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Foster Care |
| Foster parent Recruitment Retention and Support Re-design |
In June of 2007, Eckerd Family Foundation began a partnership with the Youth Law Center and the Florida Department of Children and Families in response to the use of inappropriate placements for children and youth in the child welfare system throughout the state. Two primary causes were identified that were contributing to this situation:
1. Substantial weaknesses in social work practice both at the investigative and case management phases.
2. An insufficient number of high quality foster homes to care for the children who needed placement.
The plan that was developed and implemented included in 2007-2008 included;
1. Work on standards and quality assurance and an identification of the “critical few” standards that agencies would use for quality control.
2. Assist Community based care lead agencies (CBC’s) in the development of individualized plans for recruitment, support and training of foster parents in their geographic areas. This phase of the work included the introduction of expert consultants who provided technical assistance and training on the impacts of shelter care, data collection and tracking, foster care recruitment, human resources and marketing.
The result s of that first year of work included:
- DCF set guidelines for the CBC’s that go beyond federal requirements.
- A multi level quality assurance system was implemented.
- A partnership between an advocacy organization, state agency and private foundation was forged.
- A systematic approach to recruitment, training and support of foster families was developed.
- The statewide DCF system developed statewide guidelines in the process and integrated the private sector into that process.
- Present and former foster youth, bio-parents and foster parents were systematically included in the process.
- An effort to define quality in the context of foster parenting and to target recruitment and support efforts on quality foster parents as defined by youth and families in the system was made.
In 2008 and 2009 three CBC lead agencies, Big Bend CBC, Hillsborough Kids Inc. and CBC of Seminole were selected to participate in an intensive project to reforming the recruitment, care and management of the foster parent system.
During this year these three CBC’s:
- Developed a data driven approach to analyzing the process
- Branded the concept of quality foster parents as partners
- Reformed the systemic processes in investigation, training, licensing, placement and case management and marketing,
- Improved partnerships and collaboration among providers and foster parents.
In 2009-2010 Eckerd Family Foundation and the Youth Law Center have agreed to continue their financial and consultative support of the three pilot sites and to expanding the pilot in up to four additional CBC lead agencies.
In addition the project in the coming year plans to:
- Complete a new demographic caseload of children in foster care and compare to the baseline data from 2008-2009.
- Conduct a kick off event to introduce the community to the new concept of foster family. YLC, DCF and EFF will assist in developing the program and providing guest speakers.
- Implement or continue to implement program changes to support quality foster families and monitor the effectiveness of implementation.
- Assist in the development of a redesign of pre service and in-service training curriculum and approaches that offer flexibility in qualifying a prospective foster parent including and optional peer/mentoring component.
- Utilize available technology to expand forums for training and networking of foster parents and child welfare staff.
- Develop and implement a series of re-licensing questions that will more effectively assess the quality of care provided by foster parents, their needs and available supports.
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