Adolescent Permanency Jennifer Renne Kathleen McNaught Andrea Khoury Joanne Brown

1. Adolescent PermanencyJennifer Renne Kathleen McNaughtAndrea KhouryJoanne Brown

2. Statistics About Youth in Foster Care AFCARS data, as of March 2003, indicates that there are: • 542,000 children and youth in foster care • Youth ages 11 years and up account for 49% (260,457) Race/Ethnicity 60% of the children and youth in care are children and youth of color • African American - 38% • Latino children - 17% • Native American youth • Immigrant population

3. Placement settings for all children/youth in care were: • Preadoptive homes (4%) • Relative foster family home (24%) • Non-relative foster family home (48%) • Group home (8%) • Institution (10%) • SILP programs (1%) • Runaway youth (2%) • Trial discharge to their families (3%)

4. Permanency Goals • 44% of the total had a goal of reunification • 22% had a goal of adoption • Despite the fact that it was stricken from the ASFA statute, 8% (n=45,792) of these children and youth had a goal of Long Term Foster Care • 6% or 33,309 youth had a goal of emancipation.

5. Profile of Youth Aging Out • 18 years old • 3 or more years in care • Multiple Placements • Multiple workers • Not likely to have completed education • May have health or mental health needs likely to return to bio-family

6. Permanence Adolescence Describe the Terms

7. Permanence Durability Solidity Immovability Eternalness Adolescence Exploration Risk Taking Mood Swings Transition Describe the Terms

8. Defining Permanency Permanency planning involves a mix of: • Family-centered • Youth-focused • Culturally relevant • Philosophies, program components and practice strategies. All designed to help children and youth live in families that offer continuity of relationships with a nurturing parent(s) or caretakers coupled with the opportunity to establish lifetime relationships (Maluccio and Fein, 1993)

9. The Concept of Permanency for Youth • The concept of permanence is often not clear-cut for adolescents in foster care; permanency can be ambiguous. • Adolescence is by definition a time of transformation, growth, and change (physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually, socially, and emotionally). • Developmentally, adolescents are struggling to identify who they are and as a parallel process they are also developing their own unique worldview. • The primary developmental tasks are identity transformation and establishing independence. • Within a backdrop of distrust of adults, reluctance to accept advice, and resentment of adult authority.

10. The Concept of Permanency for Youth • Developmentally, adolescents are separating from adults and trying to determine their own identities, their own values, make their own decisions, and ultimately create separation from their families. As teens struggle through this separation, they are scared. The fear is masked in a rebelliousness that is often viewed negatively by adults. The rebellion usually is a rejection of anything adults view as valuable. This is part of the challenge experienced in working with any teenager.

11. The Concept of Permanency for Youth • Adolescents tend to operate in the realm of concrete thinking and permanence is, at best, an abstract idea. • How a teen feels about their current situation will influence their decisions. For many foster youth, previous experiences clue them in to the fact that some families are not permanent. • Permanency goals can be viewed as abstractions in themselves by youth who may view them as constructs being developed by adults and agencies. • This is especially true when youth are not involved in the direct planning of their own permanency goals.

12. Adolescent Development • Youth in care have more difficulty than average, and this period is tumultuous even for youth not in care. • Internal Struggles. While balancing a need for security and nurturing independence, many youth experience low self esteem, reinforced by labelling such as “problem child” or “at risk youth.” The most important thing: the behavior of youth is about them and their new development, not about others. • Context. All teens need similar reinforcements (stability, caring adults, strong peers), but each child is different, too. Experiences in the welfare system shape their world view as do gender, race, religion, etc. Validating this allows healthy development.

13. Case Study • Discuss the important facts. • What reasonable efforts could have been put into place to prevent removal? • Was there a least restrictive alternative? • Discuss grandmother’s role in the case. • What are the permanency issues with Stephen? • Should TPR be discussed? Concurrent planning? • Is visitation sufficient?

