(Posted 2023 January)
While the term kinship care might be unfamiliar for those outside of the world of child welfare, we bet you’d know if you saw it! Kinship care refers to the formal or informal practice of raising the children of relatives or close family friends when their parents can’t provide care.
Kinship care is not a new practice for Fairfax County Department of Family Services. In fact, the agency has a dedicated Kinship Care Unit that has spent years working with those who’ve willingly become caregivers for the children in their extended families.
We’re excited that kinship care at DFS is expanding in scope to help children in foster care find permanent homes!
Research Shows the Gaps in Care
Between June 2020 and April 2022, Fairfax DFS conducted a Timely Adoption Project with the goal of identifying existing supports and barriers to completing an adoption within 24 months in Fairfax County.
During the Timely Adoption Project, it quickly became clear that efforts to find and engage children’s relatives were inconsistent across units and programs in our Children, Youth, and Families Division. We suspected that this had led to fewer relative placements.
Research from the project confirmed that when DFS contacts relatives within the first 30 days of a child entering foster care, there’s an 80% chance of successfully engaging relatives. However, this rate drops drastically to just 5% if our engagement efforts begin after the child has been in care for more than 60 days.
As a result of the Timely Adoption Project, we discovered that the sooner we engage children’s relatives, the better to achieve timely adoption and permanency for all children in care.
Legislation Leads to Changes in Internal Processes
Several Northern Virginia jurisdictions including Alexandria City, Arlington, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties have established kinship navigator positions during the past two years. While kinship navigator tasks vary slightly in each jurisdiction, the goal is the same: to increase the number of kinship care placements for children and decrease the length of time children spend in care. It’s encouraging that since adopting more kin-friendly policies over the last five years, Arlington County reported a decrease in the number of kids in care from 150 to only 35.
In July 2022, the Virginia General Assembly passed new kinship care legislation stating that:
- Relatives or fictive kin (family friends) who wish to become kinship foster parents for children in the department’s custody must receive written notice of the process within 15 calendar days.
- The department must now use the Permanency Assessment Tool (PAT), to conduct a home visit to evaluate the suitability of the kin caregiver as an emergency resource parent for the child or children.
Use of the PAT aims to create more consistency in the approval or denial process for potential kinship families across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Based on the results of the PAT, the department can grant an emergency approval for the specific relative child (or children) to be placed with their kin for up to six months while a home study is completed.
DFS must provide a letter to any interested kin caregivers outlining the process to become a licensed foster parent. In the case of a denial, DFS must clearly document the reason, and kin caregivers now have the right to file an appeal the decision with the Virginia Department of Social Services Commissioner.
Introducing the New Fairfax County Kinship Navigator
In a data-driven response to the growing need and changing legislation, Fairfax DFS is shifting our practice to improve our engagement with relatives. We have created a kinship navigator position, and we have been building capacity for the past nine months. In the role of kinship navigator, Erin Walsh began accepting referrals December 1, 2022. Walsh will:
- Team up with Child Protective Services specialists when needed due to the possibility of an out-of-home placement due to abuse and neglect.
- Immediately conduct a relative search and contact possible relatives to define their relationship to the child and/or parents.
- Assess relatives’ willingness and ability to provide care and complete the Permanency Assessment Tool (PAT) to seek an emergency kin foster care placement approval.
- Engage and provide support and consultation to both formal and informal relative/fictive kin caregivers to promote family connections, establish permanency and promote placement stability.
- Provide ongoing support, as needed, to the kin caregivers throughout the home study process and/or until a resource worker is assigned.
The foster care placement team will continue initiating contact with all available approved resource families to ensure that children are not unnecessarily waiting for a placement. Walsh’s relative search and engagement work will be completed as a parallel process.
“We believe that this increased focus on finding and engaging relatives of the children who need a safe placement due to child abuse or neglect will ultimately yield better outcomes for these children,” said Walsh. “Please feel free to reach out to me through email with questions.”
This article posting is part of the Foster Family News monthly newsletter designed to keep current and prospective foster and adoptive parents informed about all the new and notable happenings in Fairfax County. If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe.
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