Child Welfare Services: Every Family Counts

2012

This program began in 2007 when WIHD was awarded a contract as a result of competitive bidding process with DSS to meet the needs of families with children returning from foster care placements in order to sustain permanency and ensure the wellbeing of those children and families. A study of recently reunified families found that a larger percentage of children in Westchester who return home from foster care were re-entering care than the national standard. In addition, the families were found to have significant needs and there were few supports already available for those families and their children. Goals: The goals of the Every Family Counts Tier 1 tier 2 Aftercare program are to ensure that children who return home from family foster care placements are safe and that their well-being needs are met such that the rate of re-entry into foster care for those children is reduced. The goal is to provide an in-home, strength based, community oriented range of services using a family engagement model to support these families and to ensure that they are integrated into their communities. It is hoped that by having a comprehensive aftercare program for families being reunited with their children, children will remain in foster care a shorter length of time and will remain permanently with their families ? thereby reducing foster care costs overall. In addition, children will be stable and their wellbeing needs will be monitored and met. Objectives: . Parent training/ Clinical services: The Every Family Counts program provides a seamless transition to weekly parent training and supports for families upon reunification from family foster care using the training curriculum used in the Family Program?s parent training program. In addition, other clinical services can be provided in the home such as therapy for children, family therapy, extended family therapy. . Care coordination: In addition to ongoing parent training, the staff, both professional and case management staff, will collaborate with all post discharge requirements for families and collaborate with DSS staff involved with families to ensure that all the needed and recommended wraparound services are in place and that the family is complying with such services. . Recreational planning: The program provides services to ensure that families are integrated into their communities through recreation and community activities. . On call coverage: the program offers 24/7 hours of on call coverage and develops comprehensive, individualized emergency plans for each family. . Wraparound services and community engagement: The staff ensure that families are embedded in their communities and receiving full wrap-around supports and services to sustain them. . Routine follow up assessment of family functioning. Routine, standardized measures of family functioning are conducted to determine progress, need for ongoing services and program evaluation measures. This program is unique in that it provides services to all families with children exiting foster care for up to 2 years post discharge. Benefits are that by reducing re-entry into foster care and reducing the length of stay in foster care, costs of foster care placement are reduced as are the psychological difficulties of extended family disruption.

permanency, foster care, reunification, birth parents, in-home services, pr

Quality Assurance, Other

Family Members/Caregivers, Children/Adolescents with Disabilities/SHCN

Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Specific Groups

Single-County

N/A