There is no clear, universally accepted definition of youth permanency, although there is a growing consensus that permanency is vital for the healthy development and well-being of youth. There are three aspects of permanency that play important roles in how youth permanency is understood and defined:

• Legal permanency:  A legally established relationship through reunification, adoption or guardianships
• Relational permanency: An emotional attachment between the youth and caregivers and other family members and kin
• Cultural permanency: A continuous connection to family, tradition, race, ethnicity, culture, language and religion

Source:  University of Iowa School of Social Work, National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice. (2009). Improving Outcomes for Youth in Transition.

The following definitions of permanency reflect different perspectives on these aspects of permanency. Some definitions focus on the critical need for legal permanency; others are more concerned with emotional permanency or lifelong relationships or connections with a caring and responsible adult irrespective of whether the relationship is legally recognized; others acknowledge cultural continuity in youth’s lives as inherent in permanency; and some note the important blend of all three aspects.  Ideally, youth in foster care can achieve all three of these aspects of permanency by living physically with and being raised by a birth, adoptive or guardian parent who loves and cherishes them and honors their cultural heritage and connections.

Youth Definitions of Permanency

Despite the fact that society often portrays foster youth as neither being worthy of nor wanting love and affection, foster youth want to feel connected to people whose support is genuine and unconditional.
Reina Sanchez, 2004

What Youth Say about Permanency

“There’s something inside because of what has happened to you that wants the love and care that you were denied or are in need of.  For me, it is having a mother figure, a father figure, and siblings. That above all was important.”

“Permanency would make all the difference in the experience of a youth’s life in the system because it’s stability. It provides a youth with the opportunity to really know what it’s like to be cared for, not just because you are a foster child, but because you are a person.”

“I went through foster care dreaming and wishing for a mother figure.  What is most important is for someone to make a commitment to you, someone who you could trust and feel comfortable with.”

“I can truly say that the goal of every foster child is to live in one home with people they can call family and not have to experience a lot of emotional turmoil.”

“I feel that I would have wanted a family that was legally responsible, somebody willing to adopt me, give me the opportunities that I never had.  To be as equal as a normal child.”

“It’s really important to make sure before emancipating a youth that they have one person. If I have somebody
that I know I can depend on, that loves me and cares that I wake up tomorrow and am still breathing, I can get through it. I can walk through it.”

Source:  California Permanency for Youth Project

Professional Definitions of Permanency

The field has defined permanency in a variety of ways with most definitions focusing on the legal aspect of permanency while recognizing the importance of relational permanency.  Examples of these definitions are the following:

U. S. Department of Health and Human Services

Permanency is a legal, permanent family living arrangement, that is, reunification with the birth family, living with relatives, guardianship or adoption.

National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections

In 2004 The National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections and Casey Family Services through the Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice and with the help of leading child welfare experts developed a framework for permanence for young people.

This youth permanency framework is built upon seven key foundational principles. These principles express the overarching values that must guide all policies, programs, practices, services and supports for young people. They are interrelated and work together in a dynamic, synergistic way.

While these principles are presented in a sequential order, this order does not reflect a preferential order or each principle’s respective worth or relevance. Each principle is critical and all permanency policies, programs, practices, services and supports should be developed and implemented in ways that:

1. Recognize that every young person is entitled to a permanent family relationship, demonstrate that the agency is committed to achieving that goal, and include multiple systems and the community at large in the effort to identify and support such relationships.
   
   
2. Are driven by the young people themselves, in full partnership with their families and the agency in all decision-making and planning for their futures, recognizing that young people are the best source of information about their own strengths and needs.
   
   
3. Acknowledge that permanence includes: a stable, healthy and lasting living situation within the context of a family relationship with at least one committed adult; reliable, continuous and healthy connections with siblings, birth parents, extended family and a network of other significant adults; and education and/or employment, life skills, supports and services.
   
   
4. Begin at first placement. Efforts to achieve timely permanency through reunification with the young person’s birth family must begin as soon as the young person is placed, while concurrently engaging in contingency planning with family involvement regarding the range of permanency options that can ensure stability and continuity of relationships if continued out-of-home placement is needed.
   
   
5. Honor the cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious/spiritual backgrounds of young people and their families and respect differences in sexual orientation.
   
   
6. Recognize and build upon the strengths and resilience of young people, their parents, their families, and other significant adults.
   
   
7. Ensure that services and supports are provided in ways that are fair, responsive, and accountable to young people and their families, and do not stigmatize them, their families or their caregivers.

