May 2020Vol. 21, No. 4Print issueSpotlight on National Foster Care Month

Issue Spotlight

• Everyone Needs Relationships

  Everyone Needs Relationships

  Written by Jerry Milner and David Kelly
  
  If ever there was evidence of the need for and power of relationships during hard times, it is before us now.  The public health crisis has left the vast majority of us confined to our homes and socially isolated.   Distance from friends, loved ones and critical support is causing people to feel disconnected and alone.  Our inability to spend time with and even hug people we are close with has brought the importance of human connection in our lives into acute, and for some, quite painful focus.  Some of us likely are realizing we took time with important people in our lives for granted.

  People and relationships are who and what most of us turn to when confronted with a tough choice, difficult challenge or loss.  Relationships provide support and help us navigate or heal from nearly all that life throws our way.  Human connection is one of our most basic needs.  We know it because we can feel it and have experienced it.  The literature is also replete with verification of the need for and benefits of connection and, of course, the consequences of not having that need met.

  This moment should be a reminder to all of us professionals in child welfare of just how important relationships are for parents of children in foster care.  There are few larger crises than separation from a child, and perhaps few more lonely hours than those following that separation.  The uncertainty of not knowing where or with whom your child may be placed can heighten stress and aloneness---as a society we spend so much time telling young children to be careful around strangers, and in an instant, a child can be placed with an unknown family.

  As a field, these needs are often overshadowed by our quest for the latest off the shelf clinical intervention or evidence-based practice.  As people who have reviewed thousands of case plans over the years---we struggle to recall many instances in which notes reflected efforts to provide emotional support, peer partners—or efforts for resource parents to work directly with parents to help provide a sense of connectedness and support.

  Parents with children in foster care need relationships and connection, too.  In fact, the stories we have heard from parents about the loneliness, frustration, and often hopelessness that accompanies having their children removed suggest that their need for relationships is even stronger during an episode of foster care.  Further, the absence of meaningful and supportive relationships contributes to social isolation, a factor in eroding the protective capacities of parents.

  As we search for meaning in the public health crisis and look for lessons learned and ways to be better as individuals, professionals and a society, we can draw upon this powerful reminder that relationships matter and work with intention to help parents with children in foster care nurture relationships, social connection and peer support.

  The incredibly positive news is that there is great potential at the ready.

  We believe firmly that there is a largely untapped and incredibly helpful source of relational support for parents with children in foster care-- resource families.  We believed this prior to the public health crisis and our conviction is even stronger now as we see the effects of isolation and inability to connect much more clearly and broadly than before.

  For the second consecutive year, the theme for National Foster Care Month is "Foster Care as a Support to Families, not a Substitute for Parents".  Although we seek to reduce the need for foster care to the lowest level possible, there will likely always be some need.  Where that need does exist, foster care can and should be a dramatically different experience for children in care and their parents than the more typical experiences we see.  Foster care can be a vehicle for safe and expeditious reunification.  It can be an opportunity for parents to focus on addressing personal challenges while working in partnership with resource parents to make sure their children have all of their needs met.  Foster care can be as much about attending to the emotional and relational needs of a parent as it is to meeting the needs of the child in care.  It can be an opportunity for a parent to form a relationship of trust with a resource parent who can serve as mentor and source of encouragement and support.  The relationships can continue post reunification and resource parents can continue to help support parents in different ways.

  We know it is possible, because we have seen examples across the country and spent time talking with resource parents who see supporting parents as a purposeful way to give back to their community or an expression of their faith.  We have heard directly from parents separated from their children about the difference it makes to meet and get to know the resource family and to be welcomed and encouraged to spend time in the resource family home.  We have heard stories of the difference something as simple as a phone call from resource families following removal can make, where resource families introduce themselves to the parents, let them know they are there to help, that they will be rooting for them, provide support and clarifying that they are not in this to try and take their kids.

