December 15, 2011
Effective Discovery and Engagement Practices through Family Finding
Since 2008, Child Trends has been evaluating family finding in multiple states and localities across the country. Family finding is an approach for connecting children in foster care to family members and other caring adults. Child Trends has released two briefs describing child welfare professionals' views of and experiences with the discovery and engagement processes of the family finding model. Discovery consists of identifying the child's relatives and other potential supportive adults. Following discovery is engagement, during which identified relatives and others learn about the needs of the child and how they can help.
Effective Discovery
Piecing Together the Puzzle: Tips and Techniques for Effective Discovery in Family Finding, summarizes focus groups with family finding staff. The staff described how they start the process of discovery by interviewing the child's case worker and "mining" the child's case record in search of relatives' names and contact information. Additional sources of information include the child, family members, and internet and data system searches. The brief shares resources that family finding workers and others can use in their discovery efforts.
Effective Engagement
In Bringing Family to the Table: Tips and Techniques for Effective Family Engagement, Child Trends also presents information from focus groups with family finding workers. This brief describes the process by which family members are engaged. Initial contact with the family members consists of explaining the family finding model and attempting to gauge their potential commitment level to the child. The process of discovering and engaging family members often occurs simultaneously, as one relative might mention another relative in these initial conversations. The brief shares useful techniques that family finding workers and others can use to effectively engage family members.
These briefs are part of a series summarizing findings from Child Trends' evaluations of family finding. Additional evaluation results related to family finding's impact on children's permanency outcomes will be released late next year. The first brief, Family Finding: Does Implementation Differ When Serving Different Child Welfare Populations, can be found here.
______________________________________________________ by Kristin Anderson Moore, Senior Scholar, and
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