|
|
|
|
|
SAN LUIS
OBISPO COUNTY As San Luis Obispo County began its planning for our second year CPYP plan, we reinvigorated and broadened our efforts with a CPYP Task Force that has many community partners represented, including CASA, two foster family agencies, a group home, our Foster Parent Association, County Office of Education, a PRIDE trainer, Cuesta College and two foster youth who also participate in our local CYC (California Youth Connection) Speaker's Bureau, as well as our child welfare service and information technology staff. We have folded the work of our Model Standards for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Youth Workgroup into this larger group to consolidate the work we are doing in reaching better outcomes for all youth in care. In our effort to ensure that social workers consistently engage in the creation of stable and nurturing permanent connections for youth we developed two Desk Guides: one on Permanency Team Meetings (PTM), and the other on Life Team Meetings (LTM). We used these Desk Guides as the foundation to provide all staff training over this last summer. The goal of the PTM is to identify and establish permanent connections for the child or youth. These meetings begin as soon as a child/youth age 10-15 transitions into PPLA (planned permanent living arrangement) status. They are held at least quarterly. The LTM is for youth 16 years of age and older and are held at least every six months. The goal of the LTM is to continue to identify and establish permanent connections through either adoption or guardianship and also helps set the stage for a successful transition to adulthood. Standard forms and meeting formats were devised to ensure youth voice for these meetings. To measure our success in finding connections for youth, we have begun to use three special project codes in CWS/CMS (Child Welfare Services/Case Management System database):
As of our last report, dated 9/20/07, 45.6% of the cases were marked "Set" and 28.7% were marked "IDd." Our hope to have Mary Stone-Smith (Catholic Community Services of Western Washington) deliver "Creating Family Connections" training did not come to fruition, although we are using the model in a pilot with the permanency case managers to develop a recommendation about roles for a permanency case manager and a social worker in this work. This pilot is still in its initial phase. We are half way through the superb training from Darla Henry, "The 3-5-7 Model: Working with Children and Youth Towards Adoption and Permanency Options". he first two sessions have been well received and well attended (over 70 people at each session) by Department of Social Services staff as well as other county departments, provider agencies, and community partners. We are all looking forward to next month when we will explore what implementation of the model will look like in San Luis Obispo County.
County Documents Permanency: Making Connections for Youth Brochure San Luis Obispo Desk Guide: Permanency Planning, Family Finding & Engagement (MS WORD) San Luis Obispo First Year Plan San Luis Obispo Five Step Model for Family Finding and Engagement (MS WORD) San Luis Obispo Permanency Family Finding and Engagement Referral Form (MS WORD) San Luis Obispo Permanency Team Meeting Policy San Luis Obispo Second Year Plan San Luis Obispo Team Meetings (MS WORD)
Contact: 6/12/09 |
|
|
