{"id":31549,"date":"2018-09-24T18:57:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T18:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caseyfamilyv2.wpengine.com\/effective-strategies-achieving-permanency\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:04:08","slug":"effective-strategies-achieving-permanency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casey.org\/es\/effective-strategies-achieving-permanency\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00bfCu\u00e1les son algunas estrategias eficaces para lograr la permanencia?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Foster care is intended to be temporary: time-limited out-of-home care until a child can safely return home or, if that is not possible, until the child has a new permanent family. However, children across the country are lingering in foster care, turning what should be a temporary experience into one that may last into adulthood. When the child protection agency fails to connect a child with a permanent family, the agency is failing that child: youth who age out of care without a family are less likely to achieve educational goals, less likely to earn a living wage, and are more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system.1<\/sup><\/a> A permanency-driven child protection agency achieves timely legal permanency for all children, typically through reunification, guardianship, or adoption, as well as relational permanence, so that each child has at least one safe, stable, lifelong, family or family-like relationship that provides physical, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being.<\/p>\n

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A review of the literature identified a variety of promising and evidence-based strategies that child protection agencies can use to achieve permanency for children in out-of-home care. To learn more about reunification strategies in particular, see: What strategies facilitate safe family reunification?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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A sense of urgency<\/h2>\n \n \n \n

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Becoming a permanency-driven organization<\/b><\/span> involves establishing a culture and philosophy of permanency as everyone\u2019s responsibility, not just the purview of the permanency caseworker. It requires a sustained sense of urgency that begins the moment a child comes to the attention of the agency with a call to the hotline. It means adopting a systemwide understanding that a youth\u2019s sense of belonging is fundamental to overall well-being,2<\/sup><\/a> and that relational and legal permanency is the only way to achieve that. It requires ongoing messaging and prioritization by leadership, at the executive level as well as throughout the organization,2<\/sup><\/a> in defining permanency as a right and an urgent need through regular permanency reviews, training series, data dashboards, supervisory tools, coaching sessions, and continuous quality improvement activities. It also requires making visible and meaningful what happens to youth if permanency isn\u2019t a priority: aging out of foster care into adulthood alone. For example, Anu Family Services, a private agency in Wisconsin, improved permanency outcomes by 84 percent after becoming a permanency-driven organization through extensive changes in practice that reflected these commitments.2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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Casey Family Programs\u2019 Rapid Permanency Reviews (RPRs)<\/b><\/span> are another approach to elevating the issue of permanency, and galvanizing agency attention and resources on permanency for long-stayers. RPRs take an in-depth look at expediting permanency for children who have been in foster care for more than two years and help agency leaders identify barriers to permanency and bright spots in permanency practice.3<\/sup><\/a> Preliminary data from three jurisdictions show that children who participated in an RPR achieved permanency considerably faster than children in cohorts from the year before RPRs were implemented. For example, in one jurisdiction, 74 percent of children who participated in an RPR achieved permanency, compared with only 35 percent of children from the previous year\u2019s cohort. Perhaps even more important are the systemic barriers that the process uncovers; addressing those barriers helps prevent additional children from lingering in care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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A stable workforce<\/h2>\n \n \n \n

Reducing <\/b>worker turnover<\/a><\/span> is an important factor for achieving timely permanency and equally important to a strong organizational culture. High turnover is a widespread challenge that impacts performance of child protection agencies, carries significant financial costs to these agencies, and, more importantly, has been linked to negative outcomes for children and families who come in contact with those systems.4<\/sup><\/a> One seminal study found that children in care who had only one caseworker achieved permanency 74.5 percent of the time, but as the number of caseworkers increased, the percentage of children achieving permanency decreased significantly: children who had two caseworkers achieved permanency 17.5 percent of the time, and only 0.1 percent of children who had six or seven caseworkers achieved permanency.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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Prior research has linked safety, organizational and supervisory support, organizational climate and culture, and worker stress, exhaustion, and job satisfaction with turnover and caseworkers\u2019 intent to leave.5<\/sup><\/a> Some strategies for addressing worker turnover include: manageable supervisory ratios and caseloads; mentoring and coaching; building a safety culture<\/a>; flexible schedules; and a comprehensive system for ongoing learning and professional development.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Visitation<\/h2>\n \n \n \n

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If a child has been removed from the care of his or her parents, safe and timely family reunification is the preferred permanency option for most children. While children are in out-of-home care, it is important for them to have consistent and <\/b>quality visits<\/a><\/span> with their families. Research correlates parent-child visits with higher rates of returning home and shorter foster care placement.6<\/sup><\/a> A quality visit builds on parents\u2019 strengths and guides improved parenting, which may, in turn, improve the chances of children staying in their homes after reunification.<\/p>\n

