May 2010Vol. 11, No. 4Print issueSpotlight on National Foster Care Month

Issue Spotlight

• Making the Case for Permanency With Youth, Workers, and Families

  Making the Case for Permanency With Youth, Workers, and Families

  In 2005, the Children's Bureau funded nine demonstration projects through an Adoption Opportunities grant, "Improving Permanency Outcomes by Developing Services and Supports for Youth Who Wish to Retain Contact With Family Members." The following article draws on lessons learned from these Youth Permanency projects about changing attitudes.
  
  One of greatest barriers to finding families for older youth in foster care is the common belief that teenagers are not adoptable. Prospective families may shy away from older youth, workers may be caught in a mindset that focuses only on preparation for independent living and emancipation, and even the youth themselves may reject the possibility of adoption. The Youth Permanency grantees sought new approaches to address these myths about adopting teenagers and identified successful practices for changing attitudes about permanency for older youth.
  
  Youth often have mistaken ideas about what adoption means. In many cases, no one has discussed adoption with them, or the youth rejected the idea early on and no one ever introduced the subject again. In addition, they may have experienced rejection and instability in foster care and may be understandably reluctant to trust any promise of permanence.
  
  Some approaches that the Youth Permanency grantees identified for changing youths' attitudes about adoption included the following:

  • Extensive one-on-one preparation that includes talking and more talking: Youth may need basic information, such as an explanation of why they're in foster care, what "termination of parental rights" means, and what open adoption entails. Opportunities for conversations may occur when least expected—such as during car rides. 
  • Group information sessions: Among their peers, youth may feel more comfortable asking questions about adoption and sharing their concerns.
  • Allowing youth to participate in adoption programs before they've committed to being adopted: Youth may not be comfortable actively pursuing adoption until they've met a potential family. A commitment to adoption shouldn't be a prerequisite for participation in permanency programs. Youth can—and often do—change their minds.
  • Identifying relatives and other family members: Mining case files and following up on youths' leads may result in a permanent connection. This can include paternal relatives, fictive kin, former foster parents, teachers, and others.
  • Exposure to potential families: Opportunities to meet families may include mentoring programs, weekend visits with host parents, and structured group events at which teens and families participate in fun activities.
  • Family team meetings: Meetings that involve everyone in the teens' lives, including birth relatives, provide a chance for teens to hear about the realities of their situation as well as the possibilities for permanency.

  Caseworkers may not be aware of permanency potential for youth. There are still workers who think that youth don't need families, or the workers don't view permanent placements as a priority. Youth Permanency grantees found a number of useful strategies for changing workers' attitudes, including:

  • Supervision that emphasizes youth-centered practice
  • Placement of project permanency staff (grantees) among youth and caseworkers, allowing project staff to interact regularly with caseworkers and youth and build relationships
  • Training in child-specific recruitment, so that workers had the tools for recruitment and began to see the potential for youth permanency
  • Training that emphasizes helping youth rethink the possibility of adoption

  Families may be reluctant to consider adopting older youth. Grantees found the following strategies useful in overcoming this reluctance:

  • Using multiple opportunities to expose families to older youth: Youth panels can be part of parents' training, and youth can be present in offices, at structured activities for teens and adults, and in public media events.
  • Allowing families to get to know youth one-on-one: Mentoring and weekend host visits are good opportunities. A family who knows a particular youth may be more open to considering adoption than a family who just has a general curiosity about adoption.
  • Building a community: Hosting regular events at which families and youth can spend time together on a regular basis (at least once a month) eventually leads to a community interested in helping youth find permanency.

  And there is one strategy that helps change attitudes of youth, workers, and families: Providing them with examples of successful adoptions of youth. Showcasing families and youth who can talk about their successful adoptive experiences is the best way to demonstrate the potential of youth permanency.
  
  For more information about the Youth Permanency grantees, visit their webpages:

  http://www.nrcadoption.org/resources/ypc/grantee-projects
  
  Many thanks to Susan Punnett of Kidsave in Washington, DC, and to Pat Dudley of You Gotta Believe! in New York City for providing the information for this article.

• Using Qualitative Interviews to Evaluate Youth Permanency

  Using Qualitative Interviews to Evaluate Youth Permanency

  In 2005, the Children's Bureau funded nine demonstration projects through an Adoption Opportunities grant, "Improving Permanency Outcomes by Developing Services and Supports for Youth Who Wish to Retain Contact With Family Members." The following article describes the mixed-method evaluation process used with the Family Builders by Adoption Dumisha Jamaa Project.
  