  We have been on a mission to change the shape of foster care in the United States for the past three years, motivated by what we have seen made possible through intentional relationships between resource families and parents.   If we mobilize caring people around the country to help care for families and children that make contact with the child welfare system, as opposed to children alone, we can demonstrate what we all know about the need for relationships and human connection. 

  We can work together as people who care about other people to apply the lessons the pandemic has taught us and do everything we can to make foster care a support to the entire family. 
  
   

• To Benefit Children and Teens, Build Relationships Between Birth and Foster Parents

  To Benefit Children and Teens, Build Relationships Between Birth and Foster Parents

  Written by Denise Goodman, Ph.D., senior fellow at Case Commons, expert on foster parent recruitment, retention and training—and former foster parent
  
  "Are you sure?" I asked Bonnie. The spunky, thoughtful 17-year-old was nearing her high school graduation and I, her foster parent, was surprised. Who topped her wish list of attendees to the graduation party she'd be hosting? Her parents. Her parents?! I wasn't prepared for that!

  In those days—this was years ago—it was inconceivable that foster and birth parents would ever meet. It was thought to be too dangerous. It violated confidentiality. What if the birth parent kidnapped the child? At the time, those were the reasons given for no contact between birth and foster parents.

  Today, we know so much more. We understand that helping foster and birth parents develop a relationship to support a child or teen is a nonnegotiable benefit. We have learned the following:

  • Young people—even many whose home lives have been unsafe—tell us they still love and miss their parents. 
  • When teens age out of care, one of the first places they go is back to family—often, to a parent.
  • Relationships and attachment are key drivers of child and teen development. Finding ways for adults to show their love and concern for a child or teen can demonstrate a powerful message: The child or teen is important—and worthy of attention and love.

  
  Learning From Kids and Families

  I've worn a lot of hats from the late 1970s until today. I began working in a county child welfare agency, first in their shelter then in protective services. Eventually, I became director of a residential treatment program and then a foster parent. What's been most memorable to me throughout the years are the kids and their relationships with many parents—birth, foster, and kin.

  I think about James, a teen in a treatment facility where I worked. He was planning to make his first weekend visit home, with the goal of reunification. Then, he was suspended for fighting at school. Ordinarily, that would have grounded him for the weekend at the facility. Reunification, however, is too important a goal to interfere with, and his parents had been working hard to make it happen.

  I phoned his mother and asked if she'd be willing to ground him during his visit home, and she readily agreed. James's mother and I became allies working in his best interests. She learned a practical parenting strategy to use if he was suspended again. And a seed was planted in my own thinking that was helpful to both of us and James: Adults at the facility didn't have to do all the parenting. James's mom and dad could still play a key role.

  Later, when I began to work in foster care, I met other foster parents who agreed—and who were even more forward thinking. Their philosophy—and the way they lived and worked—was family affirming. Said one: "Of course, we work and support the birth family. And the extended family, too!"

  I was excited. But I was also conflicted. I had handled some pretty tough family situations over the years. And I had been taught a strict set of values and beliefs. Chief among them: There should be no contact between birth and foster parents. None!

  Supporting Bonnie

  Back to Bonnie and her graduation. After I got over my surprise, Bonnie and I talked. I got a glimpse of how much she wanted to involve her parents in her life. So we started to explore the idea. Her father was in prison for armed robbery, and no one knew the location of her mother, who struggled with substance use. We agreed that rather than inviting her parents to our home, we'd ask the long-separated couple to a local diner prior to the graduation ceremony. We sent an announcement to her father at the prison and gave information to her mother's family.

  While Bonnie's mother never responded, her father did. He was due to be paroled in time for graduation and was looking forward to it. Bonnie was ecstatic; I was a nervous wreck.

  The day arrived, and Bonnie and I entered the restaurant. Bonnie was delighted to see that her father had brought his long-term girlfriend. But I could see that dad and his girlfriend were extremely uneasy. I realized that they were very worried about what I thought of them!

