Preservation

1
Preservation Reunification

• Case Methods

2
A few legalities

• Governments responsibility is to protect
  children from harm and at the same time protect
  society from the delinquent acts of children.
• Children are to receive proper care from
  caregivers, if not, the state must step in.

3
A few more legalities

• Parental rights
• Natural guardianship
• Determine living pattern and standards of conduct
• Determine religion and ethical values
• Kind and extent of education, vocation,
• Health care
• Parental Responsibilities
• Financial support
• Provision of physical care
• Emotional care
• Giving guidance and supervision, growth of
  self-discipline, major decisions

4
Questions of the Evening

• How do we define families?
• When do we intervene?

5
Types of family based services

• Family support services
• Family preservation services
• What needs to happen for preservation
• Screening of at-risk clients assess family
  strengths to see if programs will help them
• Selection and training of workers education,
  experience, communication, active listening,
  household management, budgeting
• Supervision and consultation
• Operationalism of program design goals
• Building community supports
• Evaluation and research

6
Considerations for reunification

• Although most children still exit foster care
  through family reunification, exit patterns have
  changed over the last 8 years. Currently,
  reunification takes longer to happen, whereas
  adoptions happen earlier.
• A child's age and race are associated with the
  likelihood that he or she will be reunified.
  Infants and adolescents are less likely to be
  reunified than children in other age groups, and
  African-American children are less likely to be
  reunified than children of other racial/ethnic
  backgrounds.
• Although many children who are reunified exit the
  system within a relatively short period of time,
  reunifications often do not succeed. Nearly 30
  of children who were reunified in 1990 reentered
  foster care within 10 years.
• From http//www.futureofchildren.org/information2
  826/information_show.htm?doc_id209549

7
Reunification

• At what point should reunification take place?
• What are the implications of a failed
  reunification? A successful reunification?