The second core component, family search, engagement, preparation and support, is foundational to successful and lasting permanency for youth. It includes first identifying and locating parents and relatives and using a respectful, persistent and purposeful process to reach out and engage them followed by preparing and supporting some to play an ongoing role in the youth’s life.

For some youth, parents and family members are already known and “on the scene”. For others, identifying and locating them will be a more difficult process and require search – using a variety of tools including talking to the youth, inquiring of the youth’s parents, caregivers or known relatives, “mining” the case record as well as employing online search tools and sometimes a private investigator.

Parent and family search practices include:

GENOGRAMS
Genograms are pictorial displays of family relationships and have traditionally been one of the first tools used by caseworkers in gathering family demographics and relatedness. The visual display of the family helps social workers, youth and family members identify intergenerational themes, patterns, roles, losses, and family strengths (University of Iowa, n.d.). 

The Placement Genogram as a Tool for Establishing Family Connections. Retrieved September 25, 2012 from www.uiowa.edu

State Example  

The Kentucky Department of Community Services, in its Standards of Practice Online Manual, provides social workers with a Genogram/Family Tree Tip Sheet.

CASE RECORD MINING
Case record mining, also called data mining, is an intense review of the child’s file that helps identify the names and contact information of parents, relatives, caregivers and other significant adults as well as events in the child’s life. Case mining is a core step in reconnecting youth to important people and key aspects of their identity as well as in locating a caring adult able to commit to reunification, adoption or legal guardianship and/or being a lifelong connection.

State Example

In Wisconsin, Adoption Resources of Wisconsin (ARW) applies its data mining tool and process in an intense review of the child’s case record – upon receiving a referral from a child welfare manager – and provides results within 45 days at no cost.

ONLINE SEARCH
Thorough search and identification of relatives for youth in care often requires use of an online databases and search engines. The following resources provide detailed information on how to access and use online tools:

This Child Trends publication outlines a variety of mining websites and data system.

The Seneca Center uses an experienced search agent to access multiple premium search
databases and provide a customized and comprehensive search report including:
• Up to 30 year address history for the person with listed phone numbers, aliases and deceased notices.
• Up to 30 possible relatives, with address history and listed phone numbers.
• Up to 20 possible family acquaintances, with address history and listed phone numbers
• Neighbors with listed phone numbers at the subject’s most recently reported address.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
In order to speed the process and increase the effectiveness of locating relatives for youth in the child welfare system, some sites have hired a private investigator to expand and intensify family search efforts.

State Example

Missouri, through the Extreme Recruitment program in St. Louis, has increased the contact rate with relatives from 23% - 80% with the added ingredient of a private investigator employing more sophisticated internet tools, court databases and detective strategies.

Once parents and family members have been located, family engagement is the foundation of good casework practice to achieve permanency with safety and well-being for youth in the child welfare system.  The engagement of family members and other significant adults in the youth’s life is a strengths-based approach to partnering with them toward achieving permanency for the youth.  Engagement practice is founded on the principles of honest and open communication, persistent outreach and meeting family members on their own turf accompanied by respectful and meaningful inclusion in the planning process to support positive permanency outcomes for the young person.  

State and Local Examples

Hawaii’s Family Partnership and Engagement Practice Model defines how the child welfare agency, youth, families and community partners collaboratively engage youth and families in developing and delivering services and assistance to meet the unique needs of the youth and families served. 

The ‘Ohana Finding and ‘Ohana Connections programs in Hawaii are dedicated to making sure all youth entering foster care have the right to know and maintain their family relationships, learn about their family history, and belong to a family, community, and place. This video tells the story of Kalani, as he and his family worked to “reweave their family cloth”.

Iowa’s family engagement practice strives to fully engage family members and other significant adults in case planning, case management and the case closure process.  One of the guiding principles is, “We listen to and address the needs of our customers in a respectful and responsive manner that build on their strengths.”  The engagement of family and other significant adults occurs through regularly-held family team meetings.

Michigan’s MiTEAM is Michigan’s Child Welfare Practice Model is based on principles of family engagement – including birth parents, legal guardians, relatives, foster parents, adoptive parents, and youth throughout the child welfare continuum from initial child protective services intervention to permanency. To strengthen case practice and ensure permanency, as well as safety and well-being, the agency: engages birth parents, legal guardians, and adoptive parents in all aspects of case planning, decision-making, and intervention; engages youth and the youth’s GAL; and involves foster parents/relative caregivers in case planning and decision making.

Pennsylvania recently passed legislation mandating family finding for all children and youth upon entry into care and at least annually during their stay in foster care.

Preparation is also essential for parents, family members and kin to be ready to provide permanency for a youth, just as it is essential to prepare youth for permanency.  Most child welfare best practices in family preparation have focused on preparing families and youth for reunification and on preparing adoptive and guardianship families to parent adolescents.

State Examples
Preparation of Birth Families for Reunification

Hawaii promoted this positive story during National Reunification Month of a previously incarcerated father reunifying with his children. It highlights visitation and a parenting coach as important dimensions of parent preparation.

Missouri’s Child Welfare Manual Chapter 10 Permanency through Reunification addresses the preparation of birth parents for reunification, including the specific issues that should be anticipated and the development of plans to address those issues.

