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Adoption Opportunities GranteesFamily Connections ProjectAdoptions Unlimited, Inc. The Family Connections Project (FCP) was developed in response to the Federal funding opportunity for “Developing Adoption Services and Supports for Youth Who Wish to Retain Contact with Family Members in Order to Improve Permanency Outcomes.” The project objectives are: (1) to conduct a thorough needs assessment on barriers and strategies that impact openness; (2) to educate workers, foster/pre-adoptive parents, court personnel, and youth about the benefits of open permanency arrangements; (3) to mediate open permanency arrangements which promote contact between youth and relatives or significant others, and achieve permanency for youth; (4) to address emotional issues that impact permanency and well-being; (5) to disseminate knowledge gained from the project throughout the state. The model utilizes many established structures of the child welfare system, augments them, and creates training curriculum that can be continued after grant funding ends and that can be replicated in other states. Guiding the project is the Permanency for Youth Workgroup. This group is composed of foster youth from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS) Youth Advisory Board, adoptive parents, court personnel and other legal advocates, agency adoption, and post adoption staff. The workgroup will serve as a key resource for developing the curriculum and implementing the mediation component of the project. The grant’s agency partners are the IDCFS and Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. The project will be implemented in the Chicago metro area and in the Peoria area. Numerous child welfare experts will consult and will write the various components of the curriculum. VIP/Teens 2 HomesBellefaire JCB Bellefaire JCB's Project VIP/Teens 2 Homes (VIP/T2H) is an innovative project designed to develop and implement services and supports to improve permanency outcomes for youth who wish to retain contact with family members. The project focuses on five objectives: 1) replacing resistance to with interest in permanency options among youth over age 12 and/or sibling groups in the public child welfare system; 2) connecting youth to adults to promote a range of permanency options, particularly adoption, open adoption, and including guardianship and kinship care; 3) demonstrating an effective permanency planning model in which youth leadership and collaboration among youth, siblings, other family members, caseworkers, and possible permanency parents are critical components; 4) evaluating the processes and outcomes of Project VIP/T2H to provide an evidence based model for promoting open adoption; and 5) disseminating information about Project VIP/T2H to provide a model for other counties and states seeking effective open adoption programs for youth and sibling groups. Project VIP/T2H utilizes a range of strategies to improve and increase permanency outcomes for youth over 12 and/or sibling groups in the public child welfare system. Especially important is the regional initiative that will produce evidence based, youth centered permanency model that includes parent, mentor, child welfare, and legal professional training to improve Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSR) permanency outcomes. The innovative features of the project include peer groups and a camp that combine a focus on youth empowerment and openness in adoption, a recruitment plan for VIP/T2H mentors that overcomes the challenge of enlisting sufficient numbers of mentors, the VIP/T2H Community Chorus, the informal social network activities built into our model of Circles of Support, parent training that invites birth/kinship family members and a VIP/T2H Rapid Response Team that will engage with legal system professionals to share information and perspectives in a non-adversarial setting. It's Up To MeBethany Christian Services The "It's U.P.T.O. Me" Project is designed to provide Youth Permanence Through Openness and Mediation. The goal of the project is to achieve permanence and strengthened connections for an increased number of older youth in foster care using open adoption relationship and youth empowerment strategies. "It's U.P.T.O. Me" is based on the premise that each person in the foster care/adoption paradigm for older youth has a vested stake in efforts to build these life-long connective relationships. Four strategies will be used to assist Michigan's older youth in foster care in achieving life long connective relationships. They are: mediated family conferencing, kinship mentoring, strategic counseling (including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and open adoption education for permanent foster and adoptive families. The future of the project includes expansion of services to other geographic regions in Michigan and implementing a strong evaluation component. The project outcomes will strengthen the capacity of the Michigan Department of Human Services to bring its child permanency indicators into compliance with the Federal Child and Family Services Review. The project will begin in Kent County it will be replicated in Muskegon County and then applied to the state's Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange system. Youth OPENChild and Family Tennessee Child and Family Tennessee (CFT) is one of only 9 sites selected to receive a 5-year demonstration grant, and the only one in the southeastern United States. With this funding, CFT is establishing the Youth OPEN (Options for Permanency and Empowerment Now) project. Youth OPEN seeks to introduce a range of permanency options, including adoption, open adoption, and permanent guardianship. The mission of Youth OPEN is to:
Dumisha Jamaa ProjectFamily Builders by Adoption The Dumisha Jamaa Project is a collaboration between Family Builders by Adoption, based in Oakland, CA and the Alameda County Social Services Agency to address the needs of youth who emancipate from foster care without permanent family connections. With the goal that no child leaves Alameda County foster care without a permanent family connection that is as legally secure as possible, Family Builders and Alameda County SSA are proposing a historic public/private collaboration to establish open adoptions and other permanence for 200 youth who will otherwise exit care without permanence. The project has five objectives: 1) To prepare youth for a positive transition into an adoptive family that will support the youth's attachment to and contact with members of the youth's family of origin; 2) To prepare, support, and sustain permanent families to understand and address the issues that are unique to open adoption; 3) To prepare, support, and sustain families of origin; 4) To evaluate the process and outcomes of these strategies and models; and 5) To disseminate information learned from this project to encourage other locations to develop open adoption and permanency programs for youth. The project is based on our shared belief that every youth is entitled to leave foster care with a permanent family relationship that supports his or her connections to the family of origin and that it is possible to develop such a relationship for each youth. The primary outcome of this innovative project will be the timely intervention and establishment of open adoptions and permanence for 200 youth in Alameda County prior