Unpacking the NO! Facilitating Permanency for Older Adolescents

1. Unpacking the NO!Facilitating Permanency for Older Adolescents State of West Virginia Adoption Supervisory Staff Teleconference July 25, 2006

2. Who Wouldn’t Want a Family? Who wouldn’t want a family? Who wouldn’t want to have a family to spend holidays with, to call when things don’t go right, or to call when things are great to celebrate? Who wouldn’t want that? - Former Foster Care Youth

3. Some Statistics About Youth In Foster Care AFCARS 11 data, as of September 30, 2004, indicates that there are: • 517,000 children and youth in foster care • youth ages 10 years and up accounting for fifty four percent (n=276,515)

4. Nationally Pre-Adoptive Home 4% 21,483 Foster Family Home (Relative) 24% 122,528 Foster Family Home (Non) 46% 238,084 Group Home 9% 45,609 Institution 10% 51,585 Supervised Independent Living 1% 5,858 Runaway 2% 10,931 Trial Home Visit 4% 20,923 Placement settings for all children/youth in care were:

5. National PPG Reunification – 49% Living with Relatives – 4% Adoption – 20% Despite the fact that it was stricken from the ASFA statue, 8% (n=40, 832) of these children and youth had a goal of Long Term Foster Care. 6% or 32,370 youth had a goal of emancipation 3% Guardianship 9% No Goal Established Permanency Goals

6. Who Adopted These Young People? • 118,000 children & youth are waiting to be adopted. • 52,000 children or youth were adopted from the public foster care system. • 59% of young people were adopted by a foster parent • 24% were adopted by relatives • 16% were adopted by non-relatives.

7. Permanency for Youth They’re always talking about this Permanency stuff. You know social workers. . .lawyers . . . always using these big social work terms to talk about simple things. One day one of them finally described what she meant by permanency. After I listened to her description, which was the first time anyone ever told me what the term meant, I said, “Oh, that’s what you mean? Yeah, I want permanency in my life. I don’t think I ever had that! When can I get it?” Foster care youth

8. The Concept of Permanency for Youth • 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) • Struggling to identify who they are and as a parallel process they are also developing their own unique worldview. • Primary developmental tasks are identity formation and establishing independence. • Distrust of adults; reluctance to accept advice; and resentment of adult authority.

9. The Concept of Permanency for Youth • All children and adolescents deserve a legal, permanent family to call their own. It seems right, • Attempting to find permanence for an adolescent is often in direct conflict with normative adolescent developmental tasks. • Developmentally, adolescents are trying to determine their own identities, their own values, make their own decisions, and ultimately create separation from their families.

10. 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

11. I Always Thought I Was Adoptable . . I always thought that I was adoptable even though I was 16 years old, but my social worker kept saying I was too old every time I asked him about it. I worked after-school at this hardware store and the guy who owned it was so kind to me. He was such a good guy and I always talked to him. I never really told him I was in foster care, but one day when we got to talking, he started to ask me a lot of questions about my family and then about life in foster care. I invited him to my case conference because my social worker said I could invite anyone who I wanted to, and at that point he asked about adoption. I was shocked at first, but it made sense. We finalized my adoption three months ago. That day was the happiest day of my life. - Former foster youth

12. Adoption of Adolescents • Adoption, however, as discussed earlier, has become the permanency goal for a growing number of children and youth in care since the enactment of ASFA • Adoption is considered the preferred permanency option, when youth cannot be safely reunited with their families, many individuals and groups suggest that the child welfare field needs to reconceptualize permanency for older youth in the foster care system.

13. Adoption of Adolescents • This reconceptualization will require expanded permanent options that meet the youth’s need for lifelong, meaningful relationships. • Open adoption, shared parenting, and practices which permit the adopted youth to maintain contact with their birth family members are contemporary approaches which support permanency and may be useful for practitioners to consider in exploring the array of permanency options for youth.

