Proposal for Family Reunification
By: Kristiana Marshall
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
NEEDS STATEMNT .................................................................................................................................... 3
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES .......................................................................................................................... 4
PROJECT DESCRIPTION ............................................................................................................................. 4
INSTITUTES .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Inner Healing and Wholeness ................................................................................................................. 5
Leadership .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Family dynamics ..................................................................................................................................... 5
REHABILITATION .............................................................................................................................................. 6
FINANCIAL SERVICES......................................................................................................................................... 7
BUDJET .................................................................................................................................................... 7
EVALUATION PLAN .................................................................................................................................. 8
Needs Statement
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According to the Hilton Foundation (2014), New York has the second largest
foster youth population in the nation. Approximately 65% of New York’s foster
youth are in New York City.
Children are placed in foster care when their parents are considered “unfit” to
provide for or protect them. Parent’s rights are revoked when they neglect,
abuse, or abandon their children. They are also revoked when parents face
difficulties such as drug addiction, mental illness, incarceration, poverty etc. In
2007, statistics showed that of the children who entered foster care,18.8%
entered due to physical abuse, 7.9% emotional abuse, 6.2% sexual abuse, and
3.2% caretaker inability.
Foster homes are intended to provide support, guidance, protection and family
environments, to children who have deceased parents, or parents who are
unable to support them. When a child is placed in a foster home, they become
foster children or a ward of the court until their 21st birthday, when they
emancipate or “age out”, becoming legally independent.
There are many services that directly benefit foster youth while they are placed in
foster care and when they “age out” in New York, but there are few services that
serve to reunite foster youth with their biological parents.
One popular service in New York City that benefits foster youth is called the
Casey Life Skills Assessment. It is an online test that assess foster youth in the
areas of maintaining healthy relationships, work and study habits, using public
transportation, cooking and cleaning, budgeting and paying bills and computers
and the Internet. After the completion of the assessment, the results are
generated. Foster youth then become aware of the areas of their life that are
underdeveloped. The goal is for the foster youth to partner with an adult to
develop the areas of life that they are incompetent in. Another popular service
provided is the Education and Training Voucher. This voucher can be used to
help youth “aging out” of foster care to pay for college expenses.
These resources provide phenomenal tools that help foster youth become
independent and self-sufficient adults but they do not provide any services that
reunite families. These services directly benefit the well being of foster youth but
not the well being of the family.
Family well being and dynamics have been overlooked and continue to be. Little
attention has been placed on family reunification because the statistics on
emancipated foster youth continue to increase with results leading to
homelessness, poverty, incarceration and lack of education. As a result
individuals, and organizations have strayed away from the primary goal of the
Child Welfare System, to preserve family units.
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The existing resources only provide services to equip and teach foster youth and
emancipated foster youth to become independent and self-sufficient adults. But
little has been or is being done to preserve family units. There is a need for family
reunification. The solution does not begin with helping foster youth become
independent and self-sufficient adults; it begins with providing services that help
biological parents regain custody of their children.
Children who are impacted by being placed in foster care do deserve to be
served individually but the parents who are deemed “unfit” to care for their
children also deserve to be served because they have the power to influence and
impact the dynamics of their families and the families of others in New York City.
Goals
Our goal is to preserve family units in New York City. We hope to do this by
approaching the problem of biological parents losing custody of their children,
who are then placed into foster care until they are adopted, find legal guardians,
or “age out”, from a perspective that focuses on building the character, emotional
development, leadership and parenting skills of the biological parents of foster
youth.
Objectives
The objectives of our program are to increase the number of foster youth that
reunite with their biological parents in New York City by providing services to all
parents who have or had children placed in foster care. We hope to see a
decrease in the number of foster youth who are repeatedly placed in foster care
due to caretaker inability, neglect, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
Project Description
Our program is designed to enrich and empower biological parents to regain
custody of their children. We do this by offering a variety of institutes that allow
biological parents to be coached on how to better their lives in the areas of
becoming whole and healthy individuals, leaders, and understanding the
dynamics of the family. We also provide rehabs for parents who have lost
custody of their children due to substance abuse, drug addiction or mental
illness. In addition to institutes and rehabs we offer mentorship and accountability
services to biological parents who are in the process of regaining or have
regained custody of their children.
After the completion of our institutes, we provide financial services to biological
parents who have developed a clear goal and vision on how they plan to regain
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custody of their children. Biological parents are expected not only to have a plan
but to also execute it. These financial services are limited and come in many
different forms. In order for parents to receive financial support they must go
through the application process.