14. Family Centered Casework and Legal Strategies Which Support Permanency • Targeted and appropriate efforts to ensure safety, achieve permanence, and strengthen family and youth well-being. • Reasonable efforts to prevent unnecessary placement in out-of-home care when safety can be assured. • Appropriate, least restrictive out-of-home placements within family, culture, and community – with comprehensive family and youth assessments, written case plans, goal-oriented practice, and concurrent permanency plans encouraged. • Reasonable efforts to reunify families and maintain family connections and continuity in young people’s relationships when safety can be assured.

15. Family Centered Casework and Legal Strategies Which Support Permanency • Filing of termination of the parental rights petition at 15 months out of the last 22 months in placement – when in best interests of the youth and when exceptions do not apply. • Collaborative case activity – partnerships among birth parents, foster parents, the youth, agency staff, court and legal staff, and community service providers. • Frequent and high quality parent-child visiting • Timely case reviews, permanency hearings, and decision-making about where youth will grow up – based on the young person’s sense of time.

16. Essential Elements to this Process • Family-Centered and strengths/needs based practice • Service delivery which is community based • Cultural competency and respect for diversity • Open and inclusive practice, with full disclosure to parents and youth • Non-adversarial approaches to problem solving and service delivery • Concurrent rather than sequential consideration of all permanency options

17. Barriers to Youth Permanency • Barrier #1: Permanency planning for adolescents is not a priority. There is limited understanding of, and lack of, training for staff regarding permanency planning for adolescents. • Barrier #2: Sequential case management, rather than concurrent planning, continues to be the dominant method of practice. • Barrier #3: There is a dearth of permanent families available for older youth. • Barrier #4: Family members and others significant to the adolescent (fictive kin) often have limited involvement in the permanency planning process. • Barrier #5: Programmatic and fiscal support for pre- and post-placement support services have been insufficient to achieve permanency.

18. Pathways to Permanency for Youth • Youth are reunified safely with their parents or relatives • Youth are adopted by relatives or other families • Youth permanently reside with relatives or other families as legal guardians • Youth are connected to permanent resources via fictive kinship or customary adoption networks • Youth are safely placed in another planned alternative permanent living arrangement which is closely reviewed for appropriateness every six months

19. Working with Adolescents • It is incumbent upon adults who have a relationship with the young person to help them to consider the option of lifetime connections by helping to reframe the initial “NO!” into a “Yes” or “I’ll think about it.” • It may initially help the young person to review their past connections and experiences to help put their thoughts and feelings into context. • Helping youth to play an active role in their own planning and assisting them in developing a promising pathway to permanency that will be lifelong and sustaining can be a challenge, but it is not an unattainable goal. • Helping youth to consider permanency and lifetime-connectedness only becomes possible when adults who work with young people are committed to facilitating the identification of connections in their lives.

20. CIRCLE OF CONNECTIONS

21. Case Study • Relevant Facts • What would a discussion for permanency sound like? • Should we continue to explore reunification? • Who are the people in Stephen’s life that should be considered for permanency? • What efforts should the agency be making with Stephen? • What services should be investigated to achieve permanency?

22. Working with Adolescents • Who cared for you when your parents could not? Who paid attention to you, looked out for you, cared about what happened to you? • With whom have you shared holidays and/or special occasions? • Who do you like? Feel good about? Enjoy being with? Admire? Look up to? Want to be like someday? • Who believes in you? Stands up for you? Compliments or praises you? Appreciates you? • Who can you count on? Who would you call at 2:00 a.m. if you were in trouble? Wanted to share good news? Bad news?

23. Working with Adolescents • Who are the three people in your life with whom you have the best relationship? • Would it help to review where you have lived in the past? To help you recall important adults in your life? • To whom have you felt connected in the past? • Who from the past or present do you want to stay connected to? How? Why? • How are you feeling about this process? What memories, fears, and anxieties is it stirring up?