  The Dumisha Jamaa Project, based in Alameda County, California, uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection strategies to evaluate the success of the project and to create a fuller picture of the experiences of the youth, families, and workers involved in the project. Project partners include Family Builders' permanency workers—who are co-located in the county agency offices—and supervisors, the county caseworkers and administrators, and the evaluator. The partners meet on a monthly basis, and this regular communication contributes to the effectiveness of the project.
  
  While county staff focus on casework management, the Dumisha permanency workers can devote their time to finding families and establishing permanent connections for youth. They use a variety of techniques to locate family members and other potential connections, including file mining, Internet searches, genograms, and family group conferences. In addition, permanency workers conduct both youth-specific and general recruitment to find families. Some of their methods have included the Heart Gallery photography exhibit, short television spots, Internet photolistings, and matching events.
  
  Early in the project, the evaluator worked with project staff to develop several quantitative measures. Youth complete the Youth Self-Efficacy Measure, the Social Support Scale, and the Youth Permanency Measure when they enter the program and annually thereafter. Permanency workers and permanent adults identified by youth complete slightly different versions of the Permanency Measure. Responses to all these instruments are analyzed to measure any changes in attitudes and connections over time, as youth participate in the project.
  
  In order to provide a more complete picture of the project and of the youths' journey to permanency, the evaluation process also includes a qualitative component. The evaluator conducts qualitative interviews with youth, permanent parent(s), permanency workers and other project partner staff. To date, all seven Family Builders' Dumisha permanency workers and four project partner staff have completed face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. The evaluator has also conducted 13 youth interviews and 8 permanent parent interviews. While the interview process is ongoing, a number of interesting themes have emerged from the interviews.
  
  For instance, permanency workers shared some common thoughts about best practices and lessons learned in achieving permanency for older youth:

  • The successful public/private partnership has been crucial to the process, and the co-location of Dumisha permanency workers at the county agency has contributed to that success.
  • File mining, genograms, and family trees have been immensely helpful in identifying family connections, especially those that had been lost for many years.
  • The process of finding family connections and establishing relationships takes longer than originally anticipated—usually, 9 to 12 months—for older youth who have been in foster care for several years.
  • Wraparound services provide significant postplacement support for families.
  • Peer support groups are important for youth, because they provide a chance to meet other foster youth in similar situations.

  Many youth who have been interviewed expressed their appreciation for the chance to be heard and for the work of their permanency workers. The interviews shed light on their feelings about family and permanency, for instance:

  • The level of commitment an adult brings to the relationship with a youth is what constitutes family—not blood.
  • Permanency is a process of building trust, and finding a family is almost always worth the risk.
  • Permanency work is not just about finding a home but includes restoring family connections that have been lost. Sibling relationships have been significant to older youth in the project.
  • Youth are proud of their self-reliance and their ability to overcome adversity.

  Interviews with adults who have become permanent connections to youth revealed some lessons they had learned in the process:

  • The preparation process before a placement is critical in terms of having realistic expectations and needed resources for older youth.
  • Wraparound postplacement services (referrals for services, financial support) are crucial.
  • Families should expect to deal with challenging behaviors.
  • It's important to help youth maintain connections with their siblings and other family (including fictive kin).

  The evaluator will continue conducting interviews with youth, parents, and project partners in order to provide the most complete picture of the project's achievements and lessons learned. Using a mixed-methods approach to evaluation, with both quantitative and qualitative data, of this project has been important to learning best practices for older youth in search of permanency.
  
  For more information about the Dumisha Jamaa Project, visit the National Resource Center for Adoption website:
  
  www.nrcadoption.org/youthpermanencycluster/fbba.html
  
  Many thanks to Michelle Rosenthal of the Edgewood Institute for the Study of Community-Based Services, Evaluator of the Dumisha Project, for providing the information for this article.
   

• Evaluating the Family to Family Initiative

  Evaluating the Family to Family Initiative

  Family to Family began in 1992 as a systems change initiative to create more family-centered, neighborhood-based foster care services. Over the years, States and communities involved with Family to Family have achieved many positive outcomes, such as increasing the number of family foster care homes, reducing the number of placements in institutional settings, and reducing the overall number of children in care. In order to build upon those successes, the Annie E. Casey Foundation spent the last 3 years focusing on 15 anchor sites (in 5 California counties and 10 other States or communities) to further improve the Family to Family initiative and to evaluate its impact at both the child and system levels.
  
  A recent report from the Foundation details the phases of Family to Family since its inception and examines the anchor sites' implementation of four core strategies:

  • Building community partnerships
  • Team decision-making
  • Resource family recruitment, development, and support
  • Self-evaluation

  Because previous evaluations found that communities experience the greatest outcomes when all four strategies are fully implemented and functioning together, the Foundation focused its recent efforts on providing technical assistance to the 15 anchor sites in order to improve their development and integration of the core strategies. The evaluation report examines the sites' implementation efforts as well as child and family outcomes related to safety, permanency, family and community connections, and quality of care.
  