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Institutes
Our institutes serve the purpose of helping biological parents reach their full
potential in life. They serve as training instruments to equip biological parents to
take ownership of their lives and become independent and self-sufficient adults.
They also serve to teach parents leadership principles that will assist them in
making healthy decisions, processing information, and accomplishing their task
of regaining custody of their children. In addition to wholeness and leadership,
our institutes are aimed at teaching the dynamics of the family.
Inner Healing and Wholeness
Teachings on:
 Forgiveness
 Self -Acceptance
 Healthy emotions
 Processing life events
 Overcoming victim mentalities
 Etc.
Leadership
Teachings on:
 Developing goals and vision
 Making your goals and vision a reality
 Decision-making
 Having influence and impact
 Planning ahead
 Scheduling
 Etc.
Family Dynamics
Teachings on:
 Family education
 Parenting skills
 Healthy communication
 Role and responsibilities of parents
 Etc.
Rehabilitation
Our rehabilitation services are designed to serve the biological parents of foster
youth who lost their children because of their inability to tend to their basic needs
due to substance abuse, alcohol dependence or mental illness. We believe that it
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is important that biological parents are assisted in overcoming the issues listed
above because it keeps them from reaching their full potential as guardians and
being “fit parents”. Statistics show that children enter foster care enter due to
physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and caretaker inability. We believe that
substance abuse, alcohol dependence and mental illness contribute to caretaker
inability. This is why we find these services to be vital to the development of
healthy people and family structures. We believe that once biological parents are
able to overcome these obstacles they will be able to take the steps necessary to
regain custody of their children.
It is keys that biological parents deal with the underlying issues that caused them
to lose custody of their children because biological parents cannot care or
support their children until they can care for and support themselves. We believe
that by biological parents taking these steps that they are demonstrating that they
are able and willing to develop in to "fit parents".
We provide separate facilities for those who have addictions and mental
illnesses. Our drug addiction and alcohol abuse facility is designed to assist the
biological parents of foster youth in overcoming their addictions. This is done by
requiring biological parents to be placed in a facility for 6weeks-6months;
depending on the severity of their case. During placement patients will be
required to abstain from using drugs or alcohol. They will be required to attend
and participate in support groups. They will have visitation rights twice a month.
Our mental illness facility is designed to educate biological parents on their
illness and equip them to work around it so that they are able to play a role in
their child’s life. This facility will provide treatment and educational services.
Financial Services
Our program aims to financially support parents by providing stipends that help
cover some of the cost of running a household. Some of these cost cover rent,
bills, food, kids clothing etc. Stipends range from $1,000-$1,550. In order to
qualify for stipends parents must go through our application process. Parents
many not receive a stipend more than once in a six month period.
In order to provide financial support to the biological parents of foster youth we
plan to collaborate with local organizations and businesses. We hope that these
companies will agree to sponsor one or two families a year and allow our
participants to work for them to receive experience and financial stability.
Mentorship and Accountability
Our program offers mentors to the biological parents of foster youth while they
are in the process of regaining custody of their children and when they regain
custody of them. Our mentors meet with parents once a month for an entire year
to provide guidance and support to the families that we have served. They hold
parents accountable to the goals they have set and help them develop strategic
plans to take charge of their future. We also offer support groups to biological
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parents. Our mentors and support group leaders are men and women who had
once lost custody of their children but later regained custody of them.
Time Line
Year 1
Planning/ Training/ Collaboration
Train employees
Collaborate with local businesses and organizations for mental rehab
facilities and financial services.
Develop institute curriculum.
Develop design or partner with local rehabs.
Develop program applications.
Advertisement.
Develop assessment surveys.
Year 2
Pilot
Test institutes
Test rehabs
Year 3
Full implementation
Year 4
Assessment
Distribute surveys
Review mission statement, values, goals and objectives.
Look at outcomes.
Review longitudinal studies.
Year 5
Institutionalization
Budget- Need Assistance
Evaluation Plan -. Need assistance
To measure the effectiveness of our program we plan to hire an evaluator. We
plan to evaluate the impact that our services have had on the families that we
have served. We will measure our effectiveness by using longitudinal studies.
We plan to keep a record of all the families that have been reunited. We also
plan to keep follow up reports of these families for a year. Follow up reports will
include stories, surveys, and services that are currently being used.
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