North Carolina’s Family Services Manual addresses how to prepare the family for reunification, including increased visits between the family and the youth.

Preparation of Families for Adoption and Legal Guardianship

The Alaska Center for Resource Families has prepared an Adoption and Guardianship Preparation Training for Alaska’s Resource Families: Self‐Study Workbook that teaches prospective adoptive and guardianships parents about basic processes of adoption and guardianship of children who are in the custody of the State of Alaska.

The Massachusetts Department of Social Services has developed A Guide for Foster and Pre-Adoptive Parents that specifically addresses the needs of youth in foster care.

New York City has developed a Foster Parent’s Guide to Adoption to prepare foster parents as plan for and transition to adoptive parenting.

Utah has developed the Transitions in Foster to Adoption Team Checklist that lists transition steps for birth families, adoptive families, the youth and the child welfare system. 

Key aspects of preparing permanent parents of a youth in foster care include full disclosure of the youth’s individual needs, unconditional commitment as a permanent legal parent, and post-permanency supports.

1. Full Disclosure
Often used to describe the information shared with a birth parent about alternative permanency plans for his or her child if reunification is not possible, full disclosure also includes sharing information with any potential permanent parent – about a youth’s special needs or developmental issues, harmfulness of continued placement in foster care, ongoing uncertainty about where he or she will grow up and the essential importance of consistent, nurturing parenting in developing secure attachments.

State Example

State policy in North Carolina describes full disclosure as “open and honest information to all others that are significant to the case. Social workers should explain, as needed, to parents, relatives, foster/adoptive families, attorneys, other service providers, etc. the following information:

• harmful effects of foster care on the child;
• inability of the child to form secure attachments to a nurturing adult when the child does not have a stable, permanent adult in his/her life;
• occurrence of developmental problems in the child when breaks occur in a child’s attachment;
• need to develop an alternative permanency plan in order to assure the child a permanent home as quickly as possible and to assure the child’s proper attachment and development;
• need to develop a foster/adopt or relative placement as the alternative permanency plan in order to reduce the damage done to the child by substitute care;
• importance of parental behavior, not parental promises, in meeting the objectives of the service plan;
• need to begin implementation of Plan B if parents do not make progress toward reunification;
• use of family group decision making to plan for the child.”

2. Unconditional Commitment

Regardless of the youth’s behavior or changes in family circumstances or status, permanency requires the unconditional, legal and lifelong commitment of the permanent parent. If a permanent parent identifies anything that would cause the youth to no longer be considered a family member, the parent’s commitment to the youth is not unconditional. Even when a youth is ambivalent about making a permanent legal commitment to a parent, best practice indicates that it is the role of the child welfare agency to find a parent willing to make an unconditional, legal commitment and willing to wait until the youth agrees to it.

State Examples

It Takes An ‘Ohana at Family Programs in Hawaii advocates for unconditional commitment to youth in child welfare.

This edition of an Adoption Center of Illinois newsletter promotes the need for unconditional commitment and notes state agency commitment to providing post-adoption support. The lead article includes a definition of unconditional commitment by Pat O’Brien at You Gotta Believe in New York City who says, “my working definition of ‘unconditional commitment’ is that there is nothing a teenager can do to stop being someone’s child. It means we treat this child’s behavior the same as we would a biological child’s.”

Indiana’s permanency policies speak to the need for unconditional commitment.

3. Post Permanency Supports
Post-permanency supports and services are best practices when youth reunify with their birth families, are adopted or become the wards of their relative or non-relative guardians. It is important to help the youth and parent plan for formal supports provided by agencies and community organizations if necessary, as well as informal supports provided within their own network of family, friends or community of faith. 

State and Local Examples
Post-Reunification Support

Wisconsin requires that all case management agencies provide 12 months of post-reunification services which may include case management, in-home services, and linkage to community services.

Findings from the CPS Reintegration Project in Travis County, Texas suggest that youth with severe mental and behavioral problems in residential placements can successfully be reunited with their families. Key supports included a wraparound model, individualized services managed by a Care Coordinator plus youth mentoring, parent coaching, after school care, tutoring, respite care, psychiatric services, outpatient therapy, and 24-hour crisis intervention/support.

Post-Adoption and Guardianship Support

In California, the Family Builders agency in the Bay Area offers adoption and permanency support groups for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) families, provides information on community resources that support permanency for LGBT youth and their families, and offers training to adoption professionals on LGBT issues.

Illinois has developed a Post Adoption and Guardianship Services guide for families that provides information on financial supports, preservation services, respite, search and reunion and educational opportunities for families.

Indiana has developed Post Adoption Service Coordination Standards to guide the provision of individualized, comprehensive, adoption and culturally competent services and supports.

Missouri offers crisis intervention services in four counties for pre- and post-adoption or guardianship families when there is concern regarding risk of out-of-home placement.

Nebraska law requires the Department to provide post adoption and guardianship case management services for families of youth formerly in foster care and who wish to receive these services.

Pennsylvania provides federally-subsidized financial assistance to families taking permanency legal guardianship (PLC) of a youth in foster care. This assistance is available to families within a broad definition of kin – including blood and legal relatives, godparents, tribal members or adults with a significant relationship to the child or family.

Tennessee law requires that the Department provide post adoption services to support permanency, either directly or through purchase of service providers.