Concurrent Planning: A Legal/Social Work Collaboration

Court Improvement ProgramMeeting

March 23, 2010Frankfort, Kentucky

Family Centered Practice

Family Engagement

Permanence

SafetyWell Being

Diligent SearchTargeted Recruitment

Community PartnershipsClinical Supervision

Legal Collaboration

Concurrent PlanningBirth/Foster Parent

Relationships

Staff/FP RetentionVisitation

Family Team Meetings

Goals of Concurrent Planning

• To Support the safety and well-being of children and their families

• To promote early permanency decisions• To decrease length of stay in foster care• To reduce the number of moves and

relationship disruptions children experience

• To develop a network of foster parents (relatives and non-relatives) who can work towards reunification and also serve as permanency resource families for children.

• To engage families in early case planning, case review and decision making about permanency options to meet children’s urgent need for stability and continuity in their family relationships.

• To maintain continuity in children’s family, sibling and community relationships.

Concurrent Planning Goals

Concurrent Planning

• Children in the child welfare system are most damaged by numerous moves, which exacerbate the grief and loss they experience due to their initial separation.

• They are further damaged by the uncertainty and inability to plan and have hope for their future.

• Pre-verbal children are unable to attach to multiple caretakers and become unable to have successful relationships later on.

Concurrent Planning• Kinship placements have shown

us that people can care for and make life-long commitments to children, while at the same time, encouraging and supporting reunification.

• It is the intent of concurrent planning to develop these kinds of relationships for birth families who do not have appropriate kin networks of their own.

Riding the Emotional Roller Coaster

• Implies that mentally healthy adults are better able to deal with the uncertainty of attaching to someone they may have to “give up.”

• While this seems like a hard sell, it is what we have been making children do repeatedly as they walk through the maze of foster care.

Concurrent Planning Definitions

• Working towards reunification while at the same time, establishing and implementing an alternative permanency plan.

• Concurrent rather than sequential planning efforts to more quickly move children from the uncertainty of foster care to the security of a permanent family.

Permanency Planningvs.

Concurrent Permanency PlanningPermanency Planning• Necessary for all children

regardless of permanency goal & prognosis

• Is an ongoing process through out the life of the case

• Requires numerous types of placement options and life long connections

Concurrent Planning• Designed as a specific type

of Perm Planning for children with a primary goal of reunification

• Is determined within the first 60 days of a child’s placement

• Requires specific types of relative and non-relative placement options

Success Redefined-Timely Permanence via reunification or an alternative care giver

-Kinship as Family Preservation

-Diligent search vs. Why didn’t “they” come forward sooner?

Key Components of Concurrent Planning-Early Prognostic Assessment

-Full Disclosure/Parenting Options Counseling

-Family Conferencing/Kinship Care

-Team decision making protocols

-Availability of Resource Families

-Case Plans which delineate compliance from success

-Strong collaboration with legal system

-Immediate access to services and collaborative relationships with service providers

-Frequent Visitation

Frequent Visitation• Parents who visit regularly have the best

chance of reunification• The more the structure is determined with the

parents participation, the more likely they will participate

• Involving foster parents in parent/child visitation promotes more supportive relationships

Visitation/Parenting Time

• The primary purpose of visitation is to maintain the parent-child relationship and other family

attachments, and to reduce the sense of loss and/or abandonment which children experience at placement.

• Visitation should never be used as a reward or punishment for parental compliance with the treatment plan.

• “Visitation” should include parental functions such as medical appts., school staffings and functions, sporting functions etc.

Scrupulous Documentation

• Written agreements which identify short & long term goals, including permanency goal and alternative goal

• Concrete service linkages that specify who, what, when, where and provide immediate access to services

• Behavioral Criteria of success statements

• Early & ongoing reviews to assess progress

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Case Plans Should:

• Document reasonable efforts• Provide full disclosure & engagement of birth family• Include collaboration with service providers including

foster parents• Be comprehensive, yet allow for a Phased In/Tiered

approach to avoid client overload• Provide Immediate Access to services• Contain Criteria of Success which delineates

compliance from success

Legal/Social Work Collaboration

• A collaborative relationship may include a Memorandum of Agreement

• Consideration of due process & parental rights when children are first placed in care

• Early paternity determination, diligent search may require court order to cover confidentiality issues

• Consultation & support from legal staff assures legally sound case work & case planning (a good social work plan is a good legal plan)

• Availability of non adversarial conflict resolution strategies

What about the court and legal process?

