COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS & LINKAGES: REACHING OUT TO WORK TOGETHER
Handout & Transparency
1.1: The Need for Community Partnerships and Linkages
Masking
Tape
Ball of
yarn (or string if yarn not available)
Index
cards with one of the following written on each card (20 cards):
Child
Protective Services |
Court
System |
Foster
Family |
Supervised
Visitations |
Transportation
Assistance |
Substance Abuse Services
|
Domestic
Violence Services |
Adult
Mental Health Services
|
School |
Child
Mental Health Services |
Employment/Training/Voc.
Rehab. |
Parenting
Classes |
Income
Assistance/TANF |
Food
Assistance/Food Stamps |
Housing |
Parent
Aide Services |
Clothing |
Utilities
Assistance |
Early
Intervention Services |
Community/Faith-Based Mentoring |
Ask
the participants to gather in a tight circle and give each participant a
printed index card.
Explain that this exercise should help us experience the importance and complexities
of community partnerships and linkages.
Hold
up the ball of yarn and explain that the ball of yarn represents a family who
has come into the child welfare system.
Mr.
and Mrs. Jones and their family have been reported to the public child welfare
agency for possible neglect and abuse of their two children. (Give the ball
of yarn to the participant with the index card that says Child Protective
Services.)
The
child welfare worker investigated the report and substantiated the abuse and
neglect. The child welfare worker goes to the court system to obtain temporary
custody of the children for out-of-home placement. (Child Protective Services holds onto the end of the yarn
and passes the ball of yarn to the participant with the index card that says
Court System.)
The
children are then placed with a foster family while the agency works with the
family's strengths to remedy the underlying issues that have contributed to the
abuse and neglect. (Court System holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to
the Foster Family.)
Because
the plan is for reunification, the family, the foster family, and the worker
arrange for supervised visitations to begin immediately. (The Foster Family
holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Supervised Visitations.)
The
Jones family doesn't have a car and will need to use public transportation to
get to the supervised visitations as well as to access the services and supports
they need. (Supervised Visitations holds onto the yarn and passes the ball
to Transportation Assistance.)
Now
for the services. Mr. Jones has been abusing substances and needs treatment. (Transportation
Assistance holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Substance Abuse
Services.)
Mrs.
Jones has been the victim of domestic violence and needs services to help her
cope with the effects and to protect herself. (Substance Abuse Services
holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Domestic Violence Services.)
She
could also benefit from getting individual therapy. (Domestic Violence
Services holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Adult Mental Health
Services.)
In
foster care, the oldest child, William age 6, is experiencing school problems
and needs to be evaluated. (Adult Mental Health Services holds onto the yarn
and passes the ball to School.)
After
evaluation, it is determined that William needs therapy. (School holds onto
the yarn and passes the ball to Child Mental Health Services.)
So
the Jones family is now receiving services to address the underlying issues
that may have led to the abuse and neglect. Reunification remains the goal. Now
we have to help the family "get the basics" before the kids can come home. The
first thing is for Mr. Jones to get work. But first he'll need job training. (Child
Mental Health Services holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to
Employment/Training/Voc. Rehab.)
In
preparation for the return of the children, Mr. and Mrs. Jones are required to
take parenting classes. (Employment holds onto the yarn and passes the ball
to Parenting Classes.)
While
Mr. Jones is in training, the family will need income assistance. (Parenting
Classes holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Income Assistance/TANF.)
The
family will also need food assistance. (TANF holds onto the yarn and passes
the ball to Food Assistance/Food Stamps.)
And
better housing. (Food Assistance holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to
Housing.)
The
Jones family now has new housing and also gets the assistance of a parent
aide to teach home management skills. (Housing
holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Parent Aide Services.)
Before
the kids return home, the family needs some additional clothes. (Parent Aide
Services holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Clothing.)
And
some assistance with their utility bills. (Clothing holds onto the yarn and
passes the ball to Utilities Assistance.)
The
children have now been returned home. For preventive purposes, it is decided
that for the sake of the healthy development of the youngest child, Vanessa,
age one, that the family could benefit from Healthy Start visits. (Utilities
holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Early Intervention Services.)
It's
also decided that the oldest child, William, could benefit from some mentoring
in the neighborhood and is referred to a community/faith-based mentoring
group. (Early Intervention
Services holds onto the yarn and passes the ball to Community/Faith-Based
Mentoring Group).