  After we left the diner, we three adults sat together at graduation. I could see how proud Bonnie's father was; his eyes welled up with tears. As we walked out of the auditorium, I spontaneously invited him to the party. When I offered my address, he replied, "I know where you live!"

  He and his girlfriend came to the house and stayed long enough to give Bonnie a gift and share some cake. As they left, I offered my phone number. He said, "Oh, I have it!" All this time, he had followed what was going on with his daughter. But he had respected our privacy and our family. This allowed us to begin rebuilding a father-daughter relationship—and marked the start of my relationship with him.

  Once I became a foster parent trainer and consultant, I had ample opportunities to advise social workers, supervisors, administrators and resource parents that connecting resource parents and birth parents is critical. Relationships between birth and foster parents must be cultivated and supported. As child welfare systems, foster care is the most important service we provide children, teens and families. If you value permanent family relationships as the foundation on which young people build healthy lives, please join me and other resource parents. Make sure your system supports parent-to-parent relationships in policy and practice. It's time these relationships are seen as vital—and nonnegotiable.
   

• Putting Ethan First: A Reunification Story

  Putting Ethan First: A Reunification Story

  Written by Denise Goodman, Ph.D., senior fellow at Case Commons, expert on foster parent recruitment, retention and training—and former foster parent

  In 2012, four adults came together on behalf of Ethan, then 3 months old. Ethan had been removed from his mother, Kimberly, who was fighting a 20-year battle with addiction. He was placed with Berenice and Andrea, first-time foster parents in the reunification program of the Clark County, NV, Department of Family Services. Dahlia Espeut-McLean (now a supervisor) was the caseworker.

  As Berenice and Andrea surrounded Ethan with love and care, his mother fought to recover. Ethan's foster parents sent pictures and kept the lines of communication open, with Dahlia as their champion.

  It took many months, but it worked, and Ethan and Kimberly were reunited. Today, Ethan is a grinning 8-year-old who loves electronics, hugs, and his "cousins"—Berenice and Andrea's kids. In June, Kimberly will be 8 years' sober. "When me and Ethan talk about our family," Kimberly says, "we're talking about Andrea and Berenice."

  A Different Kind of Foster Parent

  "We should probably start changing the terminology," Andrea laughs. "Resource parents? Wraparound parents? How about reunification partners?" Berenice says.

  The key to this kind of caregiving, Berenice says, is for the foster parent to understand that "not every child who comes into your home will be your forever child." This means helping "biological parents reunify with their kids when it's safe and appropriate" and getting all the adults to work and learn together and "focus on the needs of this child in this situation."

  Recently, I spoke with Ethan and the four women in his life. I asked, "What's the best thing about aunties Berenice and Andrea?" "Nearly everything," he said.

  This Q&A explores how everyone worked together for Ethan's sake. Questions and answers have been edited for continuity. For privacy, only first names have been used for mother, child, and foster parents.

  Q: Kimberly, what was your biggest fear about Berenice and Andrea?

  A: They were not my biggest fear. My biggest fear was that I'd never be able to get sober and I would lose Ethan and never see him again. But Andrea and Bernice were so supportive. They sent all those pictures of Ethan. During the hard times, as I was trying to get sober and create this new life, those pictures were my drivers. There was this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—this beautiful baby.

  Q: Dahlia, what was it like to be the caseworker in this kind of arrangement?

  A: This relationship was like lightning in a bottle—in the best way. I had so many questions in my mind and they all began with, "Am I allowed to ...?" I had to figure out how to be flexible within our system. It was about constant communication with my supervisor, my manager, anybody who'd listen. I had a birth parent who wanted to continue having a relationship with these two wonderful people who had helped to raise her child. Ethan was bonded to everybody. My question was, how do we make sure Ethan doesn't lose anyone who cares about him?