  The anchor sites also identified several agency factors that impacted the implementation of Family to Family, such as strong and consistent leadership, the substantial realignment of staff resources, and broad participation by managers, staff, and community partners. The report includes several lessons learned and recommendations for the Family to Family initiative.
  
  The full report, Evaluation of the Anchor-Site Phase of Family to Family, by Lynn Usher, Judith Wildfire, Daniel Webster, and David Crampton, is available on the Annie E. Casey Foundation website:
  
  www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/Publications.aspx?pubguid={0B379E86-3BD9-4FAF-A3B2-96845501B2B7}

• May Is National Foster Care Month!

  May Is National Foster Care Month!

  During May, organizations across the country observe National Foster Care Month by raising awareness about the 463,000 children and youth in foster care and the caring adults who make a difference in their lives. Social workers, foster parents, mentors, volunteers, and many others play an important role in helping children and youth build lasting connections and achieve permanency. Many of these adults offer services and supports to families to promote reunification or, when that isn't possible, adoption, guardianship, or other permanent connections for children and youth.
  
  This year, the theme of the National Foster Care Month website on Child Welfare Information Gateway is "Partnering With Families and Youth to Achieve Permanency." Geared to child welfare and related professionals, the website includes information and resources from the Children's Bureau Training and Technical Assistance Network to help policymakers, administrators, managers, and caseworkers provide better permanency services for children and families involved with the child welfare system. The website also features stories of youth who have successfully achieved permanency, highlighting the importance of youth having lifelong connections to people who are important to them.
  
  www.childwelfare.gov/fostercaremonth
  
  The National Foster Care Month website from Casey Family Programs and its partners offers a wealth of information and encourages the public to get involved in the lives of youth in foster care, including:

  • Statistics and data
  • A "Change a Lifetime Menu," of positive things that people can do if they have a few minutes, hours, weeks, or more time to spare
  • The National Foster Care Month Toolkit, with ideas, tips, and easy-to-use templates to help organizations plan a National Foster Care Month campaign
  • A calendar of events
  • A newsroom for the media
  • Success stories from foster care alumni and people who are making a difference in the lives of youth in foster care

  www.fostercaremonth.org

• Finding the Youth Voice in the Permanency Process

  Finding the Youth Voice in the Permanency Process

  In 2005, the Children's Bureau funded nine demonstration projects through an Adoption Opportunities grant, "Improving Permanency Outcomes by Developing Services and Supports for Youth Who Wish to Retain Contact With Family Members." The following article draws on lessons learned from these Youth Permanency projects about engaging youth and listening to the youth voice.
  
  Youth who have spent a long time in the foster care system—sometimes, much of their lives—may be understandably dubious when a new worker invites them to participate in their own permanency plan. Until that point, they may never have been given a chance to control their own future.
  
  Engaging these youth and giving them some control over what happens to them is part of the goal of the nine Children's Bureau-funded Youth Permanency projects. The projects offer new hope to youth who are in danger of aging out of the foster care system with no permanent connection to a caring adult. The projects' permanency workers have found a number of ways to help the youth overcome their past trauma and disappointment so that they are open to new permanency options.
  
  One way to gauge a teen's readiness for permanency and to open the discussion about permanency options is through the use of a written scale. The It's Up to Me ReConnect Project developed an instrument to assess feelings and attitudes at various points in the permanency process. When youth first enter the program, they complete the Openness to Permanency Scale, which assesses issues of family loyalty and self-esteem in order to measure their willingness to be adopted. The scale is administered again 6 months and 1 year later, as well as when the youth leaves the program, so that changes in attitude can be followed and discussed. The instrument not only provides insight to the permanency worker and caseworker, but it often helps the youth articulate feelings that may have remained unexpressed until that point. The scale can help youth realize that their feelings are normal and are shared by many others in their situation, and it may provide a springboard for the youth to talk about feelings about permanency.
  
  Discussing with youth how they feel about permanency is the first step toward engaging teens in that process. Giving them some control is another way to increase their involvement and to build their comfort level. For instance, permanency workers found that teens were responsive to these kinds of questions:

  • How would you like to maintain connections with your birth family—with which members and in what ways?
  • What would be the best way to initiate contact with kin or other potential connections—phone calls, letters, emails, or face-to-face visits?
  • How would you like to "market" yourself to potential families, for instance, through events, photolistings, or other activities?
  • Where and when would you like to meet an interested prospective family, and what should be discussed and shared at the meeting?

