Reducing Disproportional and Disparate Outcomes for the Loneliest Children in the Child Welfare Syst

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Reducing Disproportional and Disparate Outcomes
for the Loneliest Children in the Child Welfare
System

Michelle D. Gordon LCSW,MSW Massachusetts
Department of Children and Families Adoption,
Foster Care and Recruitment Services MALDI
Action Research Project December 1 3, 2008
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A National Issue of Disproportionality In Child
Welfare

• In 2000, children of color represented 6 out
  of 10 children in foster care while only
  comprising 3 out of 10 children in the country.
• Causes Include
• Perceptions that poverty, single parenting and
  joblessness
• create a greater risk for parents to maltreat
  their children.
• Welfare Policies
• Child Welfare polices and practices that create
  disparate outcomes in treatment and services for
  families of color.
• States qualify for Title IV-E reimbursement based
  on the amount
• of families that qualify for TANF.
• Some studies suggest that the 1996 Welfare Reform
  Act contributed to an increase in foster care.

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Contributors to Disproportionality In Child
Welfare ( policies continued)

• Mental Health Practices
• African American youth are more likely than
  Caucasian youth to be prescribed psychiatric
  medication (such as Ritalin).
• Diagnoses based on racial stereotypes by
  well-meaning clinicians result in higher rates of
  placements of African-American children than
  Caucasian children.
• Juvenile Justice Practice
• African American and Hispanic youth are over
  represented in the juvenile institutions.
• African American youth are more likely than white
  youth with the same offenses to be treated more
  harshly, i.e. detained, formally charged,
  referred to adult court or committed to juvenile
  and adult correctional institutions.

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Massachusetts

• General Population
• 6,349.097
• Male 48
• Female 51
• Under 21yrs 32.7
• White 84.5
• Black 5.4
• Hispanic 6.8
• Other 3.3

• DCF Placements
• 10,892
• Male 51
• Female 49
• 12-17yrs 44
• White
• Black
• Hispanic

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Efforts in Massachusetts to Combat
Disproportional Outcomes

• Undoing Racism Training
• Statewide initiative to encourage youth to return
  to foster care after aging out
• Adolescent Breakthrough Series
• Family Group Conferencing
• The Fathers Project
• Statewide Mandatory Diversity Training
• Family Finding Intensive Search

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Project History (continued)

• History
• 20 state-wide representatives were invited to
  attend a training by Kevin Campbell with other
  New England states, the training was sponsored by
  the U.S Department of Health and Human Services.
• Kevin Campbell presented the results of a
  database driven intensive search project he
  conducted for Catholic Community services of
  Washington State.
• Kevin Campbells project targeted children with
  serious behavioral issues in congregate care.
  They used commercial internet services 499/500
  searches were successful and 85 of children were
  reunited or placed with kin.

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Project History

• Washington State law now requires intensive
  search.
• California conducted a search project called
  Permanency for Youth.
• 40 other jurisdictions have conducted intensive
  search projects.
• Overwhelming response to the training lead to a
  work group that made recommendations for
  implementing a search in Massachusetts.

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Project Design

• Six license and identified sites (one site per
  region and each site was allowed to determine how
  staff was allocated to the pilot. One individual
  holds the license to access the Accurint
  data-base)
• Western Region Regional Office and Springfield
  Area Office
• Central Region South Central Area Office
• Northeast Region Haverhill Area office
• Metro Region Arlington Regional Office
• Southeast Region Plymouth Area Office
• Boston Region All Boston Offices and Regional
  Office

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Project Design

• Goals
• Reconnect youth with their Roots
• Family members have a right to know what happened
  to their love ones.
• Fathers and paternal relative matter.
• Family members deserve the opportunity to restore
  hope.
• Create Permanent/Lifelong Connections
• Not just for placements but for all the roles
  family play in a youths life.
• Identify adults who consistently demonstrate that
  they have an unconditional relationship with the
  youth and the youth agrees that this adult plays
  a role in their life.

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Project Design (continued)

• Create Opportunities for Permanent Placements
• Permanency is both a process and a result that
  includes the youth as a leader in finding a
  permanent connection with at least on committed
  adult who provides
• A safe, stable and secure relationship
• Love
• Unconditional commitment
• Life long support in the context of
  reunification, adoption or guardianship where
  possible, and in which the youth has the
  opportunity to maintain contacts with important
  persons like siblings.