  Q: Andrea, it can be so challenging to love a child and let him go. What made this arrangement work?

  A: (Andrea): The weekend he was due to go home, we spent 3 or 4 days with Kimberly so she would get a sense of what his routine was.

  A: (Kimberly): You were willing to help with his transition so it wasn't traumatic for him. I mean, he had seen me a couple of times. But that was it. We all met at a hotel and played at the pool. He saw us all together. I could learn from you guys and see how you were parenting him.

  Q: What happened next?

  A: (Andrea): Berenice and I gave them a month or two to bond. And then we sent Kimberly a text message. And then we started having conversations. Then FaceTime.

  A: (Berenice): When we first left Kimberly's house, we were heartbroken and crying. She sent us a quick little video. We saw he was happy.

  A: (Kimberly): Now they visit every couple of months. Every summer, he stays with them for a week. It's a family tradition.

  Q: Kimberly, any advice for parents?

  A: If you are going through the process, see it as a blessing. At the time, it was my worst fear coming true. But it ended up being this opportunity. I got healthy and strong. At first, I wasn't bonded to Ethan. It was the pictures, texts, and constant information about Ethan that helped me bond to him, even though we weren't living together. In the meantime, I had this amazing family taking great care of my baby. This is not a time to be stuck in your fears. It's a time to be open to people who want to support you and love your child.

  Q: Final thoughts, Berenice and Andrea?

  A: (Berenice): We all need to remember: Other people loving a child doesn't take anything away from you.

  Q: Dahlia?

  A: Human services is about relationships. As workers, we don't always know what's best. If you think you have all the answers, you'll miss the nuggets of wisdom coming from all sides. I'd tell anyone on the CPS or caseworker side that this is one of the easiest cases I've ever had. Love is not a finite thing that can only come from one person.
  
  Other Young People Share Their Experiences

  Jasmine Snell (Tennessee)

  With every new home comes a new environment and new experience. While it is important to embrace new customs, we should not abandon our cultures and create new identities. I was 13 when my identity was stripped away from me due to my biological parents' inability to raise me. Not having a working relationship between my natural family, foster family, and DCS workers resulted in major disconnections in the community and school. I have been fortunate enough to experience the opposite with my current family. My independence and success could not have been achieved without my biological and chosen families blending to become one for the sake of my well-being. I now know the meaning of family and community because of the togetherness of those around me. This is why a working relationship must be maintained between all parties who have or previously had an essential role in a young person's life.

  Melissa Mayo (Hawaii)

  I was fortunate to have a foster parent who not only supported my relationship with my mother while I was in care but also worked together with my mom to include her in my senior-year activities and holidays. Having my foster parent include my mom in my daily and school activities helped me feel a sense of normalcy. This gave me relief because I wasn't overwhelmed with worry and anxiety around issues with my mom and family. It gave me a chance to focus on things that I should, like school and extracurricular activities. Normalcy is crucial to a youth's upbringing, especially a youth in foster care. Without my foster parent's priority of keeping my mom involved in my life, I would not have the great relationship I have with my mom today.

  Stefani Lazaro (Arizona)

  When I was in care, I was in a shelter. On weekends, I would visit my four brothers and their foster family, who were supportive and even asked that important question every kid in foster care wants to hear, "Would you like us to adopt you?" They gave me an option. I felt happy.
  My mother, caseworker, and siblings' foster mom worked together to establish a healthy relationship. My siblings would visit my mother and she would have dinners at the foster mom's house. The foster mom would give my mother parenting tips. I could tell my mother felt scared to be a single mom and felt encouraged when the foster mom helped her. The caseworker, foster mom, and my [birth] mother helped everyone get on the same page. It's as if the foster mom was teaching our mother how to be a mom.
   

