Concurrent Planning:
A Web-based Practice Toolkit
National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections
www.nrcpfc.org
A Service of the Children’s Bureau/ACF/DHHS
&
A Member of the T/TA Network
An Overview of Concurrent Planning
NRCPFC defines concurrent planning as:
A process of working towards one legal
permanency goal (typically reunification) while
at the same time establishing and implementing
an alternative permanency goal and plan that
are worked on concurrently to move
children/youth more quickly to a safe and stable
permanent family (Permanency Roundtable
Project, 2010).
History of Concurrent Planning
In the late 1960s and 1970s, Irmgard Heymann and her
colleagues, working in Chicago, first formulated the
concept of concurrent planning although they did not
label it as such.
Throughout the 1970s in communities across the US,
child welfare caseworkers began making legal-risk or
pre-adoptive placements when
reunification seemed unlikely.
Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980,
sparked many states to develop permanency planning
approaches, although most of these approaches involved
sequential planning. If reunification efforts failed, they explored
adoption or other permanency options.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
• The law states that reasonable efforts to place a child for
adoption or with a legal guardian may be made
concurrently with reasonable efforts to reunify.
• The law further requires that for children who have been
in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months, the
state must file a petition to terminate parental rights
unless certain exceptions apply.
Goals of Concurrent Planning
• To promote safety, permanency, well-being of
children/youth
• To achieve timely permanency
• To reduce the number of moves for children
and youth
• To continue significant relationships
Benefits of Concurrent Planning for Children and
Youth:
• Fewer placements while in foster care when children/
youth are placed with resource families who support
reunification and relative placement, yet stand ready to
be the child/youth’s permanent family should such
efforts not be successful
• Earlier permanency through reunification or another
permanency option
• Greater opportunities to benefit from all the caring
adults in their lives as resource families and birth
parents jointly work together to meet the child/youth’s
needs
Barriers to Successful Concurrent Planning:
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High caseloads and frequent staff turnover
Lack of understanding of concurrent planning by Courts
(including judges, citizen panels, attorneys, GALs and
CASAs)
Lack of understanding of concurrent planning by private
providers of family services
Lack of placement resources
Lack of meaningful parent-child visitation
Insufficient time for case managers to support resource
parents
Concurrent Planning Toolkit: Resources
• Organizational Self Study:
This self study assessment tool can be used to review
concurrent planning policies and practices. The tool is
designed to review overall administrative policies, strengths
and challenges in implementing concurrent planning and to
identify training and technical assistance needs.
• Glossary of Concurrent Planning Terms
• Bibliography of resources cited in the Toolkit
Nine Core Components of Concurrent Planning:
1. Differential assessment 6. Setting clear time lines for
and prognostic case
permanency decisions
review
7. Transparent written
2. Full disclosure to all
agreements and
participants in the case
documentation
planning process
8. Committed collaboration
3. Family search and
between child welfare, the
engagement
courts, service providers
4. Family group
9. Specific recruitment,
conferencing/teaming
training, and retention of
dual licensed resource
5. Visiting between family &
families.
child/youth
1. Differential assessment and prognostic
case review:
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Individualizing our understanding of the
individual, family or group in the context of
their present circumstances, past
experiences, and potential for future
functioning.
Deepening our family-centered
understanding of the child in the context of
family, culture, and community.
Resources:
Arizona’s Reunification Prognosis Assessment
Guide
This assessment guide is used to identify children in need of
concurrent planning. The guide provides a list of conditions,
designated “Poor Prognosis” indicators, which make timely
reunification difficult or unlikely. The completion of the Reunification
Prognosis Assessment occurs within 45 days of the child’s initial
placement in out of home care. The caseworker completes the
guide on both parents and in consultation with his/her supervisor. If
any of the poor prognosis indicators are marked “yes”, a concurrent
plan is recommended. At a minimum, concurrent case planning
activities must be implemented. If a concurrent permanency goal is
not identified, the Reunification Prognosis Assessment Guide is
reviewed and updated at each case plan staffing
Resources:
Kansas’ Concurrent Planning Assessment
Matrix
This tool is designed to identity children in need of a
concurrent planning placement based on a family assessment.
The assessment is completed at the time the case is open. It
seeks to balance a child’s need for permanency with
recognition that parents have the capacity for growth and
change and that reunification efforts continue in earnest. It is
expected that some children living in concurrent planning
resource families will reunify. The tool is ideal for team
decision making as well as supervisory conference.
2. Full disclosure to all participants in
the case planning process
Full disclosure is a respectful, candid discussion that
begins when a child is placed in foster care. Birth
parents, extended family, children and youth, foster
parents, relative caregivers, tribal representatives
(when appropriate), attorneys, guardians ad litem,
and service providers are all entitled to full
disclosure.
Resources:
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training
Program
Concurrent Planning Full Disclosure Interview. Provides five key
items to discuss during a full disclosure interview: rights,
responsibilities, expectations, the effect of out of home placement on
the child and the paths that a parent may take: work actively with the
agency; withdraw, disappear, or sporadically appear so that no service
plan can get going; take an adversarial stance; or relinquish
permanent custody.
Resources:
Minnesota Children and Family Services: Full Disclosure
Statement about Concurrent Planning
A template that Minnesota social workers review with and have parents
sign that advise parents about concurrent permanency planning, the
permanency timelines, and parents’ rights and responsibilities.
3. Family Search and Engagement
Six step approach to Family Finding as outlined in Six
Steps to Find a Family: A Practice Guide to Family
Search and Engagement (FSE):
1. Setting the Stage
2. Discovery
3. Engagement
4. Exploration and Planning
5. Decision Making and Evaluation
6. Sustaining the Relationship(s)
Resource:
Family Search & Engagement: A Comprehensive
Practice Guide (2008)
Family Search & Engagement (FSE) is a set of practices
designed to locate, engage, connect, and support family
resources for youth. This manual is intended to support the
implementation of these complex practices by providing
both an identification of the issues and activities involved
and a variety of practical tools to assist the practitioner in
the day-to-day work.
4. Family Group Conferencing/Teaming
Many states are implementing conferencing, as a key
family engagement strategy that bring families together
to meet with the child welfare agency, community
providers and significant individuals in their lives who
can support them in making the best decisions for their
children.
Two approaches used: Family Group Decision
Making/Family Group Conferencing (FGDM) and
Team Decision-making (TDM)
Resource:
Guidelines for Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) in
Child Welfare
American Humane, in partnership with the FGDM Guidelines Committee,
released this landmark publication. They hope that these guidelines will not only
facilitate greater understanding of FGDM, but will also promote solid practice in
the U.S. and abroad. This publication covers topics such as: The FGDM
Coordinator, Referral to FGDM, Preparation, Family Meetings, Follow-Up After
Family Meetings, and Administrative Support.
5. Visiting between Family & Child/Youth
While children/youth are in out-of-home care
placements, it is important to maintain
connections with their birth families. Parentchild visits are a key strategy to accomplish
this and to work toward reunification.
Resource:
Child Protection Best Practices Bulletin.
Parent-