Does the legal system have a fear of concurrent planning?

Have You Had These Thoughts?

• “Concurrent planning really means fast tract to TPR”

• “Caseworkers who say they are doing concurrent planning are not sincerely working on reunification”

• “It’s just not fair to parents”• “Parents/ foster parents/ child will be

confused as to what the goal is”

IS IT just social work Mumbo-Jumbo?

• Can this really help children?

• Does it make sense for courts?

• Will it help timely permanency?

Benefits To the Child• Reduced placements, which reduces

attachment disorders

• Earlier permanency through reunification or other permanency option.

▪ Eliminates loyalty issues

▪ Less identity issues in adolescence and adulthood

Benefits To the Parents

● Creates sense of urgency which motivates● Early accessible services and inclusion in

decisions• Allows parent to determine what role they

will play in child’s permanency outcome● Lays the groundwork for openness with

permanent caregiver providing on going support or open adoption

Courts Should be Able to:• Consistently follow & enforce time limits for hearings & judicial decisions• Minimize delays by notifying appropriate parties,

denying adjournments• Ensuring diligent efforts & determining paternity

early in case • Address other procedural problems• Take steps to encourage or require TPR petitions

when appropriate

Courts Should be Able to:

• Support collaboration with tribal courts on transfers of cases of Native American children and/or ensure placement provisions of ICWA

are being met.

Reasonable Reunification Efforts

• Always provided unless case has been judicially determined not to require them

• The placement of a child into a concurrent planning resource family does not imply that reunification efforts will not be provided

• Parents should always be given the opportunity to develop a relationship with the resource parents

Implementing Plan A & B:

• With few exceptions, the contingency plan/placement is implemented as soon as it is determined. (Exceptions usually involve a relative living too far away to allow for visitation)

• Options counseling is available when ambivalence factors are present

How can Judges Fulfill Oversight and Leadership Roles?

• What constitutes the appropriate level of inquiry from the bench?

How can Judges ensure that:• Case plans/services are directed toward

safety, permanency and well being? • Permanency timelines are being met?• Parents are engaged and aware?• Children’s developmental, educational, &

medical needs are being met?

Judges Provide Leadership by:

• Actively monitoring cases; • Setting clear expectations for all parties and

stakeholders; • Asking appropriate questions; • Having adequate hearing time to monitor cases; • Setting, enforcing, and engaging in a courtroom

environment of respect, cultural, and community sensitivity; and

• Holding stakeholders accountable within their roles and responsibilities in the case.

To Achieve the Recommended Leadership, Some Courts Have:

• Held trainings re. court report info and to set clear expectations for hearings. • Implemented systems to issue orders at the

end of each hearing so that all parties are immediately clear on what their responsibilities are.

• Where agencies have failed to perform at the standard set by the court for conduct, ordered agency supervisors to appear at hearings, issued no reasonable efforts rulings or orders for sanctions.

Other Ideas for Judges

• Supporting Family Meetings/Group Conferencing or Mediation

• Asking for Family Tree information• Clarifying financial options and custodial

options for relatives and fictive kin• Assisting in Full Disclosure to Parents• Should Judges “order” concurrent planning?

Role of Judges at Hearings

• Ensure that reasonable efforts are being made• Inquire about the need for concurrent planning• Fully explore all possible placement resources,

including maternal & paternal relatives& their viability as a permanent option

• Establish and/or approve specific permanency plans for foster children understanding when TPR petitions are required and the exceptions to such requirements.