24. Communication Techniques • Do not take it personally • Ask non-accusatory questions • Be careful with “why” questions – instead, ask “what happened?” to avoid making the youth defensive • Ask open-ended questions • Avoid making judgments, assumptions • Be careful about the language you use • Meet the foster youth half way – explain things • Encourage open dialogue – be responsive

25. Involving Youth in Permanency Efforts • Youth must be involved in the process and must have input • Many youth want to be adopted, even if they initially say no • Youth need to be involved in recruitment efforts • Youth need to be able to identify persons with whom they feel they have connections • Youth need to work with professionals who understand them and enjoy working with them Models of Permanency Options for Older Adolescents in the U.S.- email me for resources, examples of specific programs

26. What Else Can You Do to locate permanency resources? Carefully review the case record. Review the youth’s entire case record in search of anyone who has done anything that could be construed as an expression of concern for them, including former foster parents, former neighbors or parents of friends, members of their extended families (aunts, uncles, cousins, older siblings), teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, group home staff, or independent living staff. Given that some youth have been in care for prolonged periods of time, case records can have many volumes. The entire record, all volumes, should be explored in an effort to uncover clues about possible connection both past and present. Third party reviewers can be helpful in the process of uncovering these possible connections as case workers who have been assigned the case may inadvertently miss connections that may be more visible to a fresh eye.

27. Carefully Look at Foster Parents and Others Known to the Youth • Interview the young person’s current and former foster parents, as well as group home staff and child care staff to determine who the youth currently has connections to: who does the young person get telephone calls from? Who has the young person had a special relationship in the past? Who visits the young person and whom does the young person visit? Has the young person formed a bond with any group home or child care staff that might turn into a permanent connection?

28. Provide Information About Adoption to Youth and Family • Engage the youth, his or her parents (if the youth is not currently freed for adoption) and foster parents or prospective adoptive parents in a discussion about shared parenting and ongoing contacts with members of the youth’s birth family after the adoption. Youth and parents need help understanding that although a termination of parental rights ends the rights of the birth parents to petition the court for visits or other contacts with their child, ad TPR does not prevent the young person from visiting or contacting members of his or her birth family.

29. Supporting Permanency for Older Adolescents Through Positive Youth Development Approaches • Mentoring • Life Books • Person-Centered Planning • Family Group Conferencing • Digital Storytelling • Appreciative Inquiry • Family-to-Family Approaches • Youth Empowerment Approaches.

30. Title IV-E and ASFA • Reasonable Efforts to Finalize Permanency Plan- new tool for advocates • The ILP should be a “written description of the programs and services which will help such a child prepare for the transition from foster care to independent living.” • Education • Physical and mental health care • Housing • Formation of relationships with caring adults • Understanding of community resources, public benefits, and services • Daily living skills • Permanency linked to well-being – education, health • CFSRs

31. Case Study • Discuss relevant facts. • What should the permanency plan be? • Concurrent plan?

32. ASFA as it applies to transitioning youth out of foster care Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement (APPLA) Versus: • Long-Term Foster Care • Group Care / Residential Treatment • Independent Living • Emancipation (fill in state) Law Compelling Reasons Reasonable Efforts Concurrent Planning

33. Permanency Options Under Adoption and Safe Families Act • Return to the Parent • Adoption • Legal Guardianship • Permanent Placement with a Fit and Willing Relative • * Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement (APPLA) • (*must document compelling reason)

34. Compelling Reasons • 2 different provisions: • 1.The agency determines it has a “compelling reason” not to file a termination petition for child who has been in care “15 of the last 22 months.” • 2. “Compelling reason” why “another planned permanent living arrangement” is being selected as a permanency option.

35. What is an “APPLA?” ASFA defines the term as “any permanent living arrangement not enumerated in the statute.” 42 U.S.C. 475(5)(C) “Planned” means the arrangement is intended, designed, considered, premeditated, or deliberate “Permanent” means enduring, lasting, or stable Includes: • physical placement of the child • quality of care • supervision • nurture

36. What is an “APPLA”? • Permanency goal for the child • The objective is to craft the most stable, secure arrangement possible • Permanency includes something more than merely meeting the child’s immediate physical, educational, social, and mental health needs • Key to the child’s future happiness and success is the development of relationships with members of the child’s family and communities

37. Permanency Options Under (fill in state) Law example here is Virginia§ 16.1-282.1 • Return custody to prior family • Custody to relative other than prior family • Terminate parental rights (Adoption) • *Permanent Foster Care • *Services to achieve independent living status for child 16 and over • *Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement (Residential Care) • (* must document compelling reason)

38. Permanency Options Under (fill in state) Law example here is Virginia (continued) • In Virginia these permanency options are all considered APPLA for federal purposes and must be documented with compelling reasons: • Permanent Foster Care • Services to achieve independent living status for child 16 and over • Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement (Residential Care)

39. Long-Term Foster Care / Permanent Foster Care Group Care / Residential Treatment Independent Living Emancipation

40. Use of Long-Term Foster Care • The statute struck the term “long-term foster care.” • The preamble to the regulations further explains: “Far too many children are given the permanency goal of long-term foster care, which is not a permanent living situation for a child.” 65 Fed. Reg. 4036. • LTF/C is not stable, may disrupt often, leading to frequent moves for the child and instability.

