DOCUMENT RESUME UD 033 478 ED 440 184 Walking Our Talk in the Neighborhoods: Partnerships between TITLE Professionals and Natural Helpers. Building Community Partnerships in Child Welfare, Part Three. Family to Family: Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care. Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD. INSTITUTION 1997-00-00 PUB DATE 31p.; For parts 1-4, see UD 033 476-479. NOTE Descriptive (141) Reports PUB TYPE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Foster Care; Foster Children; Neighborhoods; *Professional DESCRIPTORS Personnel; State Programs; Urban Areas *Natural Helpers; *Partnerships in Human Services IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT The Family to Family initiative has encouraged states to reconceptualize, redesign, and reconstruct their foster care systems. By 1996, the initiative was being implemented in five states, five Georgia counties, and Los Angeles County, California. This paper describes some of the ways natural helpers can assist professionals achieve the necessary changes to foster care systems. Natural helpers located in a neighborhood are likely to understand the problems and cultural issues better than people who do not live in the neighborhood. They can be more committed to solving problems because the challenges affect them personally. Relationships with the natural helpers within a community can help professionals build connections and work with families. There are many difficulties in establishing relationships with natural helpers, but the benefits outweigh the problems. Two appendixes list activities of natural helpers and tools professionals can use in teaching natural helpers. (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. TOOLS FOR Rebuilding Foster Care Partnerships Between Professionals and Natural Helpers PART THREE BUILDING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS IN CHILD WELFARE PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY or_ Cetgliaitridisti90 AVM ;e, TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement oo EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) .14 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. A Project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. ( ro ) TOOLS FOR Rebuilding Foster Care Walking Our Talk In the Neighborhoods Partnerships Between Professionals and Natural Helpers BUILDING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS IN CHILD WELFARE, PART THREE Table of Contents Introduction 5 Overview 8 9 Advantages Challenges 14 22 Unanswered Questions 23 Summary Appendices: Appendix A Some Activities of Natural Helpers 24 Appendix B Tools for Professionals to Use 27 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to those who helped in the development of this tool: Kim Apple Sue Bernstein Katrina Fogg Larrie Fogg David Haapala Edith Johnson Richard Johnson Jill Kinney Janice Nittoli Daniele Price Keith Roberts Tasha Steele Kathy Strand Edwin Trent Margaret Trent Venessa Trent Robert Smith Ron Vignec With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation 4 Family to Family publications designed by Sharon Musikar 4 INTRODUCTION The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Mission in Child Welfare The Annie E. Casey Foundation was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, a founder of United Parcel Service, and his sister and brothers, who named the Foundation in honor of their mother. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human service reforms, and community supports that better meet the needs of vulnerable families. The Foundation's work in child welfare is grounded in two fundamental con- victions. First, there is no substitute for strong families to ensure that children grow is often up to be capable adults. Second, the ability of families to raise children inextricably linked to conditions in their communities. The Foundation's goal in child welfare is to help neighborhoods build effective Foundation believes responses to families and children at risk of abuse or neglect.The that these community-centered responses can better protect children, support families, and strengthen communities. Helping distressed neighborhoods become environments that foster strong, capable families is a complex challenge that will require transformation in many areas. Family foster care, the mainstay of all public child welfare systems, is in critical need of such transformation. The Family to Family Initiative With changes in policy, in the use of resources, and in program implementation, family foster care can respond to children's need for out-of-home placement and be other group a less expensive and often more appropriate choice than institutions or settings. This reform by itself can yield important benefits for families and children, although it is only one part of a larger effort to address the overall well-being of children and families in need of child protective services. Family to Family was designed in 1992 in consultation with national experts in child welfare. In keeping with the Annie E. Casey Foundation's guiding principles, the framework for the initiative is grounded in the belief that family foster care must take a more family-centered approach that is: (I) tailored to the individual needs of children and their families, (2) rooted in the child's community or neighborhood, (3) sensitive to cultural differences, and (4) able to serve many of the children now placed in group homes and institutions. 