Module 2: Strategies

MODULE 2 Putting an Urgency on Permanency Practices

Strategies:

Re-envision the goal of a residential intervention as an opportunity to create and support permanency for youth and families. Recognize that “best practice is permanency practice.”[1] Rather than seeking a “placement,” the goal of permanency-focused residential interventions is to do whatever is necessary to restore, rebuild, and/or recreate supportive and permanent family relationships for youth.

• For youth with no viable family, a permanency focus means finding, creating, or recreating a permanent family.
• For youth with viable permanent families, a permanency focus means that staff has the education and skills, and the program has implemented practices to effectively engage, partner with, support, and offer culturally responsive skill building for families toward the goal of successful reunification at home and in the community post-residential discharge. This includes focusing on healing and strengthening relationships between family members, and connecting the parents, siblings, and youth served to needed personal and community support.

Ensure that the agency mission and vision statements reflect permanency for all youth. The permanency focus starts with an organization’s leadership. Residential leaders who are permanency-focused define the goal of the residential intervention as family finding and engagement for youth without safe and permanent family connections. For youth with a permanent family in place, the goal is to prepare each youth and their family members for permanency and long-term post-residential discharge success.

Recognize the disparities experienced by youth of color regarding permanency, and address permanency through culturally and linguistically competent approaches. Children of color in care are less likely to secure a permanent family compared with white children.[2] Permanency-focused organizations commit to an urgent permanency focus for all youth, with specific attention to the needs of the youth of color. When staff are of the same culture as the families served and speak the same languages, it can improve services directed toward achieving long-term permanency. This includes understanding culturally embedded views of families, and how some cultures include half-siblings, cousins, extended family, fictive kin, and natural supports as key family members. Organizations that place a central focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion[1]  are better positioned to address the permanency needs of the youth of color.

View the residential intervention as a short-term intervention. Importantly, permanency for youth and families has not occurred when youth remain in residential or state-agency custody long-term. Thus, leaders who are focused on permanency put staff skills and program practices in place that lead to residential interventions lasting as short a time as possible⎯ideally under six months. A number of residential organizations that have embraced permanency and short-term residential interventions have been able to move their organizations to average lengths of stay of fewer than three months.

Reframe traditional clinical interpretations when youth are displaying behaviors that are not reflective of having self-control or self-regulation skills. In the past, sometimes when youth displayed aggression or ran away, the behavior was attributed to their behavioral issues and/or mental health diagnoses. However, when shifting to a permanency approach, we learn that youth often behave this way in response to frustration, sadness, and/or chronic loneliness about being disconnected from family. Sometimes this behavior results from unsuccessfully fighting for access to their family.

Ensure that youth are seeing family members and communicating with them as often as possible. Make it clear that reuniting youth with family is the goal of the residential intervention. When reunification is not possible with a youth’s identified family members, assure the youth that creating and building additional family relationships to fill in the gaps is the responsibility and focus of the residential staff.

Hire staff for permanency values, train for skills, and supervise for outcomes. The “right people” to hire are those who understand the fundamental right and need for youth to have family connections, as opposed to those who believe the goal of services is to “fix” youth who come from “negative” homes and/or community environments. Find staff who are committed to permanency values such as:

• a belief that family is a right that youth should not have to “earn”
• a view that family finding and achieving permanency for every youth is a moral obligation
• a strength-based, non-judgmental approach
• culturally and linguistically competent practices that focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion
• a belief that people can change and make improvements
• an understanding that youth thrive best in family and community, rather than placements or programs.

Potential hires of permanency-focused organizations understand that much of their work will take place in the home and community, rather than in the residential program. The right people reflect the ethnicities of the families and youth served, have a deep understanding of their cultures, and speak their languages. Permanency training is thus provided throughout the organization, including for all disciplines of staff and for the organization’s board. Training includes a focus on family finding and engagement and clinical approaches focused on engaging, partnering with, supporting, and offering culturally responsive skill building for families to support long-term success post-residential discharge. Training centers on permanency best practices, with consultation or coaching to support the implementation of permanency skills and practices. Supervision to reinforce values and skills complements a culture of outcome measurement.  to assess the organization’s progress toward achieving permanency for every youth.

Identify a family finding and engagement practice model. Family finding and engagement entails locating potential extended family members and natural supports for youth without a viable family, engaging them, supporting them, and successfully connecting them with the youth. Several models of family finding and engagement exist that stress safety and that provide detailed strategies for locating, engaging, and supporting potential family members and supports. The models inform how organizations can support the process of achieving permanency through intensive engagement and support. The step of “finding” family members and natural supports is typically the easiest. Engaging and collaborating with the family is the most critical component.

