Heart Gallery of Lane County - A Family for Every Child

How This Program Works

Teen Permanency Program – Outline

Finding permanent parents for teens before they exit out of foster care, no matter what age they are, is the single greatest positive youth development program there is. The greatest need in the adoption field is to do special recruitment, retention, and support for adoption of children age ten and older. The focus of this project was to find permanent adoptive parents for teens that need a permanent placement, or to find committed permanent connections who will morally adopt teens who are not freed but are in danger of discharge from foster care to homelessness. Using a multi-prong approach, permanency, family finding, mentor, and Independent Living Skills taught in an interdependent way.

Our new Teen Permanency Program is a multi-track adoption/connection plan using a focused, proactive and defined series of steps to accomplish the goal of finding an adoptive family for a child needing a permanent home or permanent connection.
• Youth will be referred from their caseworker...

Referral/ Interview/ Connection search

Assemble an adoption/connection team

Determine which recruitment tools would benefit the Youth.

Define and implement an action plan

Adoption team reviews results weekly and meets when needed to determine if the plan is working or if they need to revise the plan

Family mentor adoption support/Follow-up

Referral/ Interview/ Connection search

A. Youth is referred by their case worker---Teen permanency Director meets with the caseworker and assigns a permanency volunteer to do an extensive review of the child’s records, building a timeline, overview and look for possible lost connections and family.

B. Interview the child. Interview adults in the child’s life such as teachers, neighbors, extended family, current and past foster parents, and formulate some ideas of how many possible connections already exist in the youth’s life.

2. Assemble an Adoption/Connection Team

Permanency Team Meeting: Our Program Director will interview both the child and the caseworker. They will organize a team meeting; including our program director; Permanency Advocate, Family Finding volunteer, and an AFFEC volunteer (representing all our other programs and options that this youth may access).
The Director convenes and facilitates permanency action recruitment team for all teens referred to the project, unless a resource is already available for a teen at the time of the referral. These meetings focus on bringing together all parties involved in the permanency planning process for the teen, including individuals in the teen’s life who could potentially be a permanency resource for them, to set goals and develop strategies for achieving permanency for the teen prior to their exit from care.
The Director will come to the meeting with interview results and a list of current connections the youth has. During the meeting a plan will be developed as to the needs of this youth and the services we can provide that will best serve their permanency needs. Permanency Goals will and follow up meetings will be set.

Those included in this meeting are:

Permanency Director, Family Finding Director/Mentor Director
The caseworker, possibly the youth; if deemed appropriate
Casa, if there is one
Teacher, foster parent, family, or anyone that can help this youth facilitate a permanent family.

3. Determine which recruitment tools would benefit the child

Recruitment Activities: The first recruitment activity engaged in by our team is the identification of; and direct contact with; potential permanency resources already in the teens life. We work with the teen to identify these individuals and facilitate contact with them. In addition, we are involved in direct recruitment activities for teens that do not have immediate permanency resources in their lives. These activities include but are not exclusive to: Family Finding, Heart Gallery Mentors, General recruitment of lifelong parents and The Heart Gallery. There are also many other smaller forms of recruitment that are outlined below. Each Child will most likely receive a Mentor. While a mentor is not a permanency goal for a youth, it can often have a very positive impact on a youth during the “Forever Family” search. It is also, one more safety net that can help support our youth.

LIFE LONG PARENT---This part of the program is really focused on recruiting, training and supporting potential parents for our high needs foster youth that are 10 years and above. This will begin with a series of classes and an application process already being managed by DHS or OSCL. Along with this series of classes and the application process we will have our group participate in weekly classes that will focus on Parenting this group of teens and meeting their specific needs and challenges. Our focus will be that they may start out as Foster Parents, but they are making a lifelong commitment to one child or sibling group. This commitment will be entered into with the signing of a document that says, “When the youth is ready, the family will adopt them and be their forever family”. In conjunction with this the youth will sign a similar document that says, “When and if the youth is ready, they will allow the family to adopt them”. Due to the many years of instability and rejection, many youth are not prepared emotionally to commit to a family on day one. We believe it is our role to gain the trust of these youth, not their role to make us love them.

