services (Child Welfare Information Gateway) • Reimagining Schools’ Role outside the Family Regulation System (Columbia Journal of Race and the Law, June 2021) • Fighting Institutional Racism at the Front End of Child Welfare Systems: A Call to Action (Children’s Rights) • Narrowing the Front Door to NYC’s Child Welfare System: Report and Recommendations (Narrowing the Front Door Coalition)
1. Has your agency closely examined how institutional racism plays a role in the overrepresentation of families of color involved in the child welfare system? 2. Does your agency have a pathway for teenagers and their families to access support for family conflict and/or mental health issues without having to become involved with the child welfare system? 3. What types of community partnerships are in place to ensure families who are reported because of housing instability, food insecurity, lack of health care access or other poverty related issues do not become further involved in child protection? 4. How is your agency partnering with schools to create alternatives to reports of educational neglect that require family support, not investigation?
Youth and parent voice
To ensure that young people can be in families – not institutions – resource caregivers (including both kin and non-kin caregivers) need support, training, and coaching to be trauma-informed, practice cultural humility, and build relationships with birth families. This support should be ongoing and include child protection agencies, experienced resource caregivers, the child’s parents and family, and community partners.
— WENDY HENDERSON, Administrator, Division of Safety and Permanence, Wisconsin Department of Children & Families
We’re looking for families who are willing to help kids keep all of those connections and make sure that they have a community of support around them, even during the time that they aren’t physically living with their families.
Justin Kidder
Senior community responder, Think of Us
Program supervisor, Morrison Child & Family Services; Vice president, Oregon Foster Parent Association; Lived experience consultant
Michael Simmons
Executive director, Youth Law Center and Quality Parenting Initiative
Jennifer Rodriguez
Former foster youth; Resource parent; Social worker
Jaymi Matranga
Supervisor of Permanency and Prevention Services, Austin Field Office, Casey Family Programs
Amy Frere
Administrator, Division of Safety and Permanence, Wisconsin Department of Children & Families
Wendy Henderson
• Winning Approaches to Strengthening Family-Based Care: Research and Policy Solutions (CHAMPS – Children Need Amazing Parents) • Parenting Resources for Foster Parents (Child Welfare Information Gateway) • Support for Foster Parents (AdoptUSKids) • National Foster Parent Association • Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth: A Guide for Foster Parents (Child Welfare Information Gateway) • Human Trafficking: What Foster Parents Should Know (Fostering Perspectives) • Trauma-Informed Training Helps Foster Parents Feel More Prepared (Annie E. Casey Foundation)
1. Does your jurisdiction have a policy that defines supports that should be available to all resource caregivers including peer supports, a dedicated foster parent unit, respite care, financial support that is adequate to meet the basic needs of a child, 24/7 crisis stabilization, etc.? 2. Does your agency have a clearly articulated set of child-specific supports that caregivers can expect to receive once the child is placed in the home? 3. Do supports include hands-on help from the agency, other resource caregivers, community groups, and the child’s family members to learn trauma-informed and culturally appropriate practices to meet the child’s needs? 4. Does your agency provide spaces for resource caregivers to build community with each other for mutual aid and support? 5. Does the agency have specific supports for meeting the specialized needs of teens, including youth who identify as LGBTQ2SIA+, teens who are expecting or parenting, youth who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation, etc.? 6. Does the agency have a clearly articulated policy that encourages resource caregivers to advocate for services and supports for themselves and the child?
Partnering with Resource Caregivers
Support for resource caregivers
Opportunities for partnership
Resource caregivers are valuable partners for families, and child protection agencies have an important role in policies and practices that support those relationships. Resource caregivers must clearly understand that reunification with parents is the primary goal and be supported to nurture the child’s relationship with their parents whenever possible.
— JAYMI MATRANGA, Former foster youth, resource parent, social worker
Our kids’ relationships with their biological families should never be something that is used as a consequence or a punishment, or even a reward. It’s an entitlement.
• Birth and Foster Parent Partners: A State and Local Leaders’ Guide to Building a Strong Policy and Practice Foundation (Children’s Trust Fund Alliance) • What is the Quality Parenting Initiative? & How does the Quality Parenting Initiative support healthy childhoods and co-parenting with birth families? (Casey Family Programs) • Birth parent/foster parent relationships to support family reunification (Child Welfare Information Gateway) • Comfort Calls and Ice Breakers Training Video (Center for Child Welfare at USF) • Icebreaker Meeting Information (Quality Parenting Initiative) • How can guardianship be better utilized to promote permanency and well-being? (Casey Family Programs) • What are some effective strategies for older youth adoption? (Casey Family Programs)
1. How does the agency communicate the importance of reunification and birth parent partnerships in recruitment strategies, including their diligent recruitment plans? 2. In rare cases when reunification is not an option, how are resource caregivers supported as a permanent placement for children, to eliminate the need for additional placements and ensure the timely achievement of permanency via kinship guardianship or adoption? 3. What training do resource caregivers receive on specific strategies to partner with birth parents, including comfort calls, icebreakers, visitation, education meetings, doctor’s visits and more? 4. Has the agency conducted a deep dive of its policies to identify policies that may create barriers to agency and birth parent partnerships, including confidentiality policies, supervised visitation requirements, etc.? 5. What avenues do resource caregivers have to advocate for timely services for the children in their home without being labeled as “agitators”?
— JENNIFER RODRIGUEZ, Executive director, Youth Law Center and Quality Parenting Initiative
High quality treatment for any kind of behaviors or mental health challenge is only possible if family involvement is a core and central part.
Engaging individuals with lived experience can help in all aspects of child welfare transformation and is particularly important in understanding what young people and parents need most from resource caregivers. Similarly, resource caregivers should have a say in what works best for recruitment and support.
• How can we better engage fathers in prevention? (Casey Family Programs) • Foster Care Ombudsman: The Need is Real (Foster Focus) • Why Normalcy is Important for Youth in Foster Care (ChildTrends) • Normalcy for Youth in Foster Care (Child Welfare Information Gateway) • Engage Foster Parents in Decision Making (CHAMPS) (Children Need Amazing Parents) • Building and Sustaining Effective Parent Partnerships: Stages of Development (Children’s Trust Fund Alliance)
1. Do young people, parents, and resource caregivers participate in pre-service and ongoing training, as well as recruitment events, so prospective resource caregivers can hear directly from those most impacted? 2. Are young people, parents, and resource caregivers integrally involved in the development of policies and practices impacting partnerships with resource caregivers? 3. Does your child welfare agency have a clearly articulated pathway for young people to advocate for their needs while in foster care, including the need for normalcy as required by federal law? 4. Are resource caregivers and young people in their care offered treatment resources in the home and community to prevent disruption into higher levels of care? 5. Are parents and young people able to advocate for treatment services in the home to prevent removal in the first place?