  Giving teens options and respecting their choices can build their confidence and participation in their own permanency process. Some of the other ways that the Youth Permanency projects are able to give youth a voice include:

  • Holding family team meetings or family group decision-making sessions where the youth's voice can be heard by workers, family members, attorneys, and others
  • Sponsoring weekend retreats, camps, or other gatherings where youth in similar situations can share their experiences and learn from each other
  • Including youth panels as part of training for workers and/or foster parents, so that the trainees can hear the youth stories firsthand
  • Recruiting youth to be speakers at conferences, presentations, and media events

  Ultimately, youth in foster care are like any other youth teetering on the brink of adulthood. They are learning to make their own decisions, but they need loving adults to guide and support them. The Youth Permanency projects are able to engage youth by giving them choices about their permanency options while providing them with guidance and support so that they leave foster care with permanent connections to loving adults.
  
  For more information about Project ReConnect, including all of the tools developed for the project, and the other Youth Permanency Projects, visit the National Resource Center for Adoption:

  [Editor's note: This link is no longer available.]

  For an overview of the work of the projects, view this PowerPoint from the Children's Bureau's 2009 Agencies and Courts conference:

  [Editor's note: This link is no longer available.]

   

  Many thanks to Dona Abbott, Director, and Mary Banghart Therrien, Evaluator, from the It's Up to Me ReConnect Project, who provided the information for this article.
   

• Placement Stability in Foster Care

  Placement Stability in Foster Care

  A number of studies have established a connection between frequent moves in foster care and poorer outcomes for children and youth. A new action brief released by PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia analyzed the results of the first year of a longitudinal Children's Stability and Well-Being Study that looked at placement histories of 450 children in the Philadelphia child welfare system. The report, Securing Child Safety, Well-Being, and Permanency Through Placement Stability in Foster Care, lists four major findings related to placement stability:

  • Children in kinship placements demonstrated greater placement stability than those in nonrelative foster care.
  • Placement stability for children in nonrelative foster care was often influenced by the number of children living in the foster home.
  • Behavioral health resources to help kinship and foster parents mitigate child behavioral problems were limited.
  • Timeliness of placement stability was not measured, and placement moves were undercounted.

  The action brief offers several policy recommendations tied to these findings and to the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. The Act recognizes the importance of placement stability for children’s safety and well-being, and it requires greater accountability to prevent discontinuity in schooling and the receipt of medical care.
  
  Securing Child Safety, Well-Being, and Permanency Through Placement Stability in Foster Care, by Kathleen Noonan, David Rubin, Robin Mekonnen, Sarah Zlotnick, and Amanda O’Reilly, is available on the PolicyLab website: 
  
  http://policylab.us/index.php/publications/evidence-to-action/45-policylab-position-paper.html

• Logic Model for Youth Permanency

  Logic Model for Youth Permanency

  In 2005, the Children's Bureau funded nine demonstration projects through an Adoption Opportunities grant, "Improving Permanency Outcomes by Developing Services and Supports for Youth Who Wish to Retain Contact With Family Members" (the Permanency cluster). The following article describes the development and purpose of the cluster's logic model.
  
  The Children's Bureau routinely requires applicants for funding to include a logic model as part of their application. This requirement helps the applicants—and later, the grantees—articulate how their funded activities relate to their desired outcomes. The logic model describes the resources that will be required, the planned program activities, and what the program intends to achieve (commonly called "outcomes").
  
  The nine grantees in the Children's Bureau's Permanency cluster all developed their own logic models as part of their grant applications and were familiar with the benefits of this process. So, about 2 years into their funding period, when they found that they needed a good visual way to explain what the cluster as a whole was doing, they turned to a new logic model. Using the nine individual logic models, an overall logic model was developed for the whole cluster. It included the factors and processes common to the individual grantees.
  
  The resulting logic model included six types of components:

  • Inputs (e.g., funding, staff, partners)
  • Core services (e.g., build youth empowerment in permanency process, recruit potential families)
  • Outputs (e.g., percentage of case files mined, number of inquiries from families wanting to adopt)
  • Short-term outcomes (e.g., .youth increase knowledge about permanency options, youth establish positive relationships with adults)
  • Intermediate outcomes (e.g., youth increase feelings of empowerment, youth maintain connections with adults)
  • Long-term outcomes (e.g., increased permanency for youth, including open adoption)

  This logic model continues to provide a good backdrop for the work of the cluster and is an important visual representation of the process that the grantees follow to achieve permanency for youth. The format of the logic model emphasizes both the wide range of activities as well as the common goals of the nine grantees, demonstrating that there are many ways to increase permanency for older youth in foster care.
  
  To view the Permanency cluster's logic model, visit the National Resource Center for Adoption website:
  
  www.nrcadoption.org/youthpermanencycluster/logic.html
  
  Many thanks to Kate Lyon, of James Bell Associates, who provided the information for this article and serves as a technical assistance provider for the cluster.