Today’s guest blogger is David Glesener
Preventing Re-entry into the Child Welfare System, a Literature Review of Promising Practices by Northern California Training Academy
Document web link: http://www.childsworld.ca.gov/res/pdf/PreventingRe-entry.pdf
This resource guide is a systematic review of evidence based and promising practices to address the high rates of re-entry into foster care—children that have left foster care but have returned because of their family’s inability to care for them safely. The article lists a substantial number of literature search sources used to compile their choices of promising practices.
The guide is divided into these section:
Pre-planning post placement services: preparing both the children and the family for the transition home rather than when service plans are complete the children are returned.
Participatory case planning during placement: There are a number of names and models for this but it consists of meetings with placing social workers, the family and family advocates including any service providers they are using to have a plan for reunification that continues helping with the family functioning after reunification. There are a number of models and resources listed in the article.
Assessing family readiness: assessing ambivalence of the parents toward reunification. The article lists an assessment tool.
Parent-child visitation: Visitation is the best predictor of how reunification will go. The authors stress the importance of frequency, the trauma of separation and give examples of creative visitation by video with incarcerated parents.
The article describes and names promising parenting education and psycho education resources and models of intensive family services. The authors caution that many of the above programs are tailored for a certain populations or groups and that there needs to be a match between family needs and what the program offers.
The article ends with stating the practices identified are aimed at addressing factors associated with re-entry but more evidence based research is necessary to substantiate that these practices are effective.
My own reaction to the article is appreciation for finally have specific recommendations for addressing foster care re-entry. There has been pressure placed on county social workers to by the Minnesota Department of Human Services and federally mandated timelines to return children as soon as possible. With the increase in reunification has come an increase in re-entry which indicates that we have not done re-unification well. There has been quite a call for more services to assist in the transition but not much specificity on what those services should be. I appreciated the depth and breadth of suggestions mentioned in this guide. I think it is extremely useful and is a substantive help to agencies, families and communities working for successfully reunification without foster care re-entry
The weaknesses in the article are self-identified. The authors say up front and in their conclusion that more evidence based research is necessary to establish effectiveness of these programs and so they call them promising programs. They identify that most research has been on the factors contributing to re-entry rather than what works for preventing re-entry.
A second weakness is that it mentions service gaps for mental illness, substance abuse and domestic violence. In my experience with in child protection, those are factors in most families where children are removed.
In regard to dispelling or promoting myths about adoption or permanency, I think the article does a good job of describing the complexities of return home from foster care and by stating the relatively high rate of re-entry it dispels that upon reunification family problems are resolved for good.