May 2021Vol. 22, No. 5Family First Act Supplement to the Diligent Recruitment Navigator

AdoptUSKids released a supplement to its Diligent Recruitment Navigator tool that supports agencies' efforts to recruit, develop, and support foster, adoptive, and kinship families through the lens of the Title IV-E Prevention Services Program, as amended by the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018. 

The new tool provides additional discussion questions and recommendations for agencies to consider when developing their diligent recruitment plans, including those related to the following:

• Procedures for consistently updating the characteristics of children in care using information and analysis of data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System and other data available to the state, region, or county. Agencies can reflect on how frequently they update and review data on the number of children in congregate care and whether these data indicate details about when they can be expected to transition to family settings.  
• Procedures for ongoing analysis of the current pool of available foster and adoptive placement resources. Agencies can ask themselves how their systems can provide training and tools to support the assessment of the needs of the child, youth, and family for placement prevention services; what expectations and supports are in place to ensure collaboration to develop, implement, and support a child's or youth's individual placement prevention plan; how to maintain current information about the foster family's capacity to meet the needs of children stepping down from group care into family settings; and other discussion questions.
• Recruitment and development of homes that can accommodate siblings in care so siblings can be placed together or reunited when they have been separated in care. Agencies can think about what strategies they have in place to help reunite siblings who were separated when at least one of the siblings was placed in group care and is moving to a family setting.
• Recruitment of foster homes to ensure children and youth can stay in their own schools when placed in foster care. Agencies can reflect on whether they provide guidance to staff about how to balance the priorities of keeping children in their school and of placing them with relatives. They can also determine whether there are strategies for exploring options for keeping children in their schools even when placing them with kinship caregivers who do not live near the school.

For a full list of the additional questions and discussion points for the Diligent Recruitment Navigator, read Family First Act Supplement to the Diligent Recruitment Navigator from AdoptUSKids.