Key elements of this program:

Training and application through an already existing program.
Involvement in our weekly training/support groups, that are geared towards special needs foster youth ages 10 and older.

Weekly meetings
Lyn Max online counseling - available for both families and youth
Participation in our Family Building program and matched with an experienced mentor adoptive family.
Continued; after placement; attendance to our support/training meetings.
Help from our program to activate all services available to the youth and family after placement.

At the time of placement, participation in the contract commitment ceremony with the youth and family.

MENTOR/ILP PROGRAM — Three of the older teens in our Heart Gallery asked for a mentor. We were pleasantly surprised in the huge response from our community. We now have 45 youth, 30 certified Mentors and are close to 20 matches

The Heart Gallery Mentor Program was created to provide one-on-one mentoring for Lane County Foster Youth between the ages of 12-21. It is our goal to provide support and a consistent connection to help them transition successfully from adolescence into adulthood.

The key role of this program in our Teen Permanency program is one of stabilizing the youth with another caring, committed person that may become a permanency option or may act as a support to another permanent family. This might also open a door for a waiting family to get to know a waiting youth.

FAMILY FINDING —

This is one of the most exciting and innovative approaches in reconnecting children and family that has been seen in over 30 years.

It begins with a hunt for names in case files, then specially crafted Internet searches that can last less than a half-hour. Once family members are located, our organization tries to ease them into taking responsibility for their lost children through carefully scripted letters and calls.
They also ask for names of other relatives and dates of family reunions. Volunteers and/or social workers are urged not to stop until they have found at least 40 family members for every child. Some find as many as 300.

These lost connection and family are pulled together in a Family Team meeting to explore permanency options within this group.

While these 3 programs are the back bone of our Teen Permanency Program, some of our other existing programs may also be used to help find a “Forever Family” for any youth we are recruiting for.

Heart Gallery

The Heart Gallery is collection of beautiful photographs, taken by professional photographers, of children available for adoption. These photographs will become a traveling exhibit with the purpose of finding interested adoptive families.

Heart Gallery Child of the Month/Week

Each month; and now weekly; a local radio station, television station and newspaper will highlight a child or sibling group in need of an adoptive family.

Sponsor Family/Anchor Families

Volunteer families host a child or sibling group in their home for a series of “sponsorship weekends” looking for a permanent placement. The sponsoring family attends activities and events to introduce the child to prospective parents.
They also may share holidays or special events with the child, help them with college application, job training, or provide advice as any parent would.

Sponsor Church/Organization

A Faith based organization or a community organization can sponsor a child. They can promote the child’s needs to their group, invite the child to events and may address a specific need of the child, such as braces or a musical instrument.
These groups are also a great recruiting option for Mentors and families.
Specific recruitment agent-volunteer

Creative approaches to adoption – reaching out to soccer coaches if a child loves soccer or music teachers if a child loves music. Any appropriate creative idea to find a family.

Community recruitment

A spokesperson will talk to faith based/charity/social organizations about specific children or programs to help create interest in adoption.

4. Define and implement an action plan

The team creates an action plan, with steps and back up plans. Each action will have a responsible party that can be accountable to the group and process. The Teen Permanency Director will be responsible for coordinating and guiding the action plan with the team. Together they will decide what steps will be taken and who will do the actual work involved.

5. Adoption team reviews results weekly and meets when needed to determine if the plan is working or if they need to revise the plan

The adoption team makes sure the tasks assigned are being completed. They hold each other accountable and assist each other. They work together and change the plan if needed. Weekly email updates will be initiated by the Permanency Director, who will also schedule all follow up meetings.

6. Family Mentor Adoption Support

Provide support for the adoptive family during the process of adoption and after. Keep the adoptive family aware of programs and assistance available to them. Be a telephone contact. Connect adoptive families with other adoptive families. Be available in times of crisis with the goal of avoiding failed adoptions.

Mentor Family-Match
Family Building Adoption Program
Online counseling
Mentor/ILP Director will provide direction on what is available to the youth after placement.