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Agencies nationally have found that coached visits can be more effective than supervised visits.7<\/sup><\/a> Visit coaches <\/b><\/span>are actively involved in supporting parents to demonstrate their best parenting skills and make each visit fun for the child. They help parents take charge of visits, model for parents who may not be attentive to the child how to focus on their child\u2019s need, guide parents, and bolster parents in supporting the child\u2019s adjustment to foster care in part by facilitating a relationship between the birth and foster parents. With visit coaching, parents can use visitation time to build relationships with their children and enhance the transition from foster care to reunification.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Teaming with parents<\/h2>\n \n \n \n

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Building a quality relationship<\/a> between birth parents and resource families<\/b><\/span> is also integral to advancing family reunification. Ensuring that parents and resource families engage in building their relationship is in the best interest of the child, both while the child is in care and after the child transitions home. The Youth Law Center\u2019s Quality Parenting Initiative<\/a> (QPI) is one approach that incorporates birth parent and resource parent teaming to strengthen out-of-home care. In fact, foster parenting is often rebranded as co-parenting, and foster parents are expected to support reunification by building relationships with birth parents, modeling safe and developmentally appropriate parenting, and mentoring birth families as appropriate.8<\/sup><\/a> Sites have reported measurable improvement in several outcome areas, including reunification.9<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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In addition, family teaming models<\/b><\/span> \u2014 also known as family group decision-making, family team conferencing, permanency teaming, and team decision-making meetings \u2014 should be used regularly throughout the life of a case to increase family engagement in the child\u2019s case plan, especially when planning for permanency. They are designed to involve children, families, their support networks, and professionals as integral players on strengths-based, solution-focused teams. The team values the family\u2019s voice, while focusing on the safety, permanency, and well-being of the child.10<\/sup><\/a>,<\/sup>11<\/sup><\/a> One such model is Team Decision Making (TDM), a collaborative practice used by child protection agencies that includes family members for all decisions involving child removal, change of placement, reunification, or other permanency plans, rather than the traditional model of agency personnel making the decisions in isolation. Sites practicing TDM were nearly 30 percent more likely to reunify children with their families within 12 months of entering care, finding that lengths of stay were shorter when families were involved in placement decisions.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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Parent partner programs<\/span><\/a> are another way to engage and support birth parents and have shown promise in improving reunification. Parent partner programs draw on the lived experience of parents who were previously involved with the child welfare system to assist currently involved parents. Parent partners13<\/sup><\/a> serve as mentors and advocates, support birth parents in navigating the child welfare system and, most importantly, provide parents with hope that they can be reunified with their children. Research shows that these programs can increase reunification rates for participating families.14<\/sup><\/a> Parent Partner programs in Washington<\/span><\/a> state and Contra Costa County, California, have noted the following benefits: <\/span>in Washington, rates of reunification are significantly higher in counties in which there is a Parent for Parents program, as compared to counties without the program;15<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and, in Contra Costa County, 62 percent of children whose parents were mentored through the program were reunified within 18 months of removal, compared to just 37 percent of children whose parents did not have a Parent Partner.<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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Another important partner for parents is their attorney. The federal government encourages high quality legal representation<\/span><\/a> for parents17<\/sup><\/a> but does not require it; therefore, legal representation for parents varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. At least one evaluation found that when parents have an attorney to represent them in child welfare proceedings, reunification occurs more quickly, and when that is not possible, then permanency through adoption and guardianship is also achieved more quickly.18<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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Removing barriers to services is another critical role that child protection agencies can play in supporting reunification of families, including timely access to in-home services<\/b><\/span>.19<\/sup><\/a> Among other things, in-home services aim to strengthen parental capacity and support healthy and nurturing relationships, in the natural environment of the family home.20<\/sup><\/a> In-home services can be especially appropriate while a child is transitioning back home, and post-reunification in-home services have been found to contribute to positive outcomes.20<\/sup><\/a> For example, Homebuilders\u00ae<\/sup>, a home- and community-based intensive family preservation service, has been found by the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse as a promising intervention to support reunification; at least one study found that when families received Homebuilders\u00ae<\/sup> services, children were more likely to be reunified, and in less time than children whose families did not participate in Homebuilders\u00ae<\/sup>.21<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Kentucky\u2019s Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team (START)<\/h3>\n