A form of targeted and/or child/youth-centered recruitment, these efforts are specifically aimed at finding permanent family connections for older youth and teenagers. While many youth at this age may be working with an independent living program, teen recruitment recognizes the vital and important role family plays in creating future stability and success for them. In addition to providing support and security through the sometimes turbulent teen and young adult years, a family is there to provide love over a person's lifetime.
Promising Approaches
Ideas from the Field
Other Resources & Reports
Websites
Promising Approaches
Massachusetts Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Adolescent Permanency: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned
Sponsor: Massachusetts Department of Social Services
Contact: Mary Gambon, Mary.Gambon@state.ma.us
Description: From November 2005-October 2006, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services sponsored a statewide Breakthrough Series Collaborative focused on Adolescent Permanency. This initiative supported 29 teams from across Massachusetts, along with one team each from Rhode Island and Maine. This final report (PDF 4.1 MB/76 pages) highlights the emerging themes and practices resulting from the work of the participating teams as they tested and implemented practices to improve the way permanency is achieved for adolescents. The BSC process, combined with a willingness to participate from all levels of DSS, made it possible for trust to be garndered, ideas to be tested, themes to emerge, and promising practices to be identified. Lessons learned address both practice-related themes as well as lessons that speak to the use of a quality improvement methodology to improve case practice [author abstract].
Date: March 2007
Adopt Cuyahoga's Kids Initiative
http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/content.asp?pageid=216
Sponsor: Adoption Network / Cuyahoga Co. Strong Families=Successful Children Vision Council
Contact: Tami Lorkovich, (216) 325-1000, tami@adoptionnetwork.org
Description: Adopt Cuyahoga's Kids is an Adoption Network (AN) program created and funded by Cuyahoga County's Vision Council to deal with the tremendous backlog of children remaining in foster care without a permanent home or plan. For the project, AN developed a practice model of child-specific recruitment with Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and fourteen partner agencies, and implemented it in January 2004. The project identified a group of 650 youth who had no one willing or able to adopt them and no permanent plan. These youth were then referred to the private agencies and DCFS. AN focused primarily on older children, especially those at risk of aging out. Currently 85% of children identified for the project are ages 10 and up. The goal for adoptive placements was to find 50 in the first year. Since the project started in January 2004, out of 650 youth who had no plan, 165 are in adoptive placements as of April 2005.
Key components of the project include: Targeted and child-specific recruitment efforts; mentoring for youth at the highest risk for aging out; Adoption Navigators, experienced adoptive parents to help potential adoptive parents navigate the system and overcome barriers; agency payment structure and rates with built-in incentives for placements of older youth; child preparation co-facilitated by older youth and young adults who were either adopted or aged out of care.
Date: January 2004 to present
Permanency Partners Program (P3)
Sponsor: Los Angeles County DCFS (CA) & Consortium for Children
Contact: Tiffany Collins, collita@dcfs.co.la.ca.us
Description: n an effort to address the approximately 8,000 youth ages 12-18 in care, Los Angeles County DCFS has implemented a pilot program that pairs trained Permanency Partners with youth to identify one or more permanent connections, with the goal of either family reunification or moving the child out of long-term foster care and into adoption or legal guardianship. Started in October of 2004 as a public-private partnership between L.A. County DCFS and Consortium for Children, the program initially identified 50 youth to participate and continues to expand today. Key program components include intensive file mining, exploring the youth's life and past connections, and the development of a written agreement regarding the relationship and services that will achieve permanence for each youth.
Date: October 2004 - present
Recruiting with Power Point Presentations
Sponsor: Three Rivers Adoption Council (TRAC)
Contact: Sheila Hill, 412-471-8722, shill@3riversadopt.org
Description: Using technology creatively, Three Rivers Adoption Council in Pittsburgh, PA, has found a way to bring the personalities and stories of their youth to life through Power Point presentations. These presentations, created by the youth with assistance from a worker, allow the youth to express themselves through words, pictures, and graphics in a media format that can be used in recruitment events as well as on the organization's website. The program not only draws on older youth and teens' computer savvy but provides a great opportunity for workers and youth to work collaboratively and address adoption issues. Says Sheila Hill of TRAC, "So far 50 kids have completed Power Points with 22 kids having some sort of placement where they were removed from [our] webpage."
Date: January 2004 - present
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Ideas from the Field
Youth Advisory Board Training Video
Sponsor: Missouri DSS
Contact: Cindy Wilkinson, Cindy.R.Wilkinson@dss.mo.gov
Description: Missouri's Independent Living Youth Advisory Board wrote & directed a videotape "What's It All about? Missouri's Youth Advisory Board Speaks Out on Foster Care." In the video, several foster youth are interviewed and give their honest takes on their experiences - the good and the bad - while in care. Missouri uses this tape during foster and adoptive parent pre-service training. Many important discussion topics around foster care and adoption naturally arise as a result of the video, such as youth being separated from their siblings, parent and social worker visits, and their labeling as foster children. Says Cindy Wilkinson, MO State Adoption Program Manager, "We have had many positive responses and are currently being flooded with requests for the video."
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Websites
Child Welfare Information Gateway
(Formerly National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse)
http://www.childwelfare.gov/
National Child Welfare Resource Center for Adoption
http://www.nrcadoption.org
National Child Welfare Resource Center for Youth Development
http://www.nrcys.ou.edu/nrcyd/
National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
http://www.aecf.org/
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