CO-PARENTING:

1. CO-PARENTING: Challenging ourselves to safely build joint support and transitions for children in care Dependency Summit September 7-9, 2011 Hon. Jeri Cohen, T. Petkovich, J. Niarchos, J.D. and L.Katz, Ed.D.

2. Multi-Faceted Process Implications for foster families and birth families Implications for agency policies and procedures Implications for system change Implications for training retooling Implications for both overt and hidden agendas Implications for legal and statutory compliance

3. CO-PARENTING SKILLS From the Foster Family Perspective: • Know your own family and their feelings • Communicate effectively about your comfort zone • Know the children • Self-evaluate your own understanding of loss and attachment pertaining to the child’s emotional needs • Seek training that will expand knowledge • Ask yourself how you would like to build connections

4. CO-PARENTING • Strategize how the process can build self –esteem in the child and the bio family • Assure yourself that health and safety of the child and foster family will be maintained • Jointly monitor the impact of the process as it unfolds • Accept that there needs to be elasticity in the process

5. CO-PARENTING How does working in partnership with birth parents validate the role of the foster family? • Foster parents have the responsibility to provide safe and nurturing homes for the children in our care. • Foster parents commit to helping their children grow and develop. • Foster parents work with their agency to keep the best interest of the child a priority.

6. CO-PARENTING • Identifying the opportunities and challenges inherent in creating a partnership with the birth parents that opens the door to the child’s best interests and permanency planning.

7. CO-PARENTING Birth Family Perspective: Components of an effective partnership with foster family: • Willingness to work in cooperation • Effective communication • Recognition that both families can make valuable contributions • Clear expectations and roles/ boundaries are set and re-examined • Honesty and Trust

8. CO-PARENTING Barriers from the birth parents’ perspectives: • Sense of failure • Lack of confidence • Anger: being judged • Mistrust of the system • Personal agendas

9. CO-PARENTING • Overall lack of information sharing • Mistrust of the foster parent • Reluctance to ask for training and support • Inconsistent messages

10. CO-PARENTING A birth mother’s perspective, taken from Believing in Families by Zamosky, Sharp, Hatt and Sharman. “ The foster families hold all the power…and the state already thinks they can do a better job than me. What chance do I have? They have a better house, more money, and there are two of them and one of me. I feel like they are judging me. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I just gave up … and then I say no, I love my kids and I can be a good mom to them… its all just so hard”.

11. CO-PARENTING From the agency perspective: Co-parenting must be a part of every aspect of the system of care: • Recruitment (How will this change who we recruit?) • Training /orientation-MAPP • Child placement logistics • Team meeting/family team conference • Case plan conferences • Individualizing the expectations

12. CO-PARENTING “Building a relationship with families necessitates reevaluating and rethinking the way we fundamentally intervene with families. It requires being able to communicate to families our unwavering conviction that birth parents can grow and safely care for their children”. Believing in Families - Zamosky, Sharp, Hatt and Sharman

13. CO-PARENTING Co-parenting strategies support the children • More child-centered • Less adversarial • More organized/Less fragmented • Communication framed in neutral terms • Reduces child’s externalizing behavior • Presents a united parenting front mediates instability • Both parties become active listeners of the child • Information can be shared as opposed to message delivery only • Addresses problems without blame

14. Preliminary Research on Approaches to Co-parenting Basic premise is that child’s emotional adjustment to foster care can be best facilitated when there is an acknowledgement that the caregivers will have unequal roles over the life of the case, when they agree that direct communication can help the child, and when they can communicate about potential interpersonal conflict.

15. One Study – Approach to Co-parenting (Linares, Montalto, Li & Oza, 2006 • Study in New York examined effects when biological parents and foster parents (non kinship) attended sessions of parenting classes together. • Pairs of bio and foster parents were randomized into treatment as usual vs. joint intervention • Bio parents got 2 hours parenting weekly by themselves and 1 hour jointly with foster parents in the study intervention.

