Informational & Practice Publications, Resources, & Tools

For Child Welfare Professionals

• NRCPFC Placement Stability: A Web-based Practice Toolkit 
  This online toolkit from the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections (NRCPFC) provides information on the three core components that support placement stability practice: Individualized assessment and placement services for children and youth; Recruitment, assessment, selection, and support of caregivers; and, Placement stability policies and practices for child welfare organizations.  The toolkit includes a broad array of resources from research, state policies, procedures and practices, and curricula, as well as an organizational self study guide.

		Training & Curricula

• Promoting Permanency through Worker/Parent Visits
  This one day competency-based curriculum from NRCPFC helps workers structure their visits with families to promote safety, well being and permanency.  It provides a review of what has been learned from the CFSR about the relationship between worker/parent visits and placement stability and permanency and gives workers seven developmental checklists and questions to assess safety and well being.  Workers learn how to use a four step process to organize their visits with families.

• Promoting Placement Stability and Permanency through Caseworker/Child Visits
  Through the Child and Family Service Review process, it was found that there is a significant positive relationship between caseworker visits with children and a number of other indicators for safety, permanency and well-being.  This curriculum was developed by the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections (NRCPFC) in response to that clear indication that the importance of caseworker visits to children in foster care is positively correlated to outcomes for children and families.  This one day curriculum is intended to be part of either pre-service or ongoing training within a child welfare organization.  It builds on the concepts of attachment, strengths-based assessment and planning, child and youth development, effective interviewing and organizing contacts, allowing caseworkers to practice some of the skills through role plays and preparatory activities.  The seven developmental checklists are tools for caseworker's to use as they begin to more intentionally structure their visits to focus on safety, permanence, and well being.

		Teleconferences, Webinars, Webcasts & Videos

• Achieving Permanence for Children: Pioneering Possibilities for Placement Stability 
  In this NRCPFC webcast, Lorrie L. Lutz, a consultant with NRCPFC, discussed CFSR results and findings from a survey of the states designed to learn about barriers to placement stability and promising practices to promote permanency.  Shaun Donahue, Director of Field Services in Vermont, described step-by-step how this state achieved significant improvement in foster care placement stability through careful analysis, connecting staff to problem-solving activities and system change. (November 17, 2003)
  
  

		State Examples

• California:  Stability Reports 
  The Center for Social Services Research, University of California at Berkeley, in collaboration with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), receives quarterly extracts from the California Child Welfare Services Case Management System.  Placement stability is one of the factors tracked by entry cohorts.  Reports are accessible through this site.