Creating Early Permanency

1
Creating Early Permanency

• Early Permanency for Tribal Children That Can Be
  Utilized For Every Child

2
Historical Background

• It has been estimated that more than ten million
  people inhabited North America when Columbus
  arrived
• These people were the ancestors of present-day
  Indian Tribes

3
Who Was Cherokee Nation in 1492?
4
Who Was Cherokee Nation? Cont

• Treaties
• Government
• Living Conditions
• Education
• Trail of Tears
• Oklahoma

5
Historical Background

• The Indian population was reduced to an estimated
  100,000 people, in 1900, because of imported
  disease, slavery, forced relocation, and systemic
  genocide
• Survived federal policies of removal,
  assimilation, reorganization, and termination

6
Who is Cherokee Nation Today?

• 266,055 Tribal Members
• 331,680 CDIB Card Holders
• 6,500 employees
• Cherokee Nation
• Cherokee Nation Enterprises
• Cherokee Nation Industries
• Cherokee Nation Business

7
Who is Cherokee Nation ICW?

• Over 1,200 children in care on any given day
• 1,100 notices per month
• Programs 74 employees
• Prevention
• Child protection
• Court and Permanency Services
• Foster Care
• Adoption
• Hiring 23 more employees

8
Program History

• Began foster care program in 1991
• Began adoption program in 1992
• Losing children
• No Indian Homes Available for Placement

9
Current Adoption Program

• Over 150 names on the waiting list before the
  first home was certified in 1992
• Since 1992, we have certified over 1,050 families
• Placed over 500 children
• Currently have 250 available adoptive homes
• Currently have over 150 prospective homes on the
  waiting list
• HAVE NEVER ADVERTISED

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What Does All This Have to Do with Permanency
Planning for Older Children?
11
AFCARS Estimates as of June 2006

• Current Age of Children in Foster Care
• 0-5 23.8
• 6-10 39.3
• 11-18 36.9
• Age at Original Removal of Children Currently in
  Foster Care
• 0-5 37.3
• 6-10 55.6
• 11-18 7.2

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How Many Months Have Children Been Waiting in
Continuous Foster Care?

• 36 to 59 months 21
• 60 or more months 24
• 45 of waiting children have been waiting for
  more than 3 years

13
How Old Were These Same Waiting Children When
They Were Removed From Their Parents or
Caretakers?

• Mean Years 5.1
• Median Years 4.5
• How Old Are They Now?
• Mean Years 10.1
• Median Years 10.9

14
As of June 2006-Adoption Numbers

• How old where these children when they were
  adopted from the public foster care system?
• Mean Years 6.9
• Median Years 5.9

15
How Do We Stop This Or Can We?

• Cherokee Nation does not have the cure but we do
  have some preventative medicine

16
Cherokee Nations Version Of True Concurrent
Planning

• What is concurrent planning?
• Who are the players?
• What makes it work?

17
What is Concurrent Planning?

• To plan simultaneously for two or more separate
  outcomes
• A plan of action must always be developed for a
  child that has been removed from his home in a
  deprived court action. Concurrent planning must
  include two simultaneous goals. The first goal
  (with certain exceptions) is reunifying that
  particular child with the family of origin along
  with the steps necessary to accomplish that goal.
  The second goal of the same plan must also allow
  for the possibility that the child may never be
  returned to its family of origin. Therefore, the
  ideal plan must include a placement setting that
  will assist in the reunification plans yet
  willing to provide a permanent home if
  reunification is not feasible

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Concurrent Planning

• Why Do It?
• Eliminates foster care drift
• Children have fewer emotional problems
• Early Permanency
• Protection from Rejection

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How to do this effectively
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Concurrent Planning Tools

• Adequate placement resources
• Timing Goals
• Family is always the first placement choice
• Concurrent planning training for ALL placement
  resources
• Intensive Up-Front work
• Willingness to Take a Chance

