Comprehensive Family Assessment.  The ongoing practice of informing decision-making by identifying, considering, and weighing factors that impact children, youth, and their families. Assessment occurs from the time children and families come to the attention of the child welfare system-or before-and continues to case closure.

Concurrent Planning. A process of working towards one legal permanency goal (typically reunification) while at the same time establishing and implementing an alternative permanency goal and plan that are worked on concurrently to move children/youth more quickly to a safe and stable permanent family. This is a process which involves concurrent rather than sequential permanency planning efforts. It involves a mix of meaningful family engagement, targeted case practice, and legal strategies aimed at achieving timely permanency, while at the same time establishing and actively working a concurrent permanency plan in case the primary goal cannot be accomplished in a timely manner. It is not a fast track to adoption, but to permanency.

Differential Assessment.  Process by which we individualize our understanding of the individual, family or group in the context of their present circumstances, past experiences, and potential for future functioning; deepen our family-centered understanding of the child in the context of family, culture, and community; and strengthen our understanding of the personal, interpersonal and environmental context in which children and families exist and interact.

Family Search and Engagement.  Identification of  family members, active involvement of these family members  in case planning with the child or youth in foster care, and exploration of the possibility of establishing meaningful and lasting relationships between them and the child or youth.
Family Teaming.  Structured, facilitated meetings that bring family members together so that, with the support of professionals and community resources, they can create a plan that ensures the safety of a child and meets the family’s needs.
Full Disclosure.  The respectful, candid discussion that begins when a child is placed in foster care, is offered to the parents and other team members, and continues through the life of the case and that includes parents’ rights and responsibilities, the problems that have been identified that led to their child’s placement in foster care, the changes needed/the expectations of the agency and the court, alternative decision-making, and possible consequences.
Intensive Case Planning.  Case planning that includes early and intensive service provision to parents, focusing on parental ability and willingness to make changes to undertake caretaking responsibilities, and adherence to firm time lines for permanency decision-making during which both reunification and alternative permanency options are pursued.

Parent-Child Visitation.  Face-to-face contact between parents and their children in foster care that is scheduled in advance in a neutral setting. This type of visitation is considered the primary child welfare intervention for maintaining parent-child relationships necessary for successful family reunification.
Prognostic Case Review.   Process by which the child welfare agency considers factors that make timely reunification more or less difficult and more or less likely.   
Resource Family.  A family who is licensed to provide foster care for a child under the custody of a public child welfare system and who support reunification as the child’s permanency goal while, at the same time, standing ready to become the child’s permanent family (through adoption or other arrangements) should reunification be ruled out as the child’s permanency goal.