Now
the family needs to keep developing its strengths and well-being, supported by
all these services.
-
This family needed a lot of
supports and services. It's obvious that no single agency could do this alone.
-
We created quite a web of services.
-
It would be very easy for this
family to feel overwhelmed. From their perspective, perhaps all they think
they did was spank their kids and now look what they have to go through.
-
It showed why all the different
service systems need to talk and coordinate‹otherwise, this family could end
up with about 20 different plans!
-
With all the referrals made,
it wouldn't be hard for the Jones family to "slip through the cracks
(between the yarn/string)!"
Begin a discussion on the importance of community partnerships and a
team approach by asking a series of questions. Ask the questions below to
elicit the suggested responses from participants.
Ask
the following:
Why
are community partnerships and linkages essential for good child welfare
practice?
Generate
responses, which could include:
-
The public child welfare agency
cannot do it alone; we must extend our partnerships into the community.
-
No single set of services will
be adequate to restore families to a level of functioning that ensures that
their children are safe, live in permanent homes, and the well-being of family
members is enhanced.
Ask
the following:
Why
would we be interested in a partnership?
What
makes an organization a partner?
Why
would that other entity want to be a partner with us? What's in it for them?
Generate responses, which could include:
-
Partnering will help us address
needs that child welfare may not have the capacity or even interest to fill.
-
By working together, we are
more likely to have successful outcomes.
-
It builds on the strengths
of a community.
-
Partnering is more than simply
referring clients to services or resources; it's shared decision-making with
the client and working together concert toward a common goal.
-
Child welfare has access to
expertise and resources that other organizations could benefit from.
Ask the following:
In
community partnerships, we have the concept, "the power of reciprocity." What
do you think this means concretely?
Generate
responses, which could include:
-
Reciprocity means that if one
agency or organization does something for another, the other does something
back. It means working together to capitalize on each other's strengths.
-
It means that each community
sector, organization, or agency has a role in providing resources and services
to children and families.
-
By definition, reciprocity
is all about community partnerships. Agencies, organizations, and individuals
work together on behalf of a common cause.
Make
the following points:
-
We've had a lot of good ideas already today about why
community partnerships are essential for good child welfare practice. I want to sum up our discussion by identifying
three core reasons why they
are so essential: (1) prevention; (2) shared responsibility; and (3) individualized
responses.
Place
Transparency 1.1: The Need for Community Partnerships
and Linkages on the overhead projector and refer participants to
their handout. Go over the points made on the Handout/Transparency.
-
Do you have any comments or
questions about these three core reasons why community partnerships are so
essential in child welfare practice?
-
Another reason why community partnerships are so important
is because states are undergoing the new federal Child and Family Services
Review (CFSR).
-
Unlike previous reviews that were a compliance-oriented
case file review, the new review process is intensive, involving hundreds
of people in the State to evaluate how the state is doing in achieving seven
child welfare outcomes and in assessing seven systemic factors that affect
the achievement of those outcomes.
-
Community partnerships and linkages are a critical element
in the new review process. The state will be evaluated on how effectively
workers use community partnerships and linkages to develop the required individualized
service plan for each family, and on how the child welfare system involves
community stakeholders in all of its work.
-
So, using community partnerships and linkages is so
critically important not just for the families you work with, but for the
State to have a successful review.
Conclude
this activity by asking the following questions:
-
How many of you have already heard about the state's
upcoming Child and Family Services Review?
-
(If there are raised hands or affirmative answers:)
What have you heard?
-
Do you have any questions about the Child and Family
Services Review and the place of community partnerships in that review?
-
Now we're going to talk about another reason why community
partnerships are so important.
-
The Child and Family Services Review, as well as other
federal legislation, mandates that family-centered practice is the essential way for conducting child welfare.
-
And we know from child welfare experience that you cannot
be successful in doing family-centered practice unless you use community partnerships
and linkages.
-
To understand the link between community partnerships
and family-centered practice, let's briefly review the essential elements
of family-centered practice.