21
Adequate Placement Resources

• How Cherokee Nation identifies resources?
• How do we develop them?
• Foster care
• Adoption
• Fost-adopt

22
Adequate Placement Resources-Fost-Adopt

• What is fost-adopt and how are these families
  used?
• Fost-adopt is the primary tool used by Cherokee
  Nation to provide early permanency planning for a
  child. From the moment a child comes into the
  judicial system a part of the permanency plan or
  concurrent planning process must include a
  fost-adopt placement
• A fost-adopt home is an adoptive home trained to
  provide foster care to a child who is not
  currently legally free for adoption knowing they
  will be utilized as a permanent adoptive
  placement if and when the legal barriers are
  resolved

23
Adequate Placement Resources-Fost-Adopt-Cont

• It is solely the decision of the potential
  fost-adopt family as to whether or not they are
  able to handle the repercussions of a particular
  placement
• Training and full disclosure are the keys to
  successful fost-adopt placements

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Adequate Placement Resources-Training- Legal Risk

• The term legal risk implies that there is some
  possibility of loss in a judicial arena
• The family must be emotionally prepared for
  possibility of loss
• Re-unification is the primary goal
• If appropriate family members come forward there
  is always the possibility that the judge may rule
  in favor of the familys request regardless of
  the length of time a child has been placed in
  non-relative Indian home
• Families must outweigh the potential of great
  reward against the possibility of loss
• Only the family can make that decision
• Total commitment to the decision is vital

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Timing Goals

• Relatives must be found and ruled in or out
  within 60 days of removal
• Potential permanent placement must be found and
  utilized within at least six months of removal

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Family Is Always The First Placement Choice

• It is the policy of Cherokee Nation to locate and
  explore all relatives as the first potential
  short and long-term placements for children
  entering into the system
• Those relatives willing to accept permanent
  placement must go through the same process as a
  non-relative adoptive placement
• Extended family will not be used if there is no
  one in that extended circle that is interested or
  willing to adopt the child in question
• In the event that none of the family is found
  suitable, other Cherokee tribal members are
  sought for placement

27
Training for All Placement Resources

• Adoptive couples that want placement of newborns
  face the greatest legal risk
• Biological parents cannot sign consent until ten
  days after the birth of the child
• Between the time the consent is signed and the
  adoption is finalized the biological parents can
  change their minds at any time for any reason and
  the child is returned to them
• Adoptions may be overturned up to two years after
  finalization if the biological parents can prove
  to the judge some type of duress or coercion
  precipitated the voluntary relinquishment

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Intensive Up-Front Work

• PUNISHMENT The first six months
• REWARD The rest of the life of the case

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Willingness To Take A Chance

• Win-Win Situation
• Enormous Rewards for Child
• Foster care by definition is a temporary service
  and as such it feels temporary, acts temporary
  and does not provide the all-inconclusive feeling
  of belonging that a child needs for healthy
  growth
• With fost-adopt placements the children are more
  accepted as true family members since the other
  family members know that this child could become
  a permanent member of the family, thus, the child
  feels more included and more like a natural
  member of the family
• Even if the child is returned home, the time he
  has spent in out of home placement was of a
  higher quality
• More than likely he has not moved from home to
  home as the fost-adopt family that provides for
  him is more committed to creating permanency

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Willingness To Take A Chance

• Enormous Reward for the Family
• Since the family receives the child within the
  first six months of placement, the child does not
  develop the emotional and behavioral problems
  inherent to long term foster care and multiple
  placements
• These children do not develop the sense of
  rejection so common in the current system of
  foster care drift. Therefore, the likelihood of
  system developed emotional and behavioral
  problems are greatly reduced
• Even if the child is returned to his birth home
  the fost-adopt family can be proud of the part
  they played in providing quality care to a child

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Sabotage

• Dont adoptive families sabotage reunification?
• Dont you lose adoptive families when children
  are returned home?
• Do adoptive families feel compelled to try
  fost-adopt to get placement?