Kinship Initiatives

1. Kinship Initiatives Brenda McLaren • February • 2015

2. Principles

3. Outcomes for Children and Youth • Supporting vulnerable children to live successfully in the Community • Children in temporary care will be reunited quickly with their family • Children in permanent care will be placed in permanent homes as quickly as possible • Youth will be transitioned to adulthood successfully • Aboriginal children will live in culturally appropriate placements

4. Practice Strategies • Aboriginal collaboration and connection • Multi-cultural services and supports • Collaborative decision making • Kinship engagement and supports • Family and relative search • Signs of Safety Approach • Outcome Based Service Delivery • FASD assessment and service supports

5. What is Kinship? Differences between kinship and foster care: • Kinship provides care for a specific child(ren) only • Kinship caregivers typically have an existing relationship with the birth parents, which can change family dynamics • Kinship care is not licensed and caregivers are not required to meet the training expectations of the 31 core courses that foster families are required to complete

6. Continuum of Placements • Agreed upon family arrangement • Parent allows alternate person to come into their home to support their parenting • Parent allows child to be cared for by an alternate caregiver in that persons home • Emergency Caregiver Delegation • CYFEA Sec7 (1)(2)(3)(4) • Child comes into care • CAwG • Apprehension • Look for kinship first When a child comes into care, kinship placement must be pursued as the first placement

7. What is Kinship? continued • Kinship caregivers are compensated differently than foster parents: basic maintenance (no skill fee or special rates) • Motivation for Kinship care is different: there is vested interest in the specific child(ren); they are stepping up in a difficult circumstance, and children can be placed on an immediate basis • Existing relationships in the family will change in kinship care • Community relationships can also change with kinship care

8. Why Kinship? • Research and Data tells us that children do better when placed with family. • Children are more likely to reach their outcomes when placed with Kin.

9. Research Outcomes There are a number of positive outcomes for children who have been placed into kinship care homes: • Children had more frequent and natural contact with their parents • Experienced fewer placement disruptions • Experienced fewer placement moves • Experienced less trauma • Maintained connections to family values, culture and traditions • Children developed positive self image and sense of belonging

10. Outcomes for Kinship Meeting Outcomes • Children who come into care and experience only one placement, if that placement is kinship, have much higher rates of meeting the identified 5 outcomes: • Supporting vulnerable children to live successfully in the Community • Children in temporary care will be reunited quickly with their family • Children in permanent care will be placed in permanent homes as quickly as possible • Youth will be transitioned to adulthood successfully • Aboriginal children will live in culturally appropriate placements • For Aboriginal children there is a significant increase in reaching outcomes when placed with kinship over foster care.

11. Outcomes for Kinship Placement Stability • A number of quantitative studies using high-level analysis determined that placement stability is much higher • Kin placements more likely to “persist, but also more likely to end in successful discharge to the birthparents” (Perry et al) • Fewer subsequent placements

12. Outcomes for Kinship Permanency Outcomes • Permanency looks different (less likely to be adopted) • Reunification with birth parents more likely Stigma • Experience less trauma at apprehension • Often have lived sporadically with caregiver • Less stigma living with family than in a formal placement

13. Outcomes for Kinship More closely connected to family and community • Positively impacts identity formation • Have more contact with birth parents • “If I would have gone into foster care, I would have never seen my cousins or nobody”

14. Kinship Home Assessment If Children have better outcomes in kinship placements, and we are required to look first to kinship, it is important that we have good processes in place to ensure that: • Children are safe • All their needs are met • Caregivers have appropriate support

15. Immediate vs Planned Placements Kinship care providers enter the system in one of two ways: Immediate placement • This is a situation where a child is taken into care and a kinship provider is identified by the family or the child very quickly. The child can be placed with the kinship family as long as Intervention Record Checks are completed and a statement of Criminal Record Checks is signed. This provides opportunity for the child to live with a familiar person immediately.

16. Requirements for Immediate Kinship Placement Immediate Placement Checklist Upon Placement • Intervention Record Check • Kinship Care Applicant Declaration (regarding Criminal Records) • Environmental Safety Assessment for Caregivers • Kinship Guide Within 72 Hours • Application for Criminal Record Checks • Application to become a Kinship Care Provider • Kinship Care Agreement

17. Requirements for Immediate Kinship Placement continued Within 60 Working Days • Medical Reference • Kinship Orientation & Guide / Kinship Handbook • Follow-up with references • Home study report All of these requirements apply to all residents of the home age 18 and older

18. Immediate vs Planned Placements Planned placement • This situation is where a kinship provider is identified after a child has been placed in a foster care/group care or other placement resource. This provides the opportunity for all requirements to be completed prior to the child being placed.

19. Requirements for Planned Kinship Placement • Kinship Orientation Training / Kinship Guide • Intervention Record Check • Environmental Safety Check • Application to become a Kinship Care Provider • Home Study Report • Three references (two relatives, one non-relative) • Medical Reference • Kinship Care Agreement • All of these requirements apply to all residents of the home age 18 and older.

20. Support and Monitoring • All kinship homes are supported and monitored by a Kinship Care Caseworker • This Caseworker regularly visits the home and meets with the caregivers • All care concerns are assessed using the same formal process used for foster homes

21. Services and Supports for Kinship Providers A Kinship Support Plan is required. • Even if the family doesn’t want anything at the time, the plan should be on the family’s file stating that fact and the rationale as to why. • While a kinship home doesn’t need to be licensed, they do need to pass an Environmental Safety Assessment. - i.e. Smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, baby gates, etc.