• How to Fight Loneliness

  How to Fight Loneliness

  Written by Kathleen Creamer, managing attorney, Family Advocacy Unit, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia

  Recently, and especially during this time of the COVID-19 crisis, there has been increasing attention paid to the very real threat of loneliness within our families and communities. Loneliness has been linked to catastrophic public health outcomes, including fatality, and may be more harmful to a person's health than smoking or obesity. Despite this, our child welfare system has been slow to respond to, and in many ways creates and exacerbates, the serious threat of loneliness facing our families.

  Nowhere is this more evident than in our traditional approach to foster and birth family relationships. Although over the past several years we've begun to move the needle in my own city, the reality for so many parents and children across the country is a pattern of child welfare interventions that separate families and compound the effects of trauma, grief, and isolation by depriving them of the one thing that might help them cope: connection.

  The "traditional" approach to family connection in the child welfare system has been to (1) "save" a child from a "problematic" birth parent by separating the family; (2) place the child with a "good" foster family; (3) provide the "problematic" parent limited family time with their child in the most artificial environment possible (i.e., a visiting room at a child welfare agency); (4) discourage, limit, or prohibit contact between birth and foster parents; and (5) in the best case scenario, reunify a child with their birth parents, cutting off any loving bonds that the child has formed with the foster family. Time and again, this story repeats itself in child welfare cases. I would submit that this is a perfect recipe for isolation and suffering for parents, foster parents, and, most of all, the child.

  Early in my career, I represented a mother whose experience demonstrated to me the harms of this traditional approach to foster parent and birth parent relationships. My client, Denise, was incarcerated when she gave birth to her daughter, Autumn. Autumn was immediately placed with a foster family, who was promised that this case would move quickly to permanency through adoption. Denise was given minimal visitation and contact with Autumn and was never introduced to the foster family. Denise worked hard to accomplish her goals, and the foster family became upset as the case progressed toward reunification. They appeared at court to fight against reunification, refusing to speak to or even look at Denise. They even hired their own counsel to come to court to argue that Denise could never be a fit mother. At the end of some contentious litigation, Autumn and Denise were reunified.

  Understandably, Autumn's foster parents experienced tremendous grief and loss when Autumn went home to her mother. They reached out to Denise and asked if they could visit with Autumn, and Denise asked for my advice. On the one hand, these foster parents had been incredibly hostile to her for months on end and tried to take away forever the most precious thing in her life. On the other hand, Autumn loved them, and Denise didn't want to take any love away from her daughter. In one of the most loving acts of grace and selflessness I've ever witnessed in my career, Denise decided to open the door to contact between Autumn and her foster parents. Years later, I heard from Denise and learned that the foster parents had become family. Autumn visited with them often, and a true and supportive friendship grew between Denise and the foster parents.

  Somehow Denise knew what our system too often encourages us to ignore: there is no such thing as too many loving, supportive connections in a child's life. I think a lot about how often we ignore this truth and the costs to our families of doing so.

  Although this case had a happy ending, there was so much needless suffering along the way. What if the foster parents had been taught that fostering a child means fostering her family and providing support to make the family whole? What if they had been trained to understand that although Denise was struggling, she loved Autumn every bit as much as they did and that Autumn's well-being was profoundly linked to Denise's success? What if they had hosted Denise in their home for visits, so that she could practice skills like feeding and putting her baby to sleep in a natural environment? What if Denise and the foster parents talked every day about how Autumn was doing and how they could, together, ensure that she was thriving?

  There are so many caring professionals in child welfare right now, professionals who are reimagining foster care as a support rather than a substitute for family. These caring professionals are showing us what we would do if we truly prioritized well-being for children: First and foremost, we would radically redefine child well-being to mean not just more services but rather more meaningful connections. We would provide intensive and tailored supports to families to avoid the trauma and grief of family separation. When a child could not stay safely at home, we would look urgently for the "most connected placement" for each child, starting with kinship care. When kinship care is not possible, we would work to build that most connected placement by nurturing connections and collaboration among everyone who loves the child, including her parents, relatives, and foster family. We would understand that as human beings, we all share an essential need to connect to our own families and that caring about the well-being of a child means honoring this need.