41. What about Group Care/Residential Treatment? Rarely is group care a living arrangement that is planned and permanent • Consider group care a step towards achieving the child’s permanency plan of adoption, reunification, etc., not a goal. • Group care should not be considered an APPLA, if the child’s release from group care is reasonably likely during the child’s minority. • Group care as an APPLA should require clear evidence that the young person will not be able to function in a family setting before reaching adulthood.

42. Independent Living • Consider Independent Living a set of services, not a permanency goal. • Requirement under IV-E for family case plans to include ILPs “where appropriate for youth ages 16 and older.” A written description of the programs and services which will help such a child prepare for the transition from f/c to independent living. • IL services should meet the child’s physical, psychological, emotional, educational needs • Job skills • Education • Safe housing • Connections to family, i.e. siblings, caring adults • Peer connections • Cultural identity • Understanding of Community Resources, Public Benefits, and Services

43. CONCURRENT PLANNING Reasonable Efforts to finalize an alternate permanency plan APPLA and : Reunification? Adoption? Relative Placement?

44. Frame this as a “reasonable efforts” issue APPLA: R/E to Finalize the Permanency Plan • Second required R/E finding under ASFA. • Judicial finding - whether the agency provided reasonable efforts to finalize the permanency plan. • Within 12 months of the child’s entry into foster care and every 12 months thereafter. • A negative, late, insufficient or missing finding means the agency is ineligible for IV-E dollars until the court makes a positive finding. • The finding must be detailed and child specific.

45. Reasonable Efforts Inquiry • Have other permanency options been fully considered and ruled out for valid reasons? • Have compelling reasons been reviewed at each and every permanency hearing and at each review to determine whether a more preferred permanency option is possible? • What efforts has the agency made to identify and recruit a permanent placement for the child?   • Has the agency considered the parents? Relatives? Current and former caretakers? Mentors, coaches, teachers, counselors, or employers? • Have we asked the child about preferences or ideas for placement options? • Is this placement the best way to meet child’s needs?

46. Reasonable Efforts Inquiry • Is the proposed plan actually a “permanent living arrangement?” • What support structures are being put in place? • Mentoring • Community based programs • Does the adolescent have any special needs, and what services is the agency providing?   • What efforts has the agency made to assess the safety, quality, and stability of the APPLA?

47. The Chafee Act • Background Information • Signed December 14, 1999 • Title I: Foster Care Independence Program – Independent Living • Title I Subtitle C: Medicaid for ages 19-21 • 1995 General Accounting Office: “… as a group, [children in foster care] are sicker than homeless children and children living in the poorest sections of inner cities.” • Usually they lost Medicaid when exiting Foster Care

48. FCIA and the Chafee Program • Purposes. To identify youth likely to remain in foster care, and help them: • Transition out of the system • Get education, and services for employment • Prepare for post-secondary education • Have personal and emotional support • Get Life-skills education and support • Have vouchers for education available • First 5 purposes were part of original 1999 act; 6th purpose added in 2002 created ETV program.

49. Requirements of the State • Youth must be involved in designing their own program. • Allow youth up to $10,000 in savings. (previous cap at $1000) • Use federal dollars for training foster parents, foster and adoptive parents, group home workers, & case managers about adolescents and independent living. • Provide services for youth with disabilities. • Make benefits and services available to Native American youth in the same way they are available to other youth.

50. Other Chafee Issues • Increases funding for independent living services - $140 million • Concurrent planning: independent living services & permanency planning • Services to include personal and emotional support, i.e. mentors • Increased accountability: outcome measures • Collaboration with private and public sector