Guiding Principles
This describes a family-centered approach
These are negative reactions to birth parents
What are they don't care about their kids, they don't take responsibility for their actions, they are hopeless and won't change, they don't deserve their children back, they care about drugs more than their kids, .....
These are things that a birth parent contributes to a child
What is life, physical appearance, genetics, intelligence, personality traits, sense of identity, race, heritage, attachment style, sense of belonging/rejection, roots
Invite parents to special events or family dinners, put in boundaries around visit times and calls that work with both the parent schedules and child's, praise the bio parent in front of the child, praise the child in front of the bio parent, verbalize positive shared qualities between bio parent and youth, go on family outings, celebrate mother's/father's day, celebrate bio parent birthdays, write letters to bio parents, ask bio parents about youth's preferences, create a family tree, ........
This describes a strength based model
A youth feels bad about themselves, their identity, or who they are when others talk like this
What is "You're just like your mom/dad" when they misbehave, "I don't know why you'd want to live with that good-for-nothing" when they are sad or want to live with their birth parent, "His mom is a lazy drug addict," ..........
These are things that kids and other adults can do to support successful youth reunification with birth parents
What are support regular contact with birth parents, avoiding judgmental/negative talk about birth parents, acknowledge the youth's inherent connection to birth parents, make a child feel good about where they come from/their identity, acknowledge the youth's grief and loss, try to get to know and understand the birth parent,......
These are some ways to support bio parent involvement in school
Invite to school meetings, share school notes and notices, have homework help time with bio parent and child, share school accomplishments, invite bio parents to provide or join in school shopping, share report cards, talk about bio parent school successes,......
This describes family/team driven casework
What is helping family members build and gather a team around them for support, other who care about them and their wellbeing while strengthening the team and facilitating family and team members working with one another to help the whole family system moved through the change process.
These are the consequences to the family when the worker joins in the negative view of birth parents
These are benefits to youth when the adults support bio parent change
What is youth has more positive view of themself, youth is more open to relationships with others, youth has less loyalty conflicts (should I care about my RCG or Bio parent), youth is less suspicious of workers, youth is encouraged to improve behavior/mental and emotional health/school performance, ................
These are examples of challenges that may not inherently disqualify a bio parent from maintaining a relationship with the youth and how to monitor for safety
substance use, homelessness, poverty, poor boundaries, history of abuse or abusive relationships, estrangement, argumentative. Staff should make effort to get history about the bio parent, the bio parent-caregiver relationship and the child-parent relationship, they should try to get to know the bio parent, understand the caregiver's feelings about the bio parent, support the caregiver in establishing boundaries and systems they are comfortable with and encouraging the bio parent understanding, talk to the youth about their desires for their relationship with bio parents, make referrals for family therapy, .......