  This time has shown just how creative we can be in supporting family connections. As we face new and previously unimaginable barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are giving foster and birth parents phones, tablets, and Wi-Fi and asking them to use services like Google Voice and Zoom to keep in touch. My hope for all our families is that we bring this creativity with us as we emerge from this crisis and create a new normal that considers collaboration between foster and birth parents as an essential pillar of child well-being.
  
   

• Children's Bureau Releases Information Memorandum on Foster Care as a Support to Families

  Children's Bureau Releases Information Memorandum on Foster Care as a Support to Families

  The Children's Bureau, within the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, released an Information Memorandum (IM) (ACYF-CB-IM-20-06) intended for state, tribal, and territorial agencies as well as state and tribal court improvement programs that provides information on best practices, resources, and recommendations for using foster care as a support to families, with the ultimate goal of safe and timely reunification. 

  The following are best practices guidelines that can help to facilitate the use of foster care as a support to families:

  • Create a culture of viewing and utilizing foster care as a support for entire families.
  • Ensure exhaustive family search efforts occur at the onset of child welfare involvement so that children can be placed with relatives or kin.
  • Recruit and train resource families that are committed to serving as a support to families with children in foster care.
  • Support relationships between parents and resource families.
  • Develop written family time and shared parenting agreements as part of the reunification plan.
  • Utilize resource families as post reunification supports.
  • Prioritize retention of resource families.
  • Celebrate successes to support ongoing engagement.

  In addition, the IM highlights the importance of supportive partnerships between birth and resource parents. Agencies are encouraged to cultivate relationships between birth and resource parents to help dispel the fear some parents have that resource parents are trying to "replace" them, mitigate the trauma of separation, help children see adults working together with their best interests in mind, and ensure that parents maintain a meaningful presence in their child's life. These partnerships can also help parents view resource parents as examples of effective and safe parenting.

  Also included in the IM are resources and innovations from public, private, and faith-based communities that can serve as examples of how to support families throughout their child welfare and foster care involvement in the way they create opportunities for parents and resource families to partner together to enhance protective factors, maintain and strengthen parent-child bonds, and expedite reunification.
  
   
  
  
  
   

• To Do Better by Kids, Build a Bigger Bench of Loving, Caring, and Supportive Adults

  To Do Better by Kids, Build a Bigger Bench of Loving, Caring, and Supportive Adults

  Written by Sandra Gasca-Gonzalez, vice president of the Center for Systems Innovation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation
  
  Have you ever heard about the child who had too much love—too many adults who serve as parents, mentors, financial advisers, coaches, and spiritual guides? Me neither!

  As the COVID-19 global pandemic has shaken up our world, many things have changed. The following are two things that have not changed:
   

  • Every kid needs family.
  • Young people do better in a rich relationship ecosystem.

  At the Annie E. Casey Foundation, we have long believed that supporting adults in a child's life is critical to supporting young people. While the COVID-19 crisis has been a disrupter of major proportions, it also provides an opportunity to remake systems and relationships to do better by young people. In this moment of possibility, we must rewrite the way systems work with families and caregivers—in other words, to get different (better) results, we must do things differently. We must accelerate the role of foster parents and kinship caregivers as supports to the entire family—children and parents alike—to help strengthen overall child and family well-being while ensuring our kids are safe.

  What's more, we can turn this upside-down experience into a right-side-up system by working hand in hand with young people and their families as they help us create this better, life-sustaining way of doing things.

  Ensuring that parents and caregivers partner on behalf of a young person is a value woven into the fabric of Casey's ongoing work. In communities across the country, Casey helps systems modernize their approach to identifying, training, and supporting resource parents, which includes kin parents. Maintaining stable, lifelong connections to family, communities, and culture are key elements of that work.