14. Adoption of Older Adolescents • ASFA explicitly rejects the notion that there is an “age limit” for adoption or that adolescents are “too old” to be adopted. Adoption is a viable option for adolescents, who have a critical role to play in identifying their own potential adoptive resources. • Too often, it is the misplaced fear that adoption will lead to the severing of their emotional ties with members of their birth families that leads some adolescents to reject the idea of adoption for themselves. Adolescents, along with child care staff, caseworkers, mental health professionals and others, need help to understand that the nature of adoption has undergone a radical transformation over the past several decades.

15. Adoption of Older Adolescents • No longer does adoption mean the complete replacement of the birth family by the adoptive family. Adolescents who wish to do so should be supported in their desire to remain in contact with key members of their birth family: parents, grandparents, siblings and other significant members of their extended families.

16. Adoption of Older Adolescents • The participation of adolescents in planning for their own adoption is critical. Adolescents need to be actively involved in identifying past and present connections that can be explored as potential adoptive resources. • Young people 18 and older should be informed by their caseworker that they can consent to their own adoption and that there is no need for legal proceedings to terminate their parents’ parental rights.

17. Changing the Initial “NO” to “Yes” Exploring the permanency option of adoption is a process, not a one time event. • “I don’t want to give up past connections” • “I don’t want to lose contact with my family” • “I don’t want to lose contact with important people” • “I will have to change my name” • “No one will want me” • “I am too destructive for a family” • “Families are for little kids” • “I don’t want to betray my birth family” • “Mom said she would come back” • “I want to make my own decisions” • “I’ll just mess up again” • “I don’t want to risk losing anyone else”

18. Leadership in Promoting an Adoption Positive Approach 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” response. It may initially help the young person to review their past connections and experiences to help put their thoughts and feelings into context.

19. Leadership in Promoting an Adoption Positive Approach 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. What do you say instead of accepting NO? • 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 by you? compliments or praises you? appreciates you? • Who can you count on? Who would you call at 2 am if you were in trouble? Wanted to share good news? Bad news?

21. What do you say instead of accepting NO? • Who are the three people in your life with whom you have had 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 to in the past? • Who from the past or present that you want to stay connected to? How? Why? • How are you feeling about this process? What memories, fears, and anxieties is it stirring up?

22. What Else Can You Do? 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 the youth, 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 connections 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 as fresh eye.

23. Work With Youth to Identify Important Adults in their Life • Work with the youth to identify caring, committed adults with whom the youth would like to establish a connection or re-establish a former connection. Youth should be asked who they feel most comfortable with, who they trust (or with whom they might like to build a trusting relationship) and who they feel they have formed bonds to, such as former foster parents, former neighbors, parents of close friends, members of their extended family, group home staff, cafeteria workers, maintenance staff, administrators, teachers, coaches, and work colleagues.

24. 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 with 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?

25. Unpack the “NO” • Discuss sensitively with the youth where they might like to belong and to address the strong feelings that might underlie a statement by a young person that he or she does not want to be adopted. A concurrent adoption plan must include plans to help the young person “unpack the ‘No’” and to find out what underlies their reluctance to consider adoption.

26. 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, a TPR does not prevent the young person from visiting or contacting members of his or her birth family.

27. Keep Searching for Permanent Connections • Identify permanency leads if a record review and interviews with the youth and staff do not yield possible permanent connections.

28. Prepare Families Who Wish to Adopt an Adolescent • Help prepare prospective adoptive parents to understand the commitment they are making when they undertake to provide a permanent home for an adolescent.

29. Provide On-Going Support • Post-permanency services must be put in place to support the adoptive placement

30. Lesson Learned About Youth Permanency • Lesson #1:  Permanency must be a priority for all youth, including older adolescents. • Lesson #2:  Termination of parental rights alone does not guarantee permanency for youth; concurrent planning to pursue multiple permanency options simultaneously is essential. • Lesson #3:  Family connections endure regardless of legal actions.  Building on family strengths and making optimal use of positive connections is an important part of permanency planning. • Lesson #4:  We need to involve youth by utilizing positive youth development approaches and permit significant others to participate as key contributors in the permanency planning process.

