Kinship TFC Pilot Helps Families and Strengthens Partnership between Public and Private Agencies in NC

by Amy Lawson and Alice Moore

Achieving permanency is a team effort. In North Carolina, all 100 counties have a public child-placing agency—usually the county department of social services, or DSS. Every child and youth in foster care in North Carolina is in the temporary custody of one of these public agencies, which are responsible for ensuring they achieve safe, timely permanence.

DSS agencies rely heavily on private out-of- home care agencies for help with this task. The longstanding partnership between our agencies, New Hanover County DSS and Boys and Girls Homes of NC, is a good illustration.

Our agencies partner in many areas, including family foster care, therapeutic foster care, and adoption services. For example, when New Hanover DSS cannot find a foster home for a child needing placement, they often call Boys and Girls Homes. When children can’t reunify with their parents or find permanence with relatives, sometimes they achieve it through adoption by their Boys and Girls Homes foster parents.

Our agencies are always looking for new ways to work together to achieve the best possible results for children and families. One of our most recent efforts focuses on supporting kinship parents in an effort to improve permanency for youth.

Kinship TFC Pilot

In 2020, New Hanover DSS and Boys and Girls Homes partnered with the Family Focused Treatment Association to pilot a therapeutic foster care (TFC) program specifically for kinship families.

Thanks to this new program, five kinship families were licensed to provide TFC for youth in New Hanover DSS custody and seven youth obtained permanency through guardianship. In addition, the pilot helped four youth from Gaston County reach permanency—the relative family that obtained guardianship of these youth was initially licensed by New Hanover DSS but was able to transfer their license to Boys and Girls Homes. So far, over 45 New Hanover youth have been served by the Kinship TFC program.

Nonrelative foster parents typically do a lot of reflection before beginning their foster care journey. Kinship families, on the other hand, often have limited time for reflection and may receive little or no training before they find themselves caring for a youth in foster care. Because they have had less preparation, many are unsure how the system of care works. For these and other reasons, kin families often need more support.

In the Kinship TFC program, kin families get this support from two child welfare workers—one from New Hanover DSS and one from Boys and Girls Homes. This extra support comes in handy when youth are struggling in school or have behavioral needs. Although the program calls for workers to contact kin families once a week, Boys and Girls Homes is often in touch with families multiple times a week.

Reconnecting with Extended Family

Sometimes agencies struggle to find permanence for children, which can cause them to spend years in foster care. When this happens, Boys and Girls Homes helps New Hanover DSS search for and engage extended family members. Partnering in this way opens new doors to permanence. When another agency calls using a different tone and approach, it gives extended family members a chance to make a fresh start.

Supporting Shared Parenting

In North Carolina, foster parents are expected to develop partnerships with the parents or guardians of the children in their care. This is called shared parenting. Shared parenting is crucial because it helps ensure children’s needs are met and can even expedite permanency.

But foster parents are sometimes fearful or intimidated by shared parenting—especially when first meeting the child’s family. To make it easier, New Hanover DSS and Boys and Girls Homes make sure the foster family’s TFC worker is at the table during shared parenting. The worker is an advocate for the kinship family by being a neutral party in what can often be a demanding situation. Building rapport with parents and kinship families, the worker can help bridge the gap, creating a partnership that benefits the youth in care.

While implementing the Kinship TFC program, we learned that shared parenting can be extra difficult when a child in foster care is being cared for by a relative. In a kinship placement, family roles often change drastically—an aunt or a grandmother suddenly finds herself in the role of “mom” regarding day-to-day care of a child. This can be hard for everyone.

But the Kinship TFC program also showed us that with open communication and a focus on what’s best for the child, families can get past these difficulties. We have seen some beautiful shared parenting experiences that continue after the child returns home and results in a long-term partnership. For an example, see the course Critical Partners for Permanency, which features a New Hanover DSS foster parent!

You can find that course on https://fosteringnc.org.

Making Connections

During our Kinship TFC brainstorm meetings it was extra helpful having Boys and Girls Homes there because they often knew the kids from previous involvement with them in their foster homes. They offered great ideas, identified people who were connected to these children, and helped the team “think outside of the box.” Even when no kinship placements were identified, Boys and Girls Homes reached out to relatives to inquire about their willingness to be a support for the youth in care. Even if permanency could not be reached, Boys and Girls Homes helped youth build lasting relationships that would assist them as they transition to adulthood.

Conclusion

As advocate and foster care alum Josh Shipp says, “Every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story.” It truly takes a village to help children in foster care become successful young adults. New Hanover DSS and Boys and Girls Homes are fortunate to have such a strong partnership to make this happen. Together we have learned that kinship care, when implemented with the proper supports, often creates positive outcomes for youth.

Amy Lawson, MSW, LCSW, is Director of Therapeu- tic Foster Care at Boys and Girls Homes of NC. Alice Moore, MSW, is Foster Care Licensing Supervisor at New Hanover County Health and Human Services.

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