  When I envision child welfare in the future, I see an array of family-strengthening opportunities that surround families with resources that enable them to stay together and grow together. We need these resources to be so widely available that few children and teens will need to enter foster care. To be effective and long lasting, our support must honor and leverage the strength of community, culture, and family. These fundamental building blocks have extraordinary capacity to help children and families heal, restore, and endure. Even when children must be removed from their homes for safety reasons, we must prioritize connections to their families, culture, and communities.

  Across the country, I see families supporting families to sustain parents in the challenging, rewarding work of raising their children. I see families who support their own. I see neighborhoods and schools that help children flourish. I see community, faith, and other organizations that listen to young people and encourage their involvement, growth, and positive development throughout their growing-up years.
  
  Stepping Toward the Future
  
  Even when many fewer young people are in foster care, they will need wide networks of support because the need for family cannot be met by systems.

  When you think about it, it's long past time to change the ways in which systems and communities partner with the important adults in a young person's life. Many aspects of an improved future child welfare approach are steps that communities and agencies can put in place today.

  The steps I suggest have been tested in Casey's work throughout the country over the past three decades. All involve a common thread: A fervent belief that we should be in the business of connecting children to, not cutting them off from, critical family relationships. At each of these steps, young people and their families are critical to helping us develop and sustain meaningful changes that can improve the lives of all involved.

  We, in the community, can serve in powerful roles to help develop and sustain these relationships and networks by doing the following:
   

  • Connectors. We need to help maintain children's connections to their families. Separating children unnecessarily from families is too high a price. When kids lose the familiar routines of school, activities, and their neighborhoods—and are often separated from their siblings—the trauma can be devastating and disruptive to their social and emotional development.
  • Extenders. Maybe a grandmother cannot move her grandson into her home and care for him full time. But can she call him on his birthday? During these days of social distancing, maybe have a weekly online lunch date to catch up? When the asks are tangible and manageable, more adults who want to help in some way can find it more doable.
  • Builders. When families are in crisis, they need as many of us as possible helping help them get back on their feet—not cutting them off at the knees. Let's surround them with resources and relationships.
  • Teammates. When everyone shares a common goal—the well-being of the child—we can do amazing things to help children heal from trauma and support families in rebuilding stable, loving homes.

  
  Agencies can support, engage, and empower these supportive relationships and networks by doing the following:
   

  • Connectors. Find and keep more amazing caregivers. Agencies must sustain a continually growing and diverse network of resource parents. In a newly focused system, we define resource parents as everyone from parents to kinship caregivers to foster parents—that is, everyone who cares for a child and can influence their path toward well-being. Agencies must find new foster families to replace those who adopt and explore new technologies and data-driven approaches to identify and recruit eager foster families well suited to meet children's needs.
  • Extenders. Redouble our efforts and prioritize support to kin resource families. Kin and resource parents are ordinary people who do extraordinary things for children and families in crisis. Forge strong relationships. Builders. Keep kids in their families of origin whenever possible. Among other things, this disrupts cultural breaks and disparities. Kids do better with kin. Kinship support should not be dependent on licensing. Increase the support for resource families.
  • Teammates. Public child welfare agencies and private foster care providers must envision and implement a system that engages foster parents as respected partners and promotes the value of foster families—and does the same for and with birth families and their children. Encourage—and expect—all adults (birth parents, relatives, caseworkers, mentors, clergy, etc.) in a child's life to work together.

  Families are networks. The more loving, supportive, and caring adults in those networks, the stronger the network and the better our children and older youth fare. When we act on behalf of all families the way we would for our own, then all children and parents can heal, grow, and thrive.

  This COVID-19 health crisis has turned so many things inside out and upside down. People and professionals of all types in the child welfare system have stepped up in extraordinary ways. We have a defining opportunity to rewrite the playbook on child welfare and make it truly what we know in our heart of hearts it needs to be to truly support and build up children, families, and communities.