to their emancipation from foster care during the next five years. Project Family TiesHomes for Black Children Project Family Ties will increase the opportunity for permanency through openness in adoption for 150 foster children in the metropolitan Detroit area who are 11 and older, or are part of a sibling group, and are interested in maintaining positive family relationships. These children will be afforded permanency through a collaborative partnership between Homes for Black Children, Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, Saunders Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, The Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) and Kinship, an interagency recruitment collaborative of 25 agencies serving children in the Detroit area. The approach taken in this project recognizes the strengths within the African American family and community, especially the faith community. It understands the central role that the church plays within the community and attempts to capture the power and influence of the ministry. In addition to Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and Saunders Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, there will be collaboration with youth, foster families, successful adoptive families, and child welfare agencies. We are seeking to form partnerships with other representatives from the faith community. Homes for Black Children subscribes to a youth development approach. The approach recognizes the need to provide children with comprehensive adoption preparation and planning services, support, and opportunities to maintain continuity of healthy birth family relationships in an open adoption. This will be achieved through comprehensive assessment, preparation, enrichment, and transitional services that specifically improve an individual youth's capacity to live successfully in an adoptive family. Adoptive parents' capacity for successfully parenting older youth and sibling groups who maintain their family ties will be improved through orientation and training, life enrichment family activities, placement, and supportive services. Project Adopt Older KidsKidsave Kidsave's Project Adopt Older Kids (A-OK!) is an innovative approach that helps older children in foster care find adoptive families through a combination of host family visits, advocacy, and outreach. The program gives children a series of weekend visits with a host family in the community. Host families use their circles of friends to help the child meet people who might be adoptive families. Media and other communications channels are used to attract attention to these children. Partnerships are created with local companies and organizations that can mobilize their constituencies to help. Project A-OK! builds on the Weekend Miracles program, which changes the way the community supports children in foster care. It helps introduce the children to people in the community who may wish to adopt or mentor them. It involves citizens in unique, new ways that meet their lifestyles and needs. Weekend Miracles provides a unique opportunity for the community to get to know the children and empowers people to speak out on children's behalf and to find adoptive families. Families and individuals can: host a child for two weekends a month for three months and be that child's partner in finding a family; advocate through their circles of friends, to help a child find an adoptive family; and/or mentor a child in foster care. Mentors have fun and provide the children with educational, enriching experiences. All volunteers receive training and support from social workers and mental health professionals. Weekend Miracles is based on research of best practices and programs. Kidsave has demonstrated the effectiveness of the Family Visit model through Summer Miracles and programs in Russia and Kazakhstan. Summer Miracles brings orphaned children ages 5 to 15 from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Colombia for a summer visit with host families in the US. Project A-OK! will help older children in foster care in the District of Columbia and Los Angeles find adoptive families through the Weekend Miracles program. Project A-OK! serves waiting children, ages 12 and older. It is a partnership between the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA), the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (LA DCFS), and Kidsave. The program will serve 50 children per year. Project A-OK! combines the social work expertise of CFSA and LA DCFS with Kidsave's expertise in design of behavior change programs utilizing social marketing perspectives, grassroots mobilization, and building of large coalitions. Kidsave uses its strong communications skills to expand media coverage about local children in need of adoptive parents. The ROAD/El Camino (Realizing Open Adoption Dreams/El Camino Hacia Un Futuro Mejor)New York Council on Adoptable Children (COAC)
COAC, a 35-year old adoption specialty organization, proposes to implement a new program model that features strong cross-agency collaborations designed to overcome the barriers to open adoption and improve the permanency outcomes of youth age 12 and over in the New York City foster care system. With ACF's support, in the five year grant period we will launch The ROAD/El Camino (Realizing Open Adoption Dreams/El Camino Hacia Un Futuro Mejor) to engage 96 youth in the process of finding permanent homes. The New York City Administration for Children's Services, foster care agencies who have custody of the youth, the media that target the African American and Hispanic community (for outreach to prospective parents), as well as two programs within COAC that will provide wrap-around services to recruit adoptive families and support them in the post-placement period. By raising awareness among youths, their birth families, extended families, kinship networks, and caseworkers – that a permanent family is indeed possible, that open adoption is an option that will allow for continued family contact, and by implementing best practices that engage all parties involved, The ROAD/El Camino will give youths a new opportunity to achieve permanence. In the five-year period, the project will serve 96 youth and place 68 of them with permanent families. The project will document its procedures, methods, and results and provide a final report and workbook to enable replication for the field. The Long Island Opening Adoption’s Door to TeensYou Gotta Believe! The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement, Inc The Long Island Opening Adoption’s Door to Teens Project will accept 153 referrals of teens who have ties to their birth families and have been resistant to adoption and permanency because of these relationships and other issues. The project will provide short term intensive counseling with teens on referral to discuss any issues, fears, or concerns they may have with permanency. As a result, the project expects to place at least 77 of the youth into permanent families. The project will accomplish these goals by utilizing our partnership with the Nassau County Department of Social Services, the Suffolk County Department of Social Services, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) in both Suffolk and Nassau Family Courts, and the mercyFirst child care agency that operates both group and foster programs in both Nassau and Suffolk County.
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