While making permanency the central goal of family finding and engagement, recognize that it is not the only goal. Some family members and natural supports located during the family finding and engagement process may not provide a permanent family home to the youth but can still be an important source of continued support. These individuals may be able to connect the youth with the family of origin, answer important questions, and provide ongoing support to the youth.

Put an urgent focus on permanency by beginning permanency steps pre residential admission. Continue working toward and supporting successful permanency throughout the residential intervention, including post-discharge. Permanency steps include:

• building a Child and Family Team to advance permanency progress
• initiating and being persistent about family finding and engagement for youth with no viable permanent family, including by expanding the youth’s network of family relationships
• targeting readiness activities that will ensure that the youth and his/her family members are prepared for permanency.

These key permanency steps may be accomplished through:

• appointing a family finder to assist with family finding and engagement, building partnerships, and supporting and offering culturally responsive skill-building to family members
• creating a plan for frequent family time at home (with staff supervision, if required)
• providing in-home services and supports for the family
• prioritizing frequent and continuous contact between the youth and his/her family by phone and video as often as possible (ideally multiple times weekly), as well as in-person
• creating a mechanism for identifying and promptly addressing emerging barriers to permanency
• providing appropriate family and community supports post-residential intervention to ensure continued success.

To be permanency-focused, create goals about permanency, such as fostering family engagement, partnerships, and skill-building. Identify and put community supports in place to foster long-term success. With the goal of fostering long-term success for youth and families at home and in their communities, all “work” that happens with a residential intervention connects to partnering with families and youth to build the skills needed to be successful in the home and community. Youth have an active voice and choice about where home will be and with whom. As Lauren Frey of Plummer Youth Promise shares in a video clip within this module, “Permanency IS the treatment.” Thus, all treatment, service, and support planning should have this focus, with program services taking place in the home and community whenever possible.

For youth in foster care, child welfare and residential interventions must share responsibility for creating permanency. The responsibility for connecting youth with families has traditionally been the responsibility of the child welfare system. However, when all providers have a strong and shared commitment to permanency, they can embrace this goal together with urgency and participate in family finding and engagement services to ensure that youth are connected with, belong to, and are claimed by the families they deserve. Residential staff can support the skill-building and readiness needed for youth and families to be successful at home.

For youth in contact with multiple systems, develop a high-functioning, cross-system workgroup. Youth in contact with child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, intellectual disabilities, substance abuse, educational and/or other agencies often experience frustration when systems appear to be working against one another. Staff from each agency can strive to be on the same page with each other’s roles and goals for each youth and family. For instance, representatives from each system can be involved in planning meetings regularly with the youth and family to clarify their roles when it comes to the shared goal of ensuring safety, well-being, and permanency.

Include youth in all planning meetings about their permanency plans. Within permanency-focused organizations, youth always have a voice that is elevated and empowered when it comes to decision-making about their own lives. To empower and include youth:

• youth are included in all team meetings (e.g., Child and Family Teams, family team conferencing) and related meetings about permanency planning
• a Youth Partner/Peer Mentor is available to support the youth if possible
• youth participation is developmentally appropriate
• youth have a say regarding the composition of the Child and Family Team and the meeting location.

Include family members in planning meetings and discussions about permanency. Families are critical to all conversations about permanency decisions. To empower and include families:

• family members are included in all Child and Family Team meetings about permanency planning
• Family/Parent Partners are available to support the family, whenever possible.

Include and foster relationships with natural supports. Within permanency-focused organizations, youth and families are invited to decide which natural supports will participate on their team. Teams are primarily comprised of caring adults who are not paid to be in the life of the youth or family and who can commit to being in their lives long after services expire and the residential organization involvement ceases. Residential staff are committed to the critical importance of⎯and are offered the education, skill training, support, practice strategies, and tools for⎯working with the youth and family to develop natural support networks and relationships in their home communities.

Be creative in securing funding to support permanency and family finding and engaging activities. Creative funding solutions include tasking the board of directors with fundraising to support a permanency-related organizational goal. Successful youth permanency stories are essential to impactful fundraising. Organizations can also identify braided/pooled funding opportunities in which organizations (e.g., mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice) contribute funding to a collaborative permanency-focused project. Organizations have found success by sharing training and technical assistance resources in this critical area.

As part of an overall outcome measurement strategy, conduct an “organizational permanency self-assessment.” Organizations can begin by assessing their current practices and their readiness for becoming permanency-focused. Staff throughout each organization participate in the assessment, along with youth and families. Several tools can guide this assessment.[3]