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Research to Teaching Initiative
Reconciling Competing Values in the Delivery of Child Welfare Services Under
ASFA, MEPA, and Community-Based Child Protection*
Richard P. Barth, Judith Goodhand, Nancy S. Dickinson
Jordan Institute for FamiliesSchool of Social Work
University of North CarolinaChapel Hill, NC 27599-3550
*based on : Barth, R.P., Goodhand, J.,& Dickinson, N.S. (2000). Reconciling competing values in the delivery of child welfare services under ASFA, MEPA and community-based child protection. In J. Zlotnick (Ed.). Changing paradigms of child welfare practice: Responding to opportunities and challenges. Washington, DC: US DHHS, ACF, ACYF, Children’s Bureau.
Research to Teaching Initiative
The Federal Policy Framework of Child Welfare Practice
Adoption and Safe Families Act (1997) Interethnic Adoption Provisions (1996) Multi-Ethnic Placement Act (1993)
• Family Preservation and Support (1994) Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare
Act (1980)
Research to Teaching Initiative
VALUES
POLICY
PRACTICE
CHALLENGES
• Underlying values in the professional and public sectors will influence implementation
• Conflicting values may result when new policies are implemented but not reconciled with old policies
• Value conflicts may result in incomplete implementation when there is a discordance between practitioner’s own values and public policy
Research to Teaching Initiative
Tornado of Valuesin
Child Welfare•Legal permanency
•Psychological permanency
•Continuity of care
•Community-based child protection
•Safety
•Reasonable efforts•Racial & cultural heritage
Research to Teaching Initiative
AFTERMATH:
“ . . . a practice environment where equitable and efficient
practice is at risk.”
Research to Teaching Initiative
The Development of MEPA, ASFA, and Community Based
Child Protection
AACWA (1980)
Emphasis on Legal Permanency
Emphasis on Psychological Continuity
ASFA (1997)
Community BasedChild Protection
MEPA (1993)IAP (1996)
Civil Rights Act (1964)Rest
rictio
ns on U
se of R
ace in
Public Polic
y
Research to Teaching Initiative
Brief Child Welfare Policy Recap
AACWA (1980) to ASFA (1997)
Both policies consistently emphasize:• Timely provision of child welfare services• Legal permanency for children
Research to Teaching Initiative
AACWA to ASFA: Value Shifts
Provisions within ASFA de-emphasize attention to continuity and community.
• Child’s safety is priority in child welfare decision making• Agencies will forego reasonable prevention and
reunification efforts for some children• Concurrent planning• Children are entitled to “reasonable efforts” to an
adoptive home if they cannot go home• Agencies must assure that children can be adopted
across county or state lines, to avoid delay or denial of placement
Research to Teaching Initiative
Permanency Planning Under AACWA
Legal Permanency:
• Legally defines time frames, reasonable efforts requirements, and administrative procedures.
• Creates a secure legal status for children who can not return home.
Psychological Permanency:
• Acknowledges “attachment” and a “feeling of belonging” as beneficial to children.
• Conceptual basis for the “family continuity” movement.
•Weights past time with caregiver more than future legal relationship to caregiver.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Goals of Family Continuity Practice
Supporting families
Child protection
Planning for permanence
Psychological Permanence
(VALUES)
No federal laws enforce family continuity practice
Kinship foster careNeighborhood foster care
(PRACTICE)
Placing siblings together Open adoption
Research to Teaching Initiative
Community-Based Child Protection
What is it?• Emerged in the late
1980’s & early 1990’s• Family preservation
emphasis• Community-based
planning and partnerships
• Designed to strengthen local neighborhood responses
Examples:• Annie E. Casey
Family to Family Initiative
• Clark Foundation’s Community Partnership Initiative
• Kellogg Foundation’s Families for Kids
• Children’s Bureau Initiatives
Research to Teaching Initiative
MEPA/IAP: Traditional Civil Rights and Child Welfare Values
Civil Rights• Race is not a permissible
consideration for public policy making unless there are clear reasons for affirmative action.
• There can be no tolerance for discrimination against adults on the basis of race
Child Welfare• The need for children to
feel comfortable is a core principal of culturally competent child welfare practice.