Make
a brief presentation about family- and community-centered practices, focusing
on the following points:
-
Child welfare policy often
swings like a pendulum. At one end is concern for child safety and, at the
other, concern for preserving the autonomy of families. At times, concern
for child safety gives way to an interest in preserving families and the pendulum
swings from one end to the other. Sometimes his swing then "goes too
far"‹ for example, when there is a death of a child‹and the pendulum
swings back towards greater caution and a renewed emphasis on child safety.
-
Family-centered practice is
an approach to child welfare based in the belief that the best way to protect
children in the long run is to strengthen and support their families (whether
it be nuclear, extended, foster care, or adoptive).
-
The family-centered approach
emphasizes providing services to the family by mobilizing formal and informal
resources in the community in which they live.
-
The following describes essential
elements of family-centered practice (refer to Handout
1.2: Essential Elements of Family-Centered Practice and put the transparency on the projector),
covering the points made in this Handout/Transparency:
1.
The family as a unit is the focus of attention.
Family-centered
practice works with the family as a collective unit, ensuring the safety and
well-being of family members.
2.
Emphasis is placed on assessing and building on family
strengths and on the capacity of families to function effectively.
The primary
purpose of family-centered practice is to strengthen the family's potential for
carrying out its responsibilities.
3.
Families are engaged in designing all aspects of
the policies, treatment, and evaluation of the agency.
Family-centered
practitioners partner with families to use their expert knowledge throughout
the decision- and goal-making processes and provide individualized, culturally
responsive, and relevant services for each family.
4.
Families are linked with a comprehensive, diverse,
and community-based network of supports and services.
Family-centered
interventions assist in mobilizing resources to maximize communication, shared
planning, and collaboration among the several and/or neighborhood systems that
are directly involved with the family.
Using
Handout/Transparency 1.2: Essential Elements of
Family-Centered Practice, ask participants to think about the essential elements
of family-centered practice and, keeping them in mind, answer the following
questions:
-
Why are partnerships important
to family-centered practice?
-
Can you have family-centered
practice without partnerships?
Answers
could include:
-
You can't help families build
their strengths and capacities without using supports and services, whether
they are formal or informal.
-
If we truly believe that the
best way to protect children in the long run is to strengthen and support
their families, families today in the child welfare system can't do it alone,
any more than we can do it alone in our families.
Introduce
activity by making the following points:
-
We began this module with an
exercise about the Jones family that helped us experience the importance of
community partnerships and linkages.
-
Then we talked about why community
partnerships are essential in child welfare practice, why they're important
for the upcoming Child and Family Services Review, and why family-centered
practice is not possible without them.
-
Now we're going to complete
Module One by meeting a real family and learning from them why community partnerships
and linkages were so important in helping them exit the child welfare system.
Let me introduce you to the Wilbur family.
The
Wilbur Family. Between August 1998 and August 1999, Katie Wilbur
(29) and her family of six children (Gina aged 10, Willie 8, Marcus 7, Maria 4,
Suzie 3, and Patricia 1) were reported six times to the Illinois Department of
Children and Family Services (DCFS). Six substantiated reports of child neglect
included unsanitary hygiene conditions, headlice on the children and a
lice-infested home, the children's lack of appropriate coats for winter
weather, children left alone at home, and children left in inappropriate care
(with a friend whose children were removed by the state and whose live-in
boyfriend was a registered sex offender). Some of the neglect reports
originated from the children's school. The agency's policy at that time
regarding substantiated neglect required workers to return families to the
previous minimal standard and close the case. Following policy, in each
instance the social worker remedied the situation (for example, fumigating the
house), closed the case, and waited Šfor the next report. Because the agency
did not have connections with many community-based services, no referrals were
made for additional help.
By
September of 1999, when the seventh report was received and substantiated, the
agency had developed a new resource for Ms. Wilbur. Rock Island had worked hard
for two years to create a child welfare community collaborative in partnership
with DCFS. The collaborative consisted of an integrated services network of all
traditional and nontraditional community-based services and supports. It started
a new program, QUEST, through a contract with DCFS. In 1999, DCFS began
referring families, like Ms. Wilbur's, with substantiated reports of abuse and
neglect whose children still lived in the home to QUEST. Ms. Wilbur was
referred to QUEST and she voluntarily agreed to participate in the program.
Referred cases are assigned to one of QUEST's Family Advocates who provides
case management services; works with the family to create a Child and Family
Team consisting of family members, extended members, friends, and others (for
example, church members); and community-based workers who will provide
services. The team develops an action plan, and the Family Advocate makes sure
all services are coordinated and integrated.