The framework for permanence for young people also proposes the following six practice components:

1. Empower young people through information, support, and skills (including independent living skills) to be fully involved partners in directing their own permanency planning and decision making.
   
   
2. Empower a wide range of individuals to participate in permanency planning, beginning with birth family and including extended family, tribal members, past, present and future caregivers, other adults who are significant to the young person, other systems with whom young people are involved, and other community members.
   
   
3. Consider, explore and implement a full range of permanency options in a timely and continuous way.
   
   
4. From the beginning, continuously and concurrently employ a comprehensive range of recruitment options.
   
   
5. From the beginning of placement, provide services and supports to continuously ensure that young people and their families have every opportunity to achieve and maintain physical, emotional, and legal permanence.
   
   
6. Agencies collaborate with other systems that serve young people and families to engage young people and families as true partners and to provide services, support and opportunities during and after placement.

The belief and value that every child and young person deserves a permanent family relationship is paramount in this work. Permanence is not about a philosophy, a plan, or a foster care placement – nor is it intended to be a family relationship that lasts only until the child turns age 18. Rather, permanence is about locating and supporting a lifetime family. For young people in out-of-home placement, planning for permanence should begin at entry into care, and be youth-driven, family-focused, culturally competent, continuous and approached with the highest degree of urgency. Child welfare agencies, in partnership with the larger community, have a moral and professional responsibility to find a permanent parent and lifelong family relationship for each child and young person in care.

Permanence should bring physical, legal and emotional safety and security within the context of a family relationship and allow multiple relationships with a variety of caring adults. At the same time, young people in out-of-home care must be given opportunities, within the family and community environment, to learn the array of life skills necessary to become independent and interdependent adults. Ensuring that children and young people in foster care have both permanent relationships and life skills for independence is critical to their future well-being.

Permanence is achieved with a family relationship that offers safe, stable, and committed parenting, unconditional love and lifelong support, and legal family membership status. Permanence can be the result of preservation of the family, reunification with birth family; or legal guardianship or adoption by kin, fictive kin, or other caring and committed adults.

National Resource Center for Youth Development

Permanency is a family relationship that is intended to last a lifetime. 
A family relationship provides:

• The intent to endure indefinitely,
• Commitment, continuity, and assumption of a common future,
• A sense of belonging and emotional security, and
• Legal and social family status that protects a child’s or youth’s legal rights and interests and transcends the societal the societal stigma of foster care.

A Call to Action: Casey Family Services

Permanency is an enduring family relationship that:

• Is safe and meant to last a lifetime
• Offers the legal rights and social status of full family membership
• Provides for physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual well being
• Assures lifelong connections to extended family, siblings, other significant adults, family history and traditions, race and ethnic heritage, culture, religion and language

Specific elements of permanency that are important to older youth are:

• The involvement of the youth as a participant or leader in the process
• A permanent connection with at least one committed adults who provides a safe, stable and secure parenting relationship, love, unconditional commitment, lifelong support, and a legal relationship if possible
• The opportunity to maintain contacts with important persons including siblings

Iowa’s Department of Human Resources:  Permanency Vision

A forever or permanent family offers safe, stable, and committed parenting, unconditional love and lifelong support and legal family membership status.  Ideally, permanency is achieved through preserving or reunifying the child’s original family. If neither of these is possible due to safety concerns, permanency can also be the result of legal guardianship or adoption by kin or other caring and committed adults.

Maine Child and Family Services Manual

Permanency is “a safe, committed, loving relationship that is intended to last forever between a young person and adult* where the young person receives consistent emotional support, nurturing and acceptance based on trust and respect, providing for the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the young person, offering legal rights and social status of full family membership, while assuring lifelong connections with the young person’s extended family, siblings and other significant relationships in the young person’s life.  (*This can include birth family, extended kin, friends, foster and adoptive parents and/or other caring adults identified by the youth).”

Massachusetts Department of Social Services

Relationships that offer safe, stable and committed parenting, life-long emotional support and family membership status.

The California Permanency for Youth Project

Permanency is both a process and a result that includes involvement of the youth as a participant and leader in finding a permanent connection with at least one committed adult who provides:

• A safe, stable and secure parenting relationship
• Love
• Unconditional commitment
• Lifelong support in the context of reunification, a legal adoption, or guardianship where possible, and in which the youth has the opportunity to maintain contacts with important people, including brothers and sisters