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Guides and Practice Resources - General
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Permanence for Young People
In June 2004 the National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning and the Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice at Casey Family Services co-sponsored a meeting of experts in the field of youth permanency to develop a framework and measurements that can be used by public child welfare agencies throughout the country to improve practice. We believe that such a framework for practice, combined with a way to measure results, will be particularly helpful to States seeking to prepare and implement Program Improvement Plans in response to the Child and Family Service Reviews. The experience and expertise in permanence for young people represented at the meeting provided the guidance to develop this comprehensive national framework and outcome measures.
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Dependent Youth Aging Out of Foster Care: A Guidebook for Judges
This guidebook from the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia outlines questions judges should answer when ruling on permanency or discharge plans for youth in foster care. Both national and Pennsylvania guides are available.
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Permanency Pact
This free tool from Foster Club for Grownups creates a formalized, facilitated process to connect youth in foster care with a supportive adult in a life-long, kinlike relationship. This process has proved successful in clarifying relationships and identifying mutual expectations.
Guides and Practice Resources from the States
The information on this site is designed to help foster youth and the people who care about them learn about options for permanency.
Massachusetts: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned
From November 2005-October 2006, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services sponsored a statewide Breakthrough Series Collaborative focused on Adolescent Permanency. This initiative supported 29 teams from across Massachusetts, along with one team each from Rhode Island and Maine, as they tested and implemented practices to improve the way permanency is achieved for adolescents. This final report highlights the key themes and promising practices that emerged from these 31 participating teams.
New England States: Declaration of Commitment to Permanent Lifelong Connections for Foster Youth
On October 20, 2006 Commissioners and Directors of the New England public child welfare agencies and Board Presidents of the Foster and Adoptive Parent Associations in the New England states took a symbolic step. Each of them pledged their individual commitment and the commitment of their respective agencies to support and achieve permanent lifelong connections for all children and youth that they serve. The Declaration was signed in Nashua, NH at the ninth biennial meeting of the New England Association of Child Welfare Commissioners and Directors and the New England Foster Care Association. Each organization will display the commitment document in their respective states and will work together to fulfill the obligations that it references. Members of the two groups and invited guests seek effective ways to increase collaborative efforts as a means for improving the lives of children and families they serve. For more information about the Declaration or to receive a copy of the text please contact Julie Sweeney Springwater, the Director of NEACWCD at jsping@jbcc.harvard.edu.
New York State: Adolescent Services and Outcomes Practice Paper
This guide provides local social services districts,
voluntary agencies and Division of Rehabilitative Services with guidance on a framework for
practice with adolescents in foster care that is intended to strengthen services to adolescents and improve
their achievement of permanency. This framework for practice represents a major shift in thinking, by focusing
on establishing permanent, nurturing adult connections for adolescents in foster care as well as
providing these youth with life skills.
New York City: Preparing Youth for Adulthood
This Administration for Children's Services report focuses on strengthening and expanding supports and services for foster care youth. The initiative shifts the focus from an independent-living to a youth-development framework and establishes six goals for all youth. It requires developing a plan to achieve these goals when the child reaches age 14 and setting and tracking action steps for achieving the goals.
Resources
- A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime: Relational Permanence among Young Adults with Foster Care Backgrounds
This study from Chapin Hall conducted in-depth interviews and created personal network maps with twenty-nine young adults participating in a program offering resources to help them make successful transitions to adulthood. The aim of this study was to explore their social support networks and examine how foster care might constrain or facilitate supportive relationships into adulthood. The report closes with implications for practice and policy.
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Proceedings of the Stuart Foundation Convenings - 2002 - 2005
The Stuart Foundation hosted annual convenings from 2002 to 2005 to explore permanency for older children and adolescents as part of its California Permanency for Youth Project, which posts the reports of the convenings on its website.
- 2006 National Convening on Youth Permanence
The Annie E.Casey Foundation and Casey Family Services hosted the 2006 convening. This summary is a synthesis of the broad themes that emerged from the Convening and describes effective and promising approaches to youth permanence that were identified and the new learning that emerged as a result of the Convening’s in-depth dialogues.
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Permanency Planning: Creating Lifelong Connections
This monograph from the National Resource Center for Youth Development provides an overview of the
permanency issues for older youth in care, presents the results and outcomes of the Adolescents and Permanency Think Tank in !999, and presents next steps and recommendations for
achieving permanency for adolescents.
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Successful Adolescent Adoptions
This study from the Center for Child and Family Studies, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, used interviews with adoptive parents and adoptees to discover some of the factors that contribute to successful adolescent adoptions.