• Adoption is a children’s program and potential adoptive parents have no significant standing
Research to Teaching Initiative
Civil Rights and Child WelfareCivil Rights
• Practitioners cannot be allowed to use race but will still try to use it; therefore auditing and fines will be necessary for enforcement.
Child Welfare
• Agencies should be allowed to use race in a sensible way--e.g., allowing same race placements if families are already in the pool and no delays will result from matching.
Research to Teaching Initiative
MEPA and the Interethnic Adoption Provisions
MEPA (Multiethnic Placement Act, 1993) prohibits federally-funded agencies and entities from:• Denying anyone the opportunity to become
a foster or adoptive parent due to the race of either the parent or the child.
• Denying the child the opportunity to be placed due to the race of either the parent or the child.
Research to Teaching Initiative
MEPA requires states to develop plans for the diligent recruitment of
potential foster and adoptive families that reflect the diversity of the children in need of placement.
MEPA and the Interethnic Adoption Provisions
MEPA did not Prohibit ALL consideration of race
Research to Teaching Initiative
Interethnic Adoption Provisions (1996)
Further limited the extent to which race can be considered in adoptive and foster placement.
MEPA: May not deny placement “solely” on the basis of race.
IAP: May not deny placement on the basis of race.
MEPA: May not “categorically” deny to any person the opportunity to become an adoptive or foster parent.
IAP: May not deny to any person the opportunity to become an adoptive or foster parent.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Value Juggling for Front Line Staff
• Personal Values
• Agency Values
• Policy Values
Community,
Culture/Race
Legal
Permanence
Continuity
SAFETY
Research to Teaching Initiative
Four Key Child Welfare Values
1. Safety
2. Permanency
3. Extended Family Continuity
4. Community/Racial/Cultural
Continuity
Research to Teaching Initiative
Safety
ASFA: • Safety for children is
delivered by legally ensuring against reabuse and providing permanence for children.
Community-Based• Safety for children
is delivered through stronger families and communities.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Safety
Preservation vs. Safety
How should the competing value of allowing a mother the chance to care for her newborn be weighed against the longer-term safety concerns for that child?
Community Continuity vs. Community Safety
How should the general level of safety in the community be considered when placing a child into an otherwise safe foster or kin home?
Research to Teaching Initiative
ASFA
Legal permanence via adoption is the highest priority after reunification.
Permanency
Community-based Practice
A child’s right to be with the child’s own family and kin is heavily stressed--at times weighted more heavily than legal permanency.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Extended Family ContinuityASFA
Requires the termination of parental rights and responsibilities for children heading for long-term foster care (unless compelling reasons exist not to TPRR).
Community-based Practice
Long-term placement without TPRR--especially with legal guardianship--can be an acceptable alternative if the child cannot return to live with her birth family.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Community, Racial, Cultural Continuity
ASFA
• Places no weight on racial, cultural or ethnic continuity
• Timely legal permanency (even if across state or county lines) is more highly valued than neighborhood placement.
Community-based Practice
• Increases the likelihood that children will be placed in same race or familiar cultural placements (which hopefully evolves into an adoptive placement if reunification is not possible).
