Permanency Planning

Permanency planning is the process of assessing and preparing a child for long term care when in out-of-home placements such as kinship, foster care or institutions. A care plan must centre on what is in the child’s best interests, and therefore requires an ongoing assessment of the child and her needs. A guardian may be appointed as a further protection of a child’s rights.

The ultimate goal of permanency planning is to ensure a secure environment with lifelong bonds that will support the child into adulthood. For most children this will be provided by their birth parents and relatives, and therefore family reunification should be the primary goal. Where reunification is not possible or suitable for the child, adoption or Islamic kafalah is usually the next best option since it offers more stability and enables the child to develop a lasting attachment to carers.

Each child is an individual and brings a unique set of requirements. The choice of placement must therefore consider the child’s cultural and religious background, abilities and any special needs, attachments to significant people and how such relationships can be maintained, their education, health and overall development. Ideally, children should be kept close to their original communities in order help maintain their identity and to reduce disruption to their everyday lives.

While short term care such as fostering can provide a safe place for a child and time to assess their needs, it is often an unsuitable long term option since it is a temporary arrangement that is prone to breakdown. Social workers or other child protection paraprofessionals in the community must determine the use of short term care and the development of longer term plans with the full participation of the child, birth family, and prospective caretakers, providing opportunities for contact with each other, and preparing all for moves.

All placements should be monitored regularly to ensure the child is safe and his/her physical, emotional, and educational needs are met. This includes children who have been recently returned to their birth family or who are newly placed with adoptive parents. Monitoring enables the provision of family support services, and helps to reduce placement breakdown and incidences of abuse.

The resources in this section focus on the factors that should be considered when planning a child’s care, and the advantages and disadvantages of placement options.

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The Permanence and Care Excellence (PACE) programme: Improvement in practice: leading positive change for children’s services

CELCIS, 01 Dec 2020

This report provides an insight into the Permanence and Care Excellence (‘PACE’) programme – a Quality Improvement programme underway from 2014-2020 which engaged with local authority partnerships in 27 of the 32 Scottish local authority areas. The programme was aimed at supporting local authority partnerships across Scotland to reduce permanence planning timescales for looked after infants, children and young people using a Quality Improvement framework.

Authentically Engaging Youth with Foster Care Experience: Definitions and recommended strategies from youth and staff

Amy M. Salazar, Sara S. Spiers, Francis R. Pfister - Journal of Youth Studies, 13 Jul 2020

This study aims to answer two research questions: a) How do youth and staff/professionals define/conceptualize authentic youth engagement (AYE)? and b) What are youths’ and staff/professionals’ recommended strategies for authentically engaging youth? Thirty stakeholder interviews (15 youth, 15 staff/professionals) and 81 surveys (46 youth, 35 staff/professionals) were completed.

The Adopting Together Service: how innovative collaboration is meeting the needs of children in Wales waiting the longest to find a family

Katherine H Shelton, Coralie Merchant, Jane Lynch - Adoption & Fostering, 11 Jul 2020

This article describes a major development in child care practice in Wales that has occurred over the past two years. The Adopting Together Service (ATS) involves a unique, innovative and multi-layered collaboration between the voluntary adoption agencies (VAAs – non-governmental charities) and regional adoption teams (statutory agencies) to secure permanence for children who wait the longest to find families.

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The Narrative Model for communicating with looked after children about challenging issues

William Coman, Lynda McGill, Michelle Rainey - Adoption & Fostering, 11 Jul 2020

This article summarises the Narrative Model and shows how it supports placement stability for children.

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Recommendations for Improving Permanency and Well-Being

Administration for Children and Families Youth Engagement Team, 23 Jun 2020

This report provides key recommendations from three roundtable discussions about how to support permanency with kin, relational permanency, and successful older youth adoption.

Expedited Case Management Process for Permanent Placement in Families after COVID-19 Lockdown

Miracle Foundation, 25 May 2020

This guidance from Miracle Foundation outlines case management process and tools aimed at children in Child Care Institutions (CCIs) in India who have been placed with their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of these case management processes and tools is to determine feasibility of permanent placement and expedite family-based care in families in which children were placed quickly and without proper preparation during COVID-19 lockdown.

Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study

Government of New South Wales, 2020

The Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS) is the first large-scale prospective longitudinal study of children and young people in out-of-home care (OOHC) in Australia.

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Child Protection: Promoting permanency without adoption

Allan Cooke - Routledge Handbook of Family Law and Policy, 2020

This chapter from the Routledge Handbook of Family Law and Policy examines how permanency for children is achieved in New Zealand in the child protection context.

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“Be supportive and understanding of the stress that youth are going through:” Foster Care Alumni Recommendations for Youth, Caregivers and Caseworkers on Placement Transitions

Ruth M.Chambers, et al - Children and Youth Services Review, 30 Nov 2019

This qualitative research study examined foster care alumni’s advice for youth in care, caregivers, and child welfare caseworkers on how to best handle placements moves.

Predictors of placement disruptions in foster care

Allison Vreeland, et al - Child Abuse & Neglect, 22 Nov 2019

The objective of this study was to examine the utility of child protective services data in identifying predictors of placement disruption.

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