For more information on the importance of permanent connections with caring adults, see our page on Youth Permanency.

Resources

• Six Steps to Find a Family: A Practice Guide to Family Search and Engagement
  This guide from the NRCPFC and the California Permanency for Youth Project provides detailed guidance on casework practice that supports family search and engagement in the quest to provide permanency for youth people. See the accompanying PowerPoint presentation below.

• Appropriate Referrals, Requests for Location Services, Child Support Applications, and Electronic Interface between Child Welfare and Child Support Enforcement Agencies
  This Information Memorandum provides information to State title IV-D and title IV-B/IV-E agencies on three main issues:
  1. Referrals by the title IV-B/IV-E agencies to the IV-D agency (this includes determining what constitutes an "appropriate" referral and also defining the difference between requests for location services and full case referrals);
  2. Applications for child support on behalf of children not receiving title IV-E foster care payments; and
  3. Electronic interfaces between the title IV-D agency's State child support enforcement systems (CSES) and the title IV-B/IV-E agency's Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS).

• Child Welfare and Child Support: Working Together to Help Children
  This handout was developed to educate child welfare staff about how they can access the Federal Parent Locator Service (FLPS).

• Making “Relative Search” Happen: A Guide to Finding and Involving Relatives at Every Stage of the Child Welfare Process
  This guide from Child Focus provides a framework for creating and supporting a process of searching for relatives that can be used throughout the child welfare process to ensure that children and youth are connected to family members. It addresses not only the specifics of relative search, but the underlying values and policy needed to “signal a commitment to the importance of kinship connections throughout a child’s life.”

• Family Search & Engagement: A Comprehensive Practice Guide
  This guide from Catholic Community Services of Western Washington and EMQ Children & Family Services is a set of practices designed to locate, engage, connect, and support family resources for youth. It identifies issues and activities involved in relative search, and provides a variety of practical tools to assist the practitioner in the day-to-day work. (2008)

• Workshop Handouts: Lighting the Fire of Urgency
  Handouts from the New York State Citizens' Coalition for Children 17th Annual Statewide Adoption Training Conference in May 2006. Presentation by Kevin Campbell.
  
  
• Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition: Extreme Recruitment™ Toolbox
  Visit the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition’s website to learn about their “Extreme Recruitment™” approach to matching youth with adoptive families and to access their Extreme Recruitment Toolbox. The Extreme Recruitment™ Toolbox includes a variety of resources related to family search and engagement.
  
  
• Family Engagement
  This bulletin for professional child welfare caseworkers from the Child Welfare Information Gateway describes the benefits of family engagement in the child welfare system and discusses ways to achieve meaningful family engagement, specific strategies that reflect family engagement, and examples of State and local child welfare programs that have achieved success with engaging families. (2010)
  
  

Resources from the States

• California: Exploring Santa Clara County's Family Finding Program
  This report from the Bay Area Social Services Consortium evaluates the feasibility of implementing the Family Finding program in Contra Costa County in California. It explains the process, the funding for the program, the benefits of the program, the program's successes and obstacles, and implications and recommendations for Contra Costa County.

• Indiana
  NRCPFC consultant Lucy Ann Carter has been working with Youth Connections Program staff. Together, they have prepared a history of the program as well as several PowerPoint presentations for use in various trainings at both state and local levels.
  • Indiana's Youth Connections Program - A Program History

  • Indiana Youth Connections Program
    This presentation is used by Youth Connections Program staff to explain their family finding work.

  • Foster Parent Presentation
    This presentation was prepared for foster parents.

• Iowa:
  
  • Relative Search & Placements
    Practice tips for caseworkers.

  • Completing the Circle: Uncovering, Discovering & Creating Connections for Your Foster & Adoptive Children
    This guide from the Iowa Foster & Adoptive Parents Association was created to help foster and adoptive parents identify, locate, and engage as many caring individuals as possible -- biological and other -- to support the child in their care over his or her lifetime.
    
    
• Kentucky: Resource on Diligent Search for Parents and Relatives
  Kentucky submitted this resource for diligent search for parents and relatives as part of their PIP work for the PIP Benchmark: Improve Identification and Location of Family Members (and as part of their efforts to implement Fostering Connections). The Action Steps were to: Revise standards of practice to reflect process; and, Develop practice guides and resources to assist field staff. This resource outlines revisions made and offers an introduction to relative search and placement and relevant procedure. It includes a Relative Exploration Form, Notice to Relative of Removal of a Child Form, Absent Parent and Relative Search Handbook: A Guide for Social Workers, Absent Parent Search Form, Absent Parent Search Checklist, definitions, several types of sample letters, and, a Relative Placement Decision Making Matrix.
  
  
• Michigan:
  • Absent Parent Protocol
    This guide was developed as a resource for identifying, locating and, if appropriate, involving absent parents in child protective proceedings.

  • Tools for Parent Search
    The Department of Human Services provides this list of tools for individuals who wish to pursue their own search. The sites listed are not endorsed by DHS.

• Minnesota: Relative Search Best Practice Guide
  The Minnesota Department of Human Services created this guide to assist social service agencies in performing relative searches when a child is removed from the home. Benefits of relative placement, cultural considerations in identifying and finding relatives, and the supervisor's role in supporting relative search efforts are discussed. Examples of how different agencies in the United States have developed systems to successfully identify and locate relatives are provided.

• New York: Locating Absent Fathers and Extended Family Guidance Paper
  The purpose of this guidance paper is to provide information on the need for, and methods of, locating absent parents of children in foster care so that the child’s permanency and well-being can be achieved more effectively and efficiently. Topics include the importance of locating absent fathers, the identified barriers to locating absent fathers, and recommendations that social services districts and voluntary authorized agencies can consider to support or improve their practices and permanency results.

• Wisconsin: Practice Guide for Locating and Involving Non-Custodial Parents, Alleged Fathers, and Relatives
  Wisconsin law requires that when children are placed in out-of-home care, placement with a relative must be considered, and, if a child is not placed with a relative, the reason(s) for nonplacement must be documented in the permanency plan. When a child is being removed from his or her home, caseworkers have a responsibility to search out and locate relatives and make attempts to involve them in the child's life either as a placement or as a resource and potential future placement. This policy provides minimum standards, guidance, and tools which will assist agencies in identifying, locating, and involving non-custodial parents, alleged fathers, and relatives as resources for children, especially children who have been removed from their homes.