Research to Teaching Initiative
Child
Family: birth, kin, adoptive, foster
Community
Community/Racial/Cultural Continuity
Community Practice value states that placement in child’s own neighborhood will:
• Reduce child’s trauma
• Minimize family disruption
• Facilitate reunification
• Reduce child reentry due to increased social support
• Increase adoptive placements that are within the same race or culture.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Strategies & Servicesfor
Reconciling Tensions That Arise Between Various
Elements of a Competing Child Welfare Value System
Strategies & Servicesfor
Reconciling Tensions That Arise Between Various
Elements of a Competing Child Welfare Value System
Research to Teaching Initiative
Child Welfare
Changing child welfare practices and values is like changing the wheel on an express train moving at 100 miles an hour
The Challenge
Research to Teaching Initiative
Strategies & Services
• Geographic assignment of cases• Family group decision making or case
conferencing• Neighborhood foster families • Pre-service training for foster-adoptive families
and child welfare workers• Immediate services• Shared family care• Concurrent planning• Culturally competent and fair practice• Monitoring and agency self-evaluation
Research to Teaching Initiative
Child welfare workers, supervisors and middle managers are assigned to specific neighborhoods and are responsible for:• Familiarity with resources, supports and strengths of neighborhood• Engaging the community in an active plan of child protection• Developing and supporting foster and adoptive families
Geographic assignment of cases
Research to Teaching Initiative
Geographic assignment of cases
Practice Example:(Cuyahoga County, Ohio -- after 5 years)
• Increase of neighborhood foster families of over 70%
• Staff assigned to neighborhoods developed greater regard for the communities where they worked and became more accepted within the community.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Family Group Decision Making or Case Conferencing (FGDM/CC)
Meetings which involve family members, relatives, child welfare workers, and neighborhood representatives•Family has a voice in a supportive environment and provides essential information•Social worker defines role, concerns, agency policies, legal constraints, and requirements•Expeditious development of a safety or permanency plan for the child•An opportunity to identify people who could offer legally permanent alternative placements
Research to Teaching Initiative
Neighborhood Foster Families
• Partnership between foster families and birth families and social workers to expedite reunification or the achievement of another permanency goal
• A new job description for foster families and social workers
• A support system for birth, foster, and adoptive families
Research to Teaching Initiative
Pre-service Training for Foster-adoptive Families and Child Welfare
Workers• To provide foster and adoptive parents and new staff an
orientation to child welfare legislation and agency principles, policies and practice
• To create a support system among the foster/adoptive families
• To develop a potential cadre of second families for children who will understand the value of legal permanency and will work as partners for reunification or another form of permanency
Research to Teaching Initiative
Immediate Services
Immediate services can help to reconcile concerns about the ability of families to preserve themselves in the face of shortened ASFA timelines.
Practice example:• In-house drug treatment services
(Jefferson County, Colorado)
Research to Teaching Initiative
Shared Family Care
• Offers an alternative to in-home services and to out-of-home care by arranging the placement of the entire biological family in a foster home or group setting (sometimes in concert with drug or mental health day treatment)
• Endeavors to maximize pursuit of the values of child protection and family continuity
Research to Teaching Initiative
Concurrent Planning
• Institutes a concurrent process of:A) Family reunification efforts
B) Adoption planning (should reunification efforts ultimately fail)
Attempts to maximize the likelihoods of:A) ReunificationB) TimelinessC) Legal permanence
Research to Teaching Initiative
Culturally Competent & Fair Practice
•Bridging different perspectives on the role of race and culture in child welfare
•Developing ways to assess the individual needs of a child beyond their racial or ethnic group membership
•Creation of additional ways to achieve the goals of diligent recruitment for families of color
Research to Teaching Initiative
Monitoring and Agency Self Evaluation
• To help distinguish between those innovations which meet several of our value standards and those which may meet some but seriously compromise others
• To permit midcourse corrections
• To encourage dialogue about practice values, goals and outcomes
Research to Teaching Initiative
Are we calling for a detailed blueprint for providing services that eliminates the discretion of child welfare workers?
NO. Child welfare services workers make difficult choices that require an understanding of the specific mandates and underlying values of policy without the interference of their own values.
Research to Teaching Initiative
Breaking Value Ties
Individualized child & family assessment• The best choice among competing values, may
be contingent upon the assets and needs of a particular child
• Meeting the (longterm) needs of children (and families) is the constant value that must always be weighed against the others
Research to Teaching Initiative
Breaking Value Ties (continued)
Structured decision making • Decisions should be made with the
foundation of known and understood values and predictable outcomes
• At the same time, decisions should be enlightened by the circumstances of the individual child
Research to Teaching Initiative
Tools for Structure and Support of Policy Implementation
Clear articulation of core values, principles and goalsDissemination of values and principles to all staff members in a process that encourages dialogue but defines boundariesTraining to orient staff to changes in procedure
Strategies to keep the core values and principles of the agency visible and viableRoutine procedures to test and re-test agency practice against the stated values, principles and policies
Research to Teaching Initiative
Clarification of Values and Procedures
Cultural Competence and Fairness
Legal Permanency
Child Welfare Values Framework
Child Safety
Public Support for Child Welfare Services