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Permanence for Older Wards
This issue brief from the Children and Family Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Social Work discusses the need to consider permanency and lifelong relationships for youth who are also receiving transition planning services.
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Transitioning Youth: Blending the Worlds of Permanency and Independent Living
An article on combining permanency work with transition planning from the Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice.
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Using Non-Judicial Court Staff to Help Achieve Permanency for Children
In discussing ways to improve a court's ability to achieve permanency for children, people often focus on the responsibilities of judges, attorneys and caseworkers. The activities of non-judicial court staff are often overlooked, even though their activities play a central role in the functioning of the court and can have a significant impact on the court's ability to achieve permanency for children. This article from the ABA Center on Children and the Law discusses: innovative docketing practices; additional activities reported to help achieve permanency in a timely and effective manner; and the the pre-appointment of counsel as a means to improved outcomes.
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Who Am I?: Why Family Really Matters
This article from Focal Point describes the positive results of efforts to reunite children in foster care with their families. It includes a case study, reunification and support strategies, and outcome information.
- Permanent Solutions: Seeking Family Stability for Youth in Foster Care
Children's Rights conducted an in-depth analysis of New York City's child welfare system with the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) on the permanency outcomes facing children in the foster care system. Concrete recommendations suggest actions that can be taken to avoid having children languish without a plan to either reunify them with their biological families or to leave foster care for adoptive families.
- Report to Congress on Adoption and Other Permanency Outcomes for Children in Foster Care: Focus on Older Children
In recent years, increasing national attention has been focused on the need to find adoptive homes for children in foster care. The Adoption Promotion Act (the Act), passed in 2003, supported these efforts by reauthorizing the Adoption Incentive Program, a key outcome-focused tool for promoting adoption, and also introduced a special focus on the need to find adoptive homes for children ages 9 and older. Congress included in the Act a requirement for a report that presents the strategies and promising approaches being undertaken to achieve permanency outcomes for children in foster care. In keeping with the legislative requirement, this report addresses not only adoption, but also the achievement of other permanency outcomes for children, with a special focus on older children. The challenges faced in attempts to achieve these outcomes are summarized, along with strategies for addressing these challenges. The report concludes with a summary of the progress that has been made in addressing these issues and the strategies that show promise of improving outcomes for children in foster care.
- Rethinking Birth Parents as Resources to Youth in Foster Care
The August 2007 issue of Connections from Casey Family Services examines ways in which policymakers, child welfare administrators, and practitioners can support youth in foster care to find, connect with, and maintain safe relationships with birth families.
Curriculum
- Preparing Youth for Permanent Family Connections - Preparing Everyone for Permanency Family Connections
This one-day curriculum from the Bay Area Academy in California is designed to train child welfare professionals in preparing youth for permanent placements. It provides step-by-step instructions for providing training that addresses: the definition of permanence as it pertains to youth in foster care; assessing whether a "permanency orientation" has been incorporated into personal and agency practices; critical stages of youth development that impact the ability to think, communicate, and make decisions about permanence; respectful and effective approaches to communicating with youth and their surrounding support systems regarding permanence, including respectful listening, engagement, and follow-up; the development of youth-specific permanency plans in collaboration with youth; appropriate strategies to assist youth in preparing for family living; and meaningful records-search when reviewing a case record. Exercises are included to foster understanding of key concepts.
Teleconferences and Audio Files
- Making the Child Welfare System Work for Older Youth
In this June 2007 forum co-sponsored by the Urban Institute and the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center for Children, panelists discussed how best to serve the permanency needs of older youth, focusing on where adoption fits as a permanency goal, youth perspectives on placements and permanency, the availability of post-adoption services, and concurrent planning for children in their preteen years.
Webcast
- Youth Permanency
On March 21, 2007 the NRCFCPPP and CWLA hosted this teleconferences for state foster care and adoption managers on youth permanency. To listen to the audio files and download the handouts, visit our archived teleconferences page.
PowerPoint Presentations
NRCFCPPP Information Packet
Bibliography
Websites
- Youth Permanency
This section of the Child Welfare Information Gateway website is devoted to Youth Permanency, with sections on Strategies and Programs, Spotlight on Adoption, Supporting Youth in Foster Care, Youth Perspectives, and Outcomes for Emancipated Youth.
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California Permanency for Youth Project
This website provides information on programs and strategies for accomplishing permanency for foster youth, including: best youth permanency practices; identified barriers to permanency for youth; updates on four California counties that are working to improve permanency outcomes for youth; updates on the California Task Force for Youth Permanency; and summaries of National Youth Permanency meetings.
- Training Aids from Robert G. Lewis
In addition to Toolkits offered for purchase, this website contains several helpful tools that can be downloaded for free.
Last updated 03/20/08
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