22. Services and Supports for Kinship Providers continued • A Kinship Support Plan can be used to purchase items needed to complete the Environmental Safety checklist. • The Kinship Support Plan can also be used to cover things like daycare, after-school care, tutors or any other assistance the family may need to care for the child (after negotiating with the caseworker).

23. Services and Supports for Kinship Providers continued • Kinship care providers receive both the vacation and recreation allowance at the same rate as foster parents.

24. Services and Supports for Kinship Providers continued • Kinship Orientation Training (KOT) is required • This training is available in a variety of formats across the province. • The preferred method is the classroom method. • If this is not possible, it may done by completing the Kinship Care Guide (Guide) with the Kinship Care Worker. • A copy of the Guide must be given to all kinship care providers at all immediate placements.

25. Services and Supports for Kinship Providers continued • All the training that is available to foster care parents is also available to kinship care providers. • Kinship care providers are encouraged to take any training that would help make their experience easier. • Kinship care providers are also welcome to attend the annual AFPA conference, as well as any other conferences or seminars available to foster parents.

26. Services and Supports for Kinship Providers continued Kinship Information Number (KIN) • KIN Line • Established August 2014 • Available to provide basic information on kinship • Redirect calls from kinship families requiring support • Available during normal business hours

27. How Community Partners can support Kinship • Kinship Providers may require additional support in the form of teaching, mentoring etc to provide care for high-needs children • Kinship Providers may need assistance to work through grief and loss and renegotiate other relationships within their extended family. • Kinship Providers may need support to understand and work with systems • Helpers may need to separate their concerns and attitudes about the biological family from kinship caregivers

28. Questions?

29. FasdCaring For Our ChildrenWe are in this together Darci Kotkas

30. DEFINITION Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is a term used to support individuals who have been diagnosed with a “spectrum” of effects related to prenatal alcohol exposure. It includes (but is not limited to) Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Alcohol Related Neurobehavioral Disorder, Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Static Encephalopathy. Debolt

31. KEY POINTS TO BE MADE: • Children, adolescents and adults with FASD have complex medical, psychological and social needs. • They are difficult to provide stability for and existing resources are not often user friendly for these families. Debolt

32. Intention….. • The critical message emerging from this work is the need to establish sound FASD Informed Practice to support the often complex needs of children and families. FASD Informed Practice implies that casework is carried out in a way that appreciates the specific challenges associated with FASD as a disabling condition and recognizes the need for adjustments and accommodations in the child welfare response. • A key element of the success of the Community of Practice initiative was the recognition that child welfare practice in response to FASD requires a specialized approach and leadership on practice needs to originate and develop within the workforce.

33. WHY US? • Child Protective Services identify more high-risk children than any other public system. • The challenge is to recognize the need to do more than protect. Protecting without educating, healing and enriching children is an opportunity lost. The cost in human and financial resources is overwhelming. • Children born with FASD are among the fastest growing group of children entering the child welfare system…..

34. Prevalence in Child Protection • What we Know • FASD is often overrepresented in children, adolescents and adults requiring services from child protection agencies – 50% of caseloads • The Enhancement Act’s philosophy of “least intrusive and time limited” is not congruent with what we know helps with these children and families. • Many contracted agencies that serve individual Child and Family Service Authorities are often unprepared to serve this high needs group. • Children and families experiencing the complexities of this poorly understood disability are often at the center of highly public child protection failures.

35. Why do we do this? It is important to understand that early diagnosis and intervention are positively correlated with better long term outcomes for the children and their families.  Appropriate diagnosis results in the children receiving relevant and targeted interventions, significantly improves their functioning, adaptability, self-awareness and self-esteem not to mention significantly improves parent-child interactions (Streissguth et al 2004).

36. 80% of individuals with FASD are raised by other people: • Biological families are unaware of what has happened developmentally for their child • Rearing families are unaware of the etiology of the problems • Multiple placements distort the information and the functioning Debolt

37. TRIFECTA – FASD and…… • School Failure • Mental Health Disorders • Addictions Streissgueth’s Secondary Disability Study 90% had mental health problems 30% had drug and alcohol use/misuse

38. Understanding the Presence of FASD in our “Systems of Support” If we get it: • We will have effective and cost efficient interventions • We will have enhanced collaboration • We will have improved developmental outcomes • We will reduce the intergenerational effects of FASD If we don’t: • We will have ineffective and costly interventions • There will be systemic frustration and blame • There will be multiple diagnosis (and explanations) over time. • There will be an escalation of symptoms despite “huge” effort.

39. Intervention is…. • Identification of high risk individuals is intervention. • Gathering relevant information to support a diagnosis of FASD is intervention. • Referring for formal diagnosis/assessment is intervention. • Diagnosis is intervention. • Diagnosis kick starts a multi-system organization of care. That is intervention. Debolt

40. #1 Value: Placement Stability • Training, training, & more training • Coaching and support • Respite and Relief Care • Grief and Loss support – The ability to give up what we wish this was to take on what it is

41. Recognition of intergenerational FASD. • There is a significant gap in our system of service for persons with disabilities. (Support for people with disabilities to be parents). • Many of these circumstances then lead to child protection involvement • Recognition of Non-compliance as non-competence shifts the traditional approaches and expectations of the child welfare system.

43. Development of Child Welfare Practice Standards Creating improved outcomes for children with FASD • Early identification • Appropriate service planning • Specialized training to agency staff, families and caregivers • Increased placement stability • Reduction in incidence an severity of secondary disabilities • Effective transition to adult services Debolt

44. FASD:Community of practice • Training for staff • Support application and integration into case practice. • Ensuring disability first lens • Assist workers in being strong advocates in leading collaborative partnerships to serve clients and families with this disability effectively.

45. Training opportunity in medicine hat • FASDtraining.com • May 1, 2015