5 5 The Family to Family Initiative has encouraged states to reconceptualize, redesign, and reconstruct their foster care system to achieve the following new system-wide goals: 0 To develop a network of family foster care that is more neighborhood-based, culturally sensitive, and located primarily in the communities where the The children live; Foundation's goal in 0 To assure that scarce family foster home resources are provided to all those children (and only to those children) who in fact must be removed from their child welfare homes; is to help neighborhoods 0 To reduce reliance on institutional or congregate care (in hospitals, psychiatric centers, correctional facilities, residential treatment programs, and group homes) build effective by meeting the needs of many more of the children in those settings through responses to family foster care; families and children at 0 To increase the number and quality of foster families to meet projected needs; risk of abuse 0 To reunite children with their families as soon as that can safely be accom- or neglect. plished, based on the family's and children's needs, not the system's time frames; 0 To reduce the lengths of children's stay in out-of-home care; and 0 To decrease the overall number of children coming into out-of-home care. With these goals in mind, the Foundation Communities targeted for the initiative selected and funded three states (Alabama, were to be those with a history of placing New Mexico, and Ohio) and five Georgia large numbers of children out of their homes. counties in August 1993, and two additional The sites would then become the first phase states (Maryland and Pennsylvania) in of implementation of the newly conceptual- February 1994. Los Angeles County was ized family foster care system throughout the awarded a planning grant in August 1996. state. States and counties funded through this Initiative were asked to develop family- centered, neighborhood-based family foster care systems within one or more local areas. The Tools of Family to Family policies, All of us involved in Family to Family quickly became aware that new paradigms, change and organizational structures were not enough to both make and sustain substantive in the way society protects children and supports families. New ways of actually doing the Foundation work needed to be put in place in the real world. During 1996, therefore, the help and Family to Family grantees together developed a set of tools that we believe will others build a neighborhood-based family foster care system. In our minds, such tools are indispensable elements of real change in child welfare. The tools of Family to Family include the following: New ways of CI Ways to recruit, train, and support foster families; actually doing the work needed CI A decisionmaking model for placement in child protection; to be put in 0 A model to recruit and support relative caregivers; place in the real world. 0 New information system approaches and analytic methods; 0 A self-evaluation model; 0 Ways to build partnerships between public child welfare agencies and the communities they serve; CI New approaches to substance abuse treatment in a public child welfare setting; CI A model to confront burnout and build resilience among child protection staff; CI Communications planning in a public child protection environment; CI A model for partnerships between public and private agencies; CI Ways to link the world of child welfare agencies and correctional systems to support family resilience; and 0 Proven models that move children home or to other permanent families. We hope that child welfare leaders and practitioners find one or more of these tools of few rewards for doing this use. We offer them with great respect to those who often receive most difficult work 7 OVERVIEW We Need New Approaches to Human Services Delivery The late I 990s are difficult times in human services. Both workers and recipients are dissatisfied with the processes and outcomes of many of the models used to deliver services. Programs are too expensive.They don't seem culturally relevant. All too often, models cannot document that they achieve the results they claim.Taxpayers are often frustrated. Human services workers are often discouraged. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the problems we face. We search for new models and have difficulty finding them. We do find some models that people like. When we try to replicate them, some groups welcome them with open arms. Others become defensive of their turf. Political battles ensue, taking valuable time and energy away from helping people. Attempts to improve the situation by "reforming" the health care and welfare systems may have benefits in the long run, but in the short term they can add to our feelings of helplessness, confusion, and vulnerability. The problems of those we wish to help are getting worse, and our methods are not as effective as we would like.The funding streams are getting smaller, so that we must do more with less.The polarization on solutions is increasing: some advocate jail time and orphanages, and others continue to insist upon the right of genetic parents to raise their children however they see fit. We must learn to deal with conflicts and move ahead. We must do better at using all the resources available in our communi- ties. Ultimately, we are all striving as individuals and communities to shift from blaming to helping, and to achieve a true, flexible, and mutually supportive collaboration. Promising Directions We have near-consensus about promising ways to accomplish more with fewer resources. Certain buzzwords have found their way into today's human services lan- guage, words that Charles Bruner calls a "Service Mantra."They include such con- cepts as "empowerment" and "enhancing capacity." Principles include building on strengths, taking a holistic approach, individual tailoring, decisionmaking partnerships, setting short-term specific goals, and emphasizing certain worker characteristics such as compassion and congruence (Kinney, Strand, Hagerup and Bruner, 1994). Some of the trendiest buzzwords today are related to the shifting roles of profes- sionals and to capitalizing upon the existing strengths of neighborhood residents to get them involved in self-help, mutual aid, and mutual support. Pioneers like Frank Reissman have been putting those concepts into practice for decades, but most of us are still struggling to figure out how to bring them alive in our work. Purpose of This Paper The purpose of this paper is to begin going "beyond the buzzwords" in specifying issues and alternatives, to raise awareness of challenges and solutions, and to provide some concrete examples for the ways partnerships can work. 8 8 ADVANTAGES Professionals and bureaucrats alone have not been able to solve problems facing and more resolve at more our families. We must include more people, more skills, levels if we are going to make the differences we would like. Limitations to Overreliance on Professional and Bureaucratic Solutions Overreliance on professional helpers and formal agency and system solutions can fail to create strategies that are fully relevant to and congruent with the needs of specific neighborhoods, because those in charge lack information and understanding. For one thing, overreliance is too