By
way of background, Ms. Wilbur was on TANF and had never been employed. Three
different men were the fathers of her children, but she was not currently
involved with any of them. While the house in which she lived was owned by her
grandmother, she had severe conflicts with her extended family. She also had
hostile relationships with her neighbors. She was not involved in a church or
any social organizations in her community. Most importantly, the three older
children, Gina, Willie, and Marcus, were having significant difficulties in
school, and Ms. Wilbur thought the school personnel treated her with little
respect.
Ms.
Wilbur and the QUEST Family Advocate began constructing the Child and Family
Team. They decided that the Team should consist of Ms. Wilbur and her children,
the Family Advocate, representatives from the children's school, some extended
family members, the worker from the community-based agency that would be
providing family preservation and support services, and Ms. Wilbur's TANF
worker. The first Team meeting revealed some surprises for everyone. The school
sent seven people to the meeting, including the principal and the janitor and
each of the children's teachers. The school personnel were heavily invested in
the children. They knew that the school would be involved with the Wilbur
family for a long time because the children were all so young and there were so
many of them. The school personnel were eager to identify the strengths of each
of child and were willing to build on those strengths. During the first
meeting, the Team identified five goals:
-
To help the children do better
in school and for Ms. Wilbur and the school personnel to develop a better
relationship. Ms. Wilbur would be in weekly contact with the school.
-
To help Ms.
Wilbur develop job skills.
-
To help Ms.
Wilbur learn better who were appropriate child care providers.
-
To increase
Ms. Wilbur's support from her extended family for things such as child care,
respite care, and finances, particularly if she was going to seek and retain
employment.
-
To help Ms.
Wilbur develop a supportive social network in her neighborhood and elsewhere.
Now,
a year later, many things have changed for the Wilbur family:
-
Ms. Wilbur completed hair stylist
school, and in September took her first job. She and her TANF worker developed
a trusting relationship, and Ms. Wilbur sought her advice and assistance in
going to school, developing job retention skills, and seeking employment.
-
The children's
school performance improved, and Ms. Wilbur developed a better relationship
with the school personnel. Through testing, two of the children were determined
to be learning disabled. With medication and some special education instruction,
their school performance has significantly improved. The children now have
excellent school attendance, are punctual, clean, and have appropriate clothes.
Over the course of the year, Ms. Wilbur has become increasingly involved in
the school. This began with the weekly contact. Now, Ms. Wilbur picks up her
children at school each day and uses the opportunity to talk to the teachers
to learn how the day went and what homework has been assigned.
-
Ms. Wilbur's
relationship with her extended family improved. Her family supported her while
she was in school, providing child care and financial assistance when needed.
She's developed an especially close relationship with her grandmother.
-
Ms. Wilbur,
isolated socially a year ago, is developing friendships and a support network
for herself. She has a few good friends now in the neighborhood, and she made
two solid friends in training school and sees them socially as well.
-
After another
substantiated neglect report in April, again leaving her children with the
woman with the sex offender boyfriend, she has a better understanding of who
are appropriate child care supports.
Ms.
Wilbur, her Family Advocate, and the Team have decided that she and her family
are ready now to leave QUEST. But "closing the case" is different in QUEST than
in some other programs. QUEST will continue to provide support in a different
way. At the final Team meeting, QUEST's Family-Centered Service worker
participated, and together they planned how Ms. Wilbur can call on this worker
when she needs help that she can not get elsewhere. Family-Centered Services
can provide access to a family resource center, which includes after-school
activities for her children, linkages to services in the community, and
parenting training.
Ask
the following:
Generate responses, which could include:
-
I was really impressed with
the investment of the school in this family. I guess they realized they were
going to be working with this family for many years and preferred to have
successful kids versus problem kids.
-
So much depends on the goal.
In the first substantiated reports, the goal was just to return the family
to a minimal level of functioning and not address underlying causes. This
time, the basics were done to ensure that the family could be successful.
-
The community partnerships
and linkages really worked cooperatively in this case. This is one of the
reasons the family was successful.
[1] Note to Trainer: Rather than reading this family story out loud yourself, it may be more effective for you to provide several participants with the text and ask them to take turns reading the different paragraphs.