1. Identified Need in this area: Priorities from the Short-Term Assessment of Priorities Draft Report:
Family Engagement is the foundation for good casework practice and promotes the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families in the child welfare system. It is imperative that Family Engagement be recognized as it is interwoven in every aspect and area of the Short-Term Assessment of Priorities. Family engagement is frequently overlooked or at best a poorly understood and defined concept. Although many times not specifically mentioned, engagement of families leads to success.
The development, establishment,and maintenance of Family Engagement policy and practice is paramount to the success of the Capacity Building
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All six areas depend on child welfare being able to successfully engage the Families they serve. Regional Office Staff identified family engagement as it relates to CFSR’s as a need. The CFSR’s ongoing issue areas identifies family engagement as an area of concern for many States. Of particular importance in the CFSR’s is found in the Review of In-Home Services’ that found that States that demonstrated better performance were more likely to develop partnerships with families, build on formal and informal resources in their communities, and offer services to families that engage, involve, support, and strengthen them.
The Center’s Child Protection Lead listed numerous pressing needs. Being able to properly engage families is vital to several if not all of these needs including but not limited to in-home safety plans, differential response, reunification decision-making and safety, as well as interdisciplinary issues. Recent and past TA delivery and focus areas included family engagement and involvement in case decision-making. Other areas in which family engagement is not specifically mentioned, but should be included are general/agency wide practice, assessment of safety and risk, case planning, case management and casework practice, comprehensive family assessment, placement prevention/in-home services, and CPS referral and
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When families are truly and meaningfully engaged, change is possible. The following are identified as Capacity Building Outcomes:
Create an overall common definition of Family Engagement to be used nationally by all child welfare agencies.
• Need Definition of Family Engagement – part of the struggle we have now is that it means something different to everyone. Need to focus on a common definition.
• What we don’t want is the view that if you involve families in one activity you have engaged them.
Explore and Identify Strategies to achieve Family Engagement – a well thought out process, not just a series of events. A set of day to day practices, attitudes, beliefs and interactions not a one- time event, but something that will change the culture of the agency.
Develop strategies for embedding family engagement at three levels:
System Level, Program Level and Practice
...are struggling in. They should also keep reports and do some research before placing children in different homes. Failing to follow the service policy can put a child into a lot of danger because you can’t give a child to a person who isn’t supportive at all. Their job is to protect and support families with the issues that they are facing in their everyday lives.
Through the Troubled Families Agenda the police, housing and youth offending teams will all communicate between services to discuss families, Walker discussed that multi agency working was important to help families with their problems and aid them toward a better living. The Home Office (2013) states that each local area will have different multi agency approaches and safeguarding threats, but should still work towards delivering effective multi agency approaches to provides services that are required by
...f Safety approach such as assessment, building positive relationships and increased communication can contribute to success in all areas of child welfare. Through this process the caseworker can foster a more open and possibly more productive relationship with a juvenile, foster care provider, and adoptive parent or child through a questioning approach. The worker can use the framework to assess and analyze information, emphasize strengths and organize information regarding the family, and also set permanency goals for the family and the agency.
Rogers, J.B. (2001). FOCUS I survey and final report: A summary of findings: Families officers
The Family-Centered approach to care is important to the delivery of behavioral health services for children and adolescents because it involves the families in their natural environments and allows the families to make decisions about their care. It promotes home and community based care by creating an equal partnership with the family to ensure optimal delivery of care at all levels (Brewer, McPherson, Magrab, & Hutchins, 1989). For children with special health care needs, such as mental or developmental disorders, coordinating care between all services and people can help to introduce flexible and reasonable ways of providing the maximum amount of care to children and families (Brewer, McPherson, Magrab, & Hutchins, 1989).
The family dynamic offers multiple perceptions and needs, these may require addressing matters individually as well as on a group level. There may be matters such as domestic violence or substance abuse which requires both individual and family counseling and resources. In times of crisis families need education and coping strategies in order to regain their lives back. The necessities of the family may entail emotional and medical support requirements depending on their situation. When there is a possible case involving violence the focus may turn to more than medical and emotional support and possible removal of the children from the home may be required.
Christina and her family wish to successfully reunite despite the abuse that occurred in the past. The abuse was brought to the attention of Child Welfare by a teacher who noticed bruises on Christina. The fact that Christina was reluctant to discuss the bruises made the situation all the more suspicious and thus resulted in reporting the situation to Child Welfare. At this point, both the parents and Christina have stated they want their family to eventually be reunited. This is the broad goal that will be used as a starting point by the agency. The purpose of this discussion is to develop a goal plan for Christina and her family that emphasizes family reunification. There are four main points that this plan must address: goal objectives, strengths of the family, target dates of goals and interventions that will be used. In order to address these points the discussion will be split into 4 sections and each of the points will be addressed in a separate section.
The organization’s culture places an emphasis on a family centered framework that believes in eight principles. The first principle is that all children should be able to grow up in a safe and stable home. Secondly, it is implied most parents want to keep their children safe but some parents need to build on their family strengths. Thirdly, all families are different in culture, race and values. Fourth and fifth, when families are involved in CPS, CPS is responsible for finding permanency for the children and family engagement is more likely to occur if the family is involved in the process. Sixth, if parents are not able to protect their children from harm, CPS has the obligation to intervene for the child’s well-being. Next, if children have to be removed from their home, CPS should create and work on a permanency plan. Lastly, the permanency plan should be achieved as soon as possible (US Dept of Health and Human Services, 2013).
...lighted this feature because I value respect and feel that a very important aspect of working with children is engaging their families which invites opportunity for respect to be demonstrated. Dietze & Kashin (2012) explain the importance of engaging families when they state “Including the input of others is essential in a reflective practice and families have a right to be included” (p.411). In one of my placements I saw the positive impact that including a parent had on a young boy when his mother came in to read a story to the. The boy’s self-esteem seemed to increase and could be seen in the way that he beamed the whole time she was there. This experience highlighted to me the importance of family involvement in an early childhood program. These three highlighted statements all reflect values that are important to me and which are important parts of my practice.
Commission for Social Care Inspection (2005) Making Every Child Matter, Commission for Social Care Inspection
According to Kaakinen, J., Coehlo,D., Steele, R., Tabacco, A., Hanson, S. (2015), family as a context is an approach that focuses on care of an individual. In this approach, the
Duvall’s Family Development and Life Cycle Theory states that families follow a predictive and individual process of development that is dependent on the family’s circumstances and interactions. Though families today are more diverse than in the past, this theory still guides nursing approaches because it examines families’ experiences and how they adapt when becoming parents (Rowe Kaakinen, Padgett Coehlo, Steele, and Tabacco, 2015). In this discussion, I will choose one of the development tasks from Duvall’s theory and discuss how I would apply it to a family in my nursing practice.
intervention. Families in Society. Vol. 88, pg. 42. Proquest Direct database. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
In society today, we are working with families and children are more diverse than ever. We are servicing families and children from so many different traditions, beliefs and values. Every family has their own stories. We will find that families and children
“Family involvement and engagement should be built into early childhood program curriculum and pedagogy. Early childhood educators can complement and influences home environments and families”. (C. Gestwicki, J. Ber...