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Project Design (continued)

• Length 9 months
• Number of participants undetermined
• Population Youth 14-18
• The loneliest youth in the system
• Without current permanent family connection, with
  goal of independent living, or long-term
  sub-care.
• With goal of adoption but no identified placement
  resource.
• Aging out of system without a family support
  network.

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Project Design (continued)

• Methods (Kevin Campbells Model)
• Six phases for Family Finding
• Discovery
• Engagement
• Planning
• Decision Making
• Evaluation
• Follow Along Supports

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Project Design (continued)

• Supervision
• Family Finders met weekly with their supervisor
  for support and direction.
• The Boston team was led by a Area Director and
  met monthly for technical assistance from Kevin
  Campbell as well as weekly supervision.
• Funding
• The Boston Region paid for the technical
  assistance of Kevin Campbell.
• DCF central office paid for the 6 licenses that
  were used in the 6 regions, family resource staff
  was assigned to the project as partial family
  finders while managing other caseload
  responsibilities. In one case, a staff person was
  assigned as a fulltime family finder for the
  pilot (staff allocation was determined by each
  site).

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Outcomes

• What are we testing for?
• Will outcomes for youth improve?
• Will reunifications/adoptions/permanent
  care/guardianships with kin increase?
• Will youth have an increase in lifelong
  connection and supports?
• Will our work with fathers and paternal relatives
  increase?

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Outcomes

• South Central Office
• 21 referrals to pilot
• 8 youth made family connections
• 2 youth signed themselves out of care
• 11 youth currently in discovery phase
• Search assisting case managers
• 65 searches completed through Accurint
• 46 family members located
• 30 fathers located ( also used to assist ongoing
  case management)
• 16 Extended kin located
• Decrease use of unrestricted foster homes

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Outcomes

• West Springfield office (at time of
  presentation)
• 15 referrals to pilot
• 11 youth made family connections
• 3 youth currently in Discovery phase
• 1 removed from pilot by worker
• Accurint Search assisted case managers, legal,
  and investigations
• 83 searches completed in 9 month period
• 58 family members located
• 23 Extended kin located
• 19 Missing fathers located

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Outcomes

• The Family Find pilot concluded on October 28,
  2008 due to the clinical nature of this
  intervention and the strong involvement of the
  youths many are still ongoing. Outcome data on a
  statewide level was not available at the time of
  this presentation.
• The data received consistently show high levels
  of family connections and/or placement for youth
  in the pilot.

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Lessons Learned

• Three Main Lessons
• Bringing staff on board and making search a
  priority presented a significant barrier to
  moving the work forward.
• Build expectations into workers responsibilities.
• We should have created buy in with a strong
  agency commitment to the project.
• Set clear expectations and provide the same
  training and support across the regions.
• Prepare to deal with parental resistance and
  complex family dynamics.
• Getting parent cooperation to identify kin can be
  difficult as they are often angry with the
  agency.
• Without training, workers were not confident to
  deal with complex family dynamics.

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Recommendations

• Creating a system to support Family Finding
• Expand the definition of kin to include more than
  blood relatives, expanding possibilities for
  youth.
• Keep well-meaning family who can not provide
  placement in the youth circle, respect their role
  in the youths life.
• Listen to the youth about who is important to
  them.
• incorporate search in all decision making stages
  of a case i.e. initial placement and permanency
  planning.
• Promote the use of free search engines
• http//ssdi.rootweb.ansestry.com (Social Security
  Death Index).
• www.vinelink.com (locates and offender who is
  incarcerated) .
• www.whitepages.com ( this capable of doing a
  reverse search if you have the phone number it
  will provide address.
• Dont forget the local newspaper- obituaries will
  give you the next of kin.

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Recommendations (continued)

• Ask judges to insist parents offer alternative
  caregivers and name relatives when children are
  placed in foster care.
• Create a system to notify grandparents of
  placement in foster care.
• Create policy to insure diligent searching is
  conducted at different stages of the case.
• Designate staff or search units to limit
  isolation, provide training, and technical
  assistance.

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Resource and References

• Department of Children and Families Quarterly
  Reports, 1/1/08-3/31/08.
• Casey Family Programs and California Permanency
  for Youth Project Group Home Step Up Project
  Final Report, August 2005.
• Disproportionality of Minorities in Child
  Welfare Synthesis of Research Findings, Robert B
  Hill, Ph.D. prepared for Race Matters Consortium.
• Emancipated Youth Connections Project, Final
  Report/ Tool Kit. Cheryl J. Jacobson.
• Making Relative Search Happen, Child focus,
  Mary Bissell and Jennifer Miller.

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• The End