31. Lesson Learned About Youth Permanency • Lesson #5:  A concurrent planning process can be developed to establish multiple permanency options for adolescents. • Lesson #6:  Efforts to achieve permanency must be supported through flexible and sufficient funding. • Lesson #7:  Effective recruitment of permanent families should occur at two levels:  general recruitment and youth specific recruitment. • Lesson #8:  Staffing issues within public and private child welfare agencies have an impact on permanency planning.

32. Lesson Learned About Youth Permanency • Lesson #9:  Legal systems need to expand options for permanency, particularly for older youth. • Lesson #10:  Older youth in need of permanency bring both resilience and challenges.  Services need to recognize both, engaging the youth in building realistic plans for the future. • Lesson #11: We must monitor outcomes carefully at the case level and agency level, improving the capacity of management information systems to track progress toward permanency. • Lesson #12:  Permanency must be understood as a complex phenomenon, not simply as a legal status or placement category.

33. 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

34. Involving Youth in Permanency Efforts • Youth must be involved in the process and must have input • Many youth do 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

35. Connectedness Charts DIMENSIONS OF CONNECTEDNESS: • HEART: Who do you love? Who loves you? Who do you want to love you? • MIND: Who teaches you? What are you learning? Who do you teach? Who do you think about?

36. Connectedness Charts • BODY: Who shares your blood? Does anybody share your body? Who provides you with food and shelter? • SOUL: To what or whom is your soul connected? What or who are your passions?

37. Connectedness Charts COLOR CODES FOR THE LINES • RED is for the heart. • GREEN is for the fertile and creative mind. • BLUE is for the blood that runs in the veins (body). • YELLOW is for the light of the soul.

39. FAMILY FINDING:SEARCH TOOLS • Child Welfare Record Review • Family Ancestry Chart • Internet Sites for locating persons • www.familysearch.org (Mormon Church) • www.geneologytoday.com • www.people-finder.com • www.ancestry.com • www.obituary.com (deceased relative information)

40. FAMILY FINDING:SEARCH TOOLS • Peopleprofileusa.com • usatrace.com (search by name SS#) • People-data.com • Social Security Death Index • Reunitetonight.com • Myfamily.com • Intelius.com

41. FAMILY FINDING:SEARCH TOOLS • Prison Locater Services • American Red Cross • Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) • Inter-State Compact for the Placement of Children • International Social Services (BALTIMORE – 410-230-2730)

42. Adoption and Adolescents: A Handbook for Preparing Adolescents for Adoption, Virginia Sturgeon www.sturgeon@infi.net (859) 299-2749 This handbook is designed to assist practitioners working with adolescents freed for adoption. It outlines the steps needed to plan for the future and to help them achieve their highest potential. Mentoring USA www.mentoringusa.com An organization that links foster care youth with caring adults and promotes life-long connections References & Resources

43. Lewis, R.G., and Heffernan, M.S. (2000). Adolescents and families for life: A toolkit for supervisors. Boston, MA: Lewis & Heffernan. A guidebook for child welfare providers interested in developing skills in working toward permanency with adolescents. References & Resources

44. Lewis, R.G., and Communities for People, Inc. (2002). The family bound program: A toolkit for preparing teens for permanent family connections. Boston, MA: Lewis. A guidebook for working with families to promote and prepare teens for permanent family connections developed by Spaulding for Children, Michigan. References & Resources

45. Mallon, G.P. (2003). Facilitating permanency for youth: A Toolbox for youth permanency. Washington, DC: CWLA. A toolbox for practitioners, policy-makers, and advocates for promoting permanency and life-time connections for older adolescents. www. cwla.org References & Resources

46. National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning Gerald P. Mallon, DSW, Director The National Resource Center for Foster Care and Permanency Planning Hunter College School of Social Work A Service of the Children’s Bureau/ACF\DHHS 129 East 79th Street New York, New York 10021 (212) 452-7043 – Direct Line (212) 452-7475 - Fax gmallon@hunter.cuny.edu www.nrcfcppp.org