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Voices That Count: Improving Communication Between the Child Welfare System, Parents and Youth

African American Family Support Conference. Voices That Count: Improving Communication Between the Child Welfare System, Parents and Youth. Legislative Support of Change. 79 th Legislative Session 80 th Legislative Session 81 st Legislative Session

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Voices That Count: Improving Communication Between the Child Welfare System, Parents and Youth

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  1. African American Family Support Conference Voices That Count: Improving Communication Between the Child Welfare System, Parents and Youth

  2. Legislative Support of Change 79th Legislative Session 80th Legislative Session 81st Legislative Session For more information on the legislative session: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us For more information on CPS: http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/About_Child_Protective_Services/

  3. Family Focus Purpose Family Focus Program To enhance safety, permanency and well being for children and youth through the provision of direct and support services to their caretakers, whether biological or through affinity

  4. Family Focus Goals • To increase parent participation • To increase youth involvement • To increase extended family involvement • To keep families together, safe and healthy

  5. Core Values and Beliefs • Respect • Ownership • Collaboration and Teamwork • Empowerment • Strength-based

  6. Core Values and Beliefs • Flexibility • Support • Cultural Competence • Uniqueness

  7. Family Focus Division Key Factors to Sustaining Goals of this Work • Continue to provide forums/opportunities • to families and obtain youth input • Infusion of family and youth voice in our • practice and policy • Continuation of cultural shift within CPS • Continue to build community involvement

  8. Family Focus Program Areas • Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) • Kinship • Parent Involvement • Fatherhood • Family Based Safety Services (FBSS)

  9. Family Group Decision Making • Drives agency philosophical shift • Began as a pilot in 2003 in 5 areas across the state • Offered statewide at 4 primary points of CPS involvement • Supported & funded by Texas Legislature

  10. Family Group Decision Making • FGDM Models • Family Team Meetings • Offered to families prior to removal when immediate safety concerns have been identified. • Also used to address placement concerns after home removal. • Family Group Conferences • Offered to families upon removal and increasingly during Family Based Safety Services (in-home) cases. • Circles of Support • Youth-focused and driven meetings • Used to develop transition plans for older youth moving from foster care to adulthood

  11. Kinship Program • Expand Kinship Program • Financial Support • Daycare • Kinship Caregiver Manual • Kinship Development Worker • Fostering Connections • Caregiver Resources Form • Permanency Care Assistance

  12. Parent Involvement • Hired Parent Specialist • Parent Voice • Policy Review • Parent Collaboration Group (PCG) • Regional PSGs

  13. Fatherhood • The Importance and Value of Fathers • Children tend to perform better at all levels • Children are able to deal with trauma • Children are less likely to live in poverty • Fathers have the ability to influence the trajectory of his children’s world • (Four State Grant) Seventy-three percent of homes with children removed = NO FATHER • System Biases of Fathers

  14. Family Based Safety Services • Family driven process • Preventing removals • Decrease time in care • Maintain child safety • Relieve family stress • Enhance family strengths and functioning

  15. Engagement Principles of Partnership • Recognize that everyone desires respect • Everyone needs to be heard • Families have many strengths • Judgments can wait • Embrace the idea that partners share power • Creating partnerships with clients is a process

  16. Engagement of Family Members √Listening √Supporting √ Sensitivity/Empathy √ Seeking to Understand √ Sharing Information √ Empowering √ Respect and Genuineness √ Self reflection and self-correction

  17. Disproportionality in Child Welfare

  18. ExplanatoryFramework John Fluke and Barbara Jones Harden, 2011

  19. Explanatory Framework – Racism Impacts All John Fluke and Barbara Jones Harden, 2011

  20. We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. ~ Marian Wright Edelman ~ Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund

  21. Family Focus Staff DeShaun Ealoms Parent Program Specialist Kenneth Thompson Fatherhood Specialist Lori Lewis-Conerly Family Based Safety Services Program Specialist Ellen Letts Family Group Decision Making Program Specialist Tanya Rollins Disproportionality Manager

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