Role of Judges at Hearings

• Address visitation in court orders • Request information about the nature and

quality of foster children's visits, contacts, and relationships with parents and siblings

• Review case plans submitted to the courts by the child welfare agency

• Address barriers to service provision

Also……………

• Consider more frequent perm hearings• Support foster parent involvement at hearings• Aggressive efforts to keep sibs together; sib

visitation• Review educational and medical needs of each

child• Input from the child!!!• Do not “reset” the bar

Agency Attorney’s Should Consider:

• If plan not going well, consider bringing it back to court

• Should you return to court if want to have change in goal?

• Have court orders specify behavioral changes, not just attendance

• Consider articulated agency policy re concurrent planning

Role of Parent’s Attorney

• Explain to their clients the benefits to them and their children of concurrent planning

• Help clients feel comfortable participating in FTM and mediation

• Help clients have a better understanding of the system and the court process

• Request evaluations of the quality of visits with parents to ensure progress is being charted as well as front loading of services

Role of GAL/CASA

• Meet with children, family members foster parents and other relevant players to assure an accurate, independent assessment of the family

• Ensure permanency needs have been assessed and placement resource matches these needs

• Ensure that the Judge has all the information needed to make informed decisions

Permanency Planning Hearings

• Need to be clearly differentiated from other reviews in both purpose & scope

• Should include a substantive discussion of the barriers to achievement of permanency as well as deadlines and expectations for it’s achievement

• Allows for the engagement & participation of birth families, foster parents and other stakeholders 1

1 Court Improvement Project, Final Report June 2005

EXPECTED LONG TERM OUTCOMES OF CONCURRENT PERMANENCY PLANNING

• Children who are in concurrent planning resource homes are less damaged because they have not suffered from continual moves.

• Less adoption disruptions. Less post-adoption high level/high cost placements.

• Adopted children have less identify issues in adolescence because they know “who they are,” and “where they came from,” and in most cases, have some type of ongoing relationship with their birth families.

EXPECTED LONG TERM OUTCOMES

• The elimination of the “waiting child” phenomena, as most TPR and/or Relinquishment Hearings don’t occur until the child has already been placed with their permanent family.

• Cases move through the quagmire quicker, resulting in overall cost savings to all involved systems.

EXPECTED LONG TERM OUTCOMES

• The fact that someone was ” in the system” themselves, as a child, does not predispose them to being unable to have successful relationships and parent effectively.

• Participants are empowered and proud of their work.

• Children who are going home spend less time in placement.

EXPECTED LONG TERM OUTCOMES

• New extended families will be formed as concurrent planning resource families remain involved with children who go home and act as an ongoing resource to the birth family.

• The Protection of Children becomes a community issue and responsibility.

• Extended family members are involved, respected and proactive.

References & Resources• “ADOPTION AND PERMANENCY GUIDELINES:

Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases, © 2000 published by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Reno, Nevada.” www.ncjfcj.org

• Whitney Barnes, Elizabeth (2006). “Back to Basics: Fundamental Application of the RESOURCE GUIDELINES and ADOPTION AND PERMANENCY GUIDELINES to Child Abuse and Neglect Cases.” Technical Assistance Brief. National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Reno, Nevada. www.ncjfcj.org

References & Resources• Making it Permanent: Reasonable Efforts to Finalize

Permanency Plans for Foster Children. by Cecilia Fiermonte and Jennifer Renne National Child Welfare Resource Center on Legal and Judicial Issues www.abanet.org/child/rclji

• Child Welfare information Gateway, Issue brief, April 2005. Concurrent Planning: What the Evidence Shows www.childwelfare.org

• Implementing Concurrent Planning: A Handbook for Child Welfare Administrators, from the NRC for Organizational Improvement by Patricia Schene, Ph.D.Edited by Barbara Sparks May, 2001 www.nrcoi.org

References & Resources

Hardin, M. (2002). How and why to involve the courts in your Child and Family Services Review (CFSR): Suggestions for agency administrators [On-line]. Available: www.abanet.org/child/rclji/courtimp.html.

• The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Family To Family; Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care, Recruitment, Training & Support, The Essential Tools of Foster Care www.aecf.org

• http://www.abanet.org/child/rclji/

Janyce Fenton

609-602-7005

janycefenton@msn.com