Appendix B to Chapter 6 New York City Administration for Children's Services Best Practice Guidelines for Family Visiting Arrangements for Children in Foster Care
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APPENDIX B TO CHAPTER 6 New York City Administration for Children's Services Best Practice Guidelines for Family Visiting Arrangements for Children in Foster Care
I. Introduction
Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997 to expedite the process by which children in foster care are either reunited with their families or find other permanent, stable homes.
In order to meet ASFA's accelerated time frames for making permanency decisions, it is critical that children maintain frequent contact with their family when it is safe for them to do so. Frequent and ongoing contact with family members reduces the trauma of removal for children, improves their adjustment to placement, and helps expedite permanency, regardless of whether the goal is reunification, adoption, independent living, or adult custodial care.
For children who will be reunited with their parents, frequent and consistent parent-child contact supports reunification by preserving parents' emotional attachment to their children and by allowing parents to share in the day-to-day responsibility of parenting their children in care. When visiting is expanded to include "shared parenting" responsibilities such as accompanying the foster parent to medical and school appointments, or assisting in supervising the child's homework or meal preparation, it offers parents a realistic sense of what will be involved in caring for their child after their discharge from care.
For other children, frequent parent-child contact may help reveal, early on, cases where reunification may not be the appropriate permanency goal. When a parent expresses little interest in shouldering some of the responsibilities involved in the daily care of his or her child and consistently disappoints a child by failing to participate in visits, this may be an important signal that the child's permanency goal should be changed.
As ASFA makes clear, the child's health and safety must be our "paramount concern" in scheduling or expanding visits. But for the many cases where child safety is not an issue, these Guidelines set forth a framework for expanding and intensifying parent-child contacts in order to expedite the permanency process.
II. Best Practice Guidelines for Family Visiting Arrangements for Children in Foster Care
From the time of removal throughout placement and up to the achievement of a permanency outcome (and even after), contact between children and their family members is critical. Although safety and protection are always paramount concerns, it is also critical to continue the child's existing relationships and to maintain family ties. For all children in foster care, the importance of contact between children and their parents and other family members should not be underestimated, and should be facilitated, as appropriate, in a manner which is timely, frequent, and of high quality.
The ACS Guidelines outlined here address the various and complex aspects of visiting with the aim of offering clarity and guidance in this area. Case-specific decisions concerning a child's visiting plan should be consistent with the ACS guidelines detailed below. Note that while this document makes reference to the role of foster parents in facilitating and supporting visiting, these guidelines also apply to child care workers employed in congregate care settings.
Parent-Child Contact Immediately Following Removal
The moment of a child's removal from his/her family is a traumatic event, often involving urgent efforts on the part of casework staff to gather information, contact relevant parties, and clarify the reasons for removal to both the child and the parents. At this time, the need for children to see their parents can be lost in the mix of other important and pressing concerns. However, the importance of discussing and scheduling parent-child contact immediately after removal should not be overlooked. Timely parent-child contact can serve to: (1) provide continuity and reassurance for children, (2) send a vital message of responsibility to the parent, while supporting him/her to immediately begin to address the reasons for their child's removal, and (3) allow for a casework assessment of the likelihood of reunification to begin as soon as possible.
For the above reasons, visiting plans and arrangements should be discussed and put into place and/or revised at both the 72-Hour Child Safety Conferences and 30-Day Family Permanency Conferences (ACS Family Team Conferences). Parent-child contact should be arranged as soon as possible, with the level of supervision deemed necessary and appropriate given the circumstances of the case and the relationship between the child and the parent, or as directed by court order. Reasons for and purposes of supervision should be clearly identified.
Sibling Contact
Recognizing the importance of the sibling relationship and consistent with the Family Court Act, the Social Services Law and OCFS regulations (18 NYCRR 431.10), ACS requires that all siblings and half-siblings be placed together whenever possible unless placement together would be detrimental to the child's best interests. In the event it is not possible to place siblings together in the same foster boarding home or agency boarding home on an emergency basis, they must be reunited within 30 days.
When siblings are placed separately, foster care agencies are required to exercise diligent efforts to facilitate biweekly face-to-face contact between siblings and half-siblings, unless it would be harmful to their health or safety or unless geographic proximity precludes visiting. Additionally, regular telephone contact and other forms of correspondence should be arranged between visits. When in the best interests of all children involved, every effort should be made to coordinate parent-child visits so as to include the entire sibling group and the parent.
OCFS regulations also require that siblings and half-siblings who are freed for adoption be placed together in a pre-adoptive home, unless placement together is contraindi-cated to one or more of the children.
It is strongly recommended that visiting among siblings continue after the final adoption of one or more of the sibling group, and cooperation among the adoptive parents should be encouraged.
The importance of sibling visits for older children and youth in care should not be overlooked or underestimated. This includes facilitating visits and regular sibling contact for youth with permanency goals of Independent Living.
Responsibility for Visits
It is always the foster care agency's responsibility to arrange and facilitate visits and other forms of contact between the child and parents, and among separated siblings. This responsibility applies to both planning and non-planning agencies. Although foster parents can escort children to visits, or host visits in their homes, and actively participate in visit arrangements, the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that visits take place lies with the agency itself. In most situations parent-child and sibling contact as soon possible after removal is in the child's best interest. If upon removal from the home, a child is not placed in a foster care facility or in a Department of Mental Hygiene facility and there is no specific foster care agency responsibility for the child (e.g., the child is placed in a hospital), it is DCP's responsibility to arrange/facilitate visits and other forms of contact. Facilitating parent-child and sibling contact includes not only arranging face-to-face visits, but also arranging regular phone contact and other forms of correspondence between visits.
Quality of Visits
The quality of the interaction and relationship between a child and his/her parent post-removal will depend in part on the circumstances surrounding their time together. Decision making about visit circumstances should always be guided by what is in the child's best interest and what is specified in any existing court orders. Visit arrangements should take into account factors such as the child's age and developmental level, the circumstances of placement, the child's previous relationship with the parent, and the parent's concern for and commitment to the child, the parent's level of cooperation with the service plan, and level of personal responsibility/accountability toward the reasons for placement. The lowest level of supervision that safeguards the well-being of the child should always be chosen in order to allow the parent to resume/assume the maximum amount of parenting responsibility possible. [See "ACS Guidelines for Decision-Making Concerning Supervised Parent-Child Visiting."]
Scheduling
Visit arrangements should take into consideration the schedules and circumstances of all those involved, including the parent, the child, and the foster parent. For example, in scheduling visits, caseworkers should factor in other obligations the parent may have in complying with the service plan (such as participating in a drug treatment program, attending medical appointments...
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