What are Icebreaker Meetings?

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released a publication putting forward a new method for creating and maintaining connections among youth in foster care, their foster families, and their birth families. The “Icebreaker Meetings Toolkit” helps agencies to put together a unique type of meeting, designed to build partnerships that improve outcomes for youth in care.

Recent research has shown that it is important to keep birth families involved in caring for their children while they are in foster care. Such family relationships provide continuity of care, allow agencies to help meet the full spectrum of a child’s needs, and – most importantly – improve the chances of eventual family reunification.

“Birth” families can be partners in making decisions for their children, help prevent multiple placements, access resources for children, support a child in out-of-home care, and provide much-needed information about the child’s history (medical and otherwise) to ensure that all required services are provided.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recommends Icebreaker Meetings as a way to introduce birth parents and foster parents, and create a mutual connection to care for a child. Icebreakers are stand-alone meetings that focus on initiating a positive relationship. They allow new caregivers to learn about a child’s habits and needs, and parents to meet the people who will be caring for their child. The child is present, and able to witness the adults working together to focus on his or her needs and best interests.

Icebreaker Meetings give agencies a chance to pay attention to relationships, in the whirl of logistical, administrative and legal activity that come with a child’s entry into the welfare system.

To read the full report, click here.

“If You’re Right for the Job, It’s the Best Job in the World”

Social workers play many important roles in the lives of foster youth. They are key to recruiting qualified foster parents, placing children in supportive homes, and coordinating resources for foster families.

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) conducted a survey of its members working in the child welfare system, to determine the types of work they are doing, and how they view their jobs.

Social workers in the child welfare system conduct interventions and work directly with families to protect children and preserve family structures. They develop programs and support systems that aim to prevent child abuse and to provide safety nets and services for families in crisis.

The system includes a continuum of services such as child protective services, family foster care, group homes, kinship care services, and adoption services. Both public and private agencies are involved in the system, along with many other community resources (educational support, health care, financial and employment assistance).

The child welfare workforce is diverse and complicated. However, recent studies show that 90% of states have difficulty in recruiting and retaining child welfare workers. Challenges include low salaries, high caseloads/workloads, heavy administrative burdens, risk of violence, limited supervision, and insufficient training.

U.S. Government research found that child welfare workers with social work degrees (both BSW and MSW) perform their jobs better and experience lower turnover rates than their colleagues with other educational backgrounds. Among social workers working in a child welfare setting, 67% provide direct services, 29% provide administrative or management services, 25% provide supervision, and 14% fill other roles.

Key findings of the survey are:

1. Social workers in child welfare are more satisfied with their jobs than the general population of child welfare workers.
2. Work-related issues (how to solve problems confronting their clients) are more challenging than work-place issues.
3. Helping children and families is the most satisfying aspect of social workers’ work in the child welfare system.

View the full report here.

Improving Outcomes for Youth in Care

A recent report from Casey Family Programs evaluated outcomes from six programs aimed at helping youth aged 16 to 25 transition from foster care to independence. The study aims to identify crucial program elements for working with this population.

The selected initiatives were initially funded in 2004 through the US Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. When the government funding ended in 2007, Casey supported them for three additional years. The centers are located in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Houston, Detroit, Chicago, and New York. Casey renamed the program Employment Programs and Life Opportunities for Youth, or EmPLOY.

The study addressed the following questions:

1. What were the demographics and foster care experiences of participants served?
2. What services were provided, and what was the relationship between services provided and participant outcomes in education and employment?
3. Which program elements did stakeholders view as being essential to the attainment of education and employment outcomes?
4. What were the best practices of cross-systems collaboration?

The majority of participants were African American (76%), female (64%), and between the ages of 18 and 20 (55%). Almost half (47%) entered foster care at age 13 or older.

The following services were provided to participants in the involved programs: goal assistance, career planning, job search skills, academic assessment, transportation services, money management, and conflict resolution.

Participants received significant educational support aimed at helping them earn high school diplomas or GEDs, and enroll and succeed in postsecondary education. Effective services in this area were school tours, GED preparation, and tutoring. Overall, individuals who accessed these services more frequently were more likely to achieve their goals. The most useful program elements to support employment outcomes were: having a job developer on site, providing paid work experience, and helping participants to retain jobs once they found employment.

The authors of the study interviewed 788 foster youth and former foster youth participating in the six programs over two years, and spoke with an additional 92 staff and stakeholders of the programs. About three-fourths of participants (72%) were enrolled in school for at least one quarter, and 48% were employed for at least one quarter.

The report sets out a comprehensive list of recommendations to improve education and employment outcomes for older youth in foster care and those transitioning to independence. They include:

• First, meet participants’ basic concrete and psychological needs.
• Provide independent living skills before participants begin to transition out of care.
• Minimize placement changes.
• Create individualized case plans to ensure that barriers to success are identified and addressed.
• Train and encourage staff to building working partnerships with youth.
• Create a multi-system approach that encourages agencies to work together to maximize access to services.
• Extend foster care services to age 21.

To read the full report, click here.

Foster youth and psychotropic drugs

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a troubling report  examining the use of psychotropic drugs to treat foster youth, compared with non-foster children in the Medicaid program. The report analyzed psychotropic drug prescription rates in five states, including Florida, during 2008. It found that foster youth were more likely to have been prescribed these drugs – which affect users’ emotional state, and include antidepressants, sedatives, stimulants and tranquilizers – in combinations or doses that could result in dangerous side effects, but were not medically proven more effective.

The study took into account the fact that foster youth generally have greater mental health needs, and have been exposed to traumatic experiences more often, than other youth. The challenges of coordinating medical care for foster youth, who can change placements as often as once per year, was also considered. However, the GAO found that foster youth were significantly more likely to be prescribed five or more psychotropic drugs at the same time, or to be receiving medication in doses higher than those recommended by the Food and Drug and Administration. Exceeding these guidelines greatly increases the risk of side effects. Additionally, the GAO found that almost 4,000 babies under one year old were prescribed psychotropic drugs in the five states; there is no medical evidence that such medication is effective for young babies, and adverse side effects are very likely in this population.

The report also shows that the states’ systems for monitoring provision of psychotropic drugs to foster youth fall short of best practice guidelines published by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Because this oversight is undertaken at the state level, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – lead agency for the Medicaid program – has not issued guidance to close gaps in this monitoring. The report recommends that HHS put such guidelines in place, and HHS has agreed to do so.

CBS news widely covered this report, and launched its own investigation of the use of psychotropic drugs in foster youth.

Our 5-Year Report

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