expensive. Professionals' salaries are higher than provided. Dollars that are spent for we can afford, if an adequate amount of help is professionals usually end up increasing the financial stability of people and organiza- tions outside the community, rather than adding to local economic development. Overreliance on professionals can send the message to community people that they cannot help themselves and must be rescued, thus attacking rather than enhanc- ing their sense of self efficacy. It can give people in the community implicit permission for the to wait until the professional provides the service, or until there is money professional. The strategy can also create the belief that if help is successful, it is because the professional is good, and if the help doesn't work, it is because the recipient is inadequate, further demeaning the sense of self-efficacy of the recipient. Common Constraints Upon the Way We View Professionals and Natural Helpers We place unnecessary constraints on roles, making both professionals and natural helpers less effective. We usually think of professionals as addressing intrapsychic problems. Neighborhood workers have been assigned to "prevention," or problems that aren't too severe.They are regarded as appropriate chiefly for concrete issues, like building speed bumps, getting streetlights installed, or getting drug houses closed. In fact, all the problems are interrelated. Residents and community workers and resolutions of difficulties. agency staff all have different perspectives on the causes and Professional efforts to solve intrapsychic problems are often hampered by condi- tions such as poverty and homelessness. Lay people often counsel one another on everything from marital problems and child rearing to thoughts of suicide. Just as and mental health, we we have learned about the irrevocable links between physical need to see distinctions between prevention and intervention as artificial ones.The distinctions we make between concrete services and psychological services are also artificial. Distinctions between the types of help that require graduate degrees, and the kind that can be done by friends and neighbors, are, in many cases, arbitrary. Usually, paraprofessionals and natural helpers and regular people are thought of playground where none as potential solvers of fairly concrete problems: building a exists, helping young people play basketball, and so on. Agency staff have also had limited roles. If an individual is out of control, professionals are called. If family problems go beyond the norm, they are referred for help. Professionals have dealt with intra- and interpersonal problems. Community workers and residents have dealt with community problems. 9 But in fact, all the problems are interrelat- They know which strategies work and which ed. Residents and community workers and do not within their neighborhoods.They agency staff have different perspectives on often know the needs of the community. the causes and resolutions of difficulties. We They have mastered the ability to function will all be more effective if we can share our in conditions that may be physically and perspectives and expertise to develop new emotionally scary to professionals, sometimes strategies, and these will probably be more to the degree that professionals refuse to creative than any we could develop solely enter or cannot function well. within our own frameworks. Natural helpers are more likely to provide support in the recipient's natural environ- Reasons We Need Natural Helpers ment.They can support families who have The human services "system" and our com- been or would be unable or unwilling to munity need natural helpers because they receive services in more traditional settings. know things most professionals don't know This allows for more effective and compre- about helping; because they can help us to hensive monitoring of child safety. It is more learn to'do better; and because they in turn likely to include all family members and, possi- can achieve more with professionals' help bly, members of their support networks. than they can without it. Observation of participants in their natural environment allows for a more accurate Strengths of Natural Helpers and complete assessment. Family members, Natural helpers understand their neighbor- caseworkers and other service providers hoods.They usually understand their own cul- know that helpers have the opportunity for ture and generally more about other cultures first-hand observation of family situations, in the neighborhood than people who don't problems, and progress on goals.This can live there.They are usually more committed serve to increase their credibility.The helper to resolving the issues because the challenges has continuous opportunities to model the affect them personally.They usually have use of new skills in real situations, and his more trust and status within the neighbor- or her presence eliminates the need for hood than outsiders do. the recipient to transfer learning from one Natural helpers are more likely to hear setting, such as an office, to another, such about problems before they become so as a home. severe that intensive intervention is the only option.They are more likely to be available Common Activities of Natural Helpers 24 hours a day to those they support, and As policymakers begin considering a shift this can decrease the possibility of people to neighborhood transformation from office- being harmed.They are in a better position based talk therapy, we can easily present the than professionals to provide long-term idea of natural helpers or indigenous workers support. as a new one. In fact, people have been They may provide successful role models. helping one another before college degrees If they are paid for their work, it will help the existed, before licensing existed, since people economic status of the neighborhood. existed.Throughout time, even people with They have different and necessary skills for few resources have reached out to one helping. They are often more familiar with the another, and helped. Appendix A shows a intricacies of public bureaucracies than many list of common natural-helper activities going professionals, because their personal welfare on in most of our communities now, usually has often depended upon this understanding. off our radar screen and separate from the formal helping system. 1 0 10