16. Criteria for Participants • Substantiated child maltreatment case • Residence in a non kinship foster home • Goal was reunification • 64 parent pairs enrolled/randomized • Evidence-based curriculum was used (Incredible Years, Webster-Stratton, 2001) • Co-facilitated group leaders did bio only and joint group

17. Study Protocol • Assessments were done at baseline, post completion and at 3 months follow-up • Goal of joint sessions: expand knowledge of each other, practiced open communication, negotiated inter-parental topics of conflict such as discipline, bedtimes • Fidelity to the curriculum was monitored through taped sessions looking at format and group process

18. Assessments • Parenting Practices Interview (Webster-Stratton, 1998) • Family Functioning Style Scale(Dunst, Trivette and Deal, 1998) • Child Behavior Check List (Achenbach,1991) • HOME (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984) • Additional child behavior inventories • Session Attendance

19. Outcomes • For intervention group there was endorsement by both sets of parents for use of positive discipline • Both groups demonstrated clearer understanding of appropriate developmental expectations • Higher degree of flexibility • Consensus on less externalizing behaviors of the child

20. Implications for Practice** • Co-parenting approaches should incorporate structured strategies for how the pairs of parents will interact effectively • Participation of both sets of parents in some joint trainings is one strategy • Gain buy-in from the agencies and child welfare that the benefits are understood but that the challenges will occur

21. Implications for Practice • Conceptually having the pairs of parents on the same page can support the child’s emotional well-being • Training would need to include trust building and structured procedures for how all would communicate and interact • Shows promise as a strategy to support “best interests” of the child.

22. Where do we go next? • Development of agency protocols for foster families and biological families so that interactions occur in an organized, agreed upon manner. • Clarification of roles and responsibilities • Define what co-parenting looks like in our community and how it is to be implemented. • Challenges and impediments

23. BU Secure Attachment Relationships Safe Homes Safe Environments Health and permanency Opportunities To Learn Adequate Shelter and Nourishment

24. Co-Parenting • Is a strategy where foster parents work in partnership with the child’s birth parents toward the goal of reunification. This team approach to parenting allows both families to bring their strengths to focus on the well-being of the child and allows the child to focus on growing, learning, playing and developing to his/her potential during a difficult time. Benefits of Co-Parenting: • Puts the minds of the birth parents at ease to meet the people who are caring for their children. • Gives the parents access to asking personal questions of the caregivers about the children's mental and physical health as well as school, day care and everyday happenings.

25. Benefits of Co-parenting - continued • Encourages the birth parents that the caregivers of their children are working with them to obtain reunification by encouraging positive parenting with their children. • Provides the family engagement team with 24/7 knowledge of how the process is affecting the children and their relationship to the birth parents. • Is the stepping stone to support the birth parents in continued communication with their children in a more natural environment than the supervised visits, whether it be telephone communication, unsupervised visits, accompanying the foster parent to doctor visits and school events and/or meetings etc. • Supports the family engagement team in the goal of reunification through reinforcement of positive support and encouragement of the birth parents to complete their tasks and reunify with their children.

26. Practice changes: Foster parents who accept children with a goal of reunification commit to participate in co-parenting. Foster parents meet with the parents within 48 hours of the child’s removal in an “ice breaker” meeting facilitated by the case manager. The team begins exploring how to best support the family including how the foster parents will support and encourage the biological family.

27. What Foster parents do to engage the birth family : Transport child to visits with biological families. Send them pictures of the child. Send them the child’s school work/report cards. Have the child write them a letter or make a picture. Invite them to sporting events the child is involved in.

28. What Foster parents do to engage the birth family : • Invite them to birthday parties and school events. • Encourage them to attend the child’s medical/dental/psychological appointments. • Arrange with other foster parents to do sibling visits if the children are separated. • Share the details of important milestones in the child’s life, such as walking, talking, starting school, awards, etc.

29. Next steps: Implementation Jurisdictional planning-where are we now? Getting the buy-in from families and staffers Monitoring practice changes at the practitioner level-how will we know what we have changed Seeking client satisfaction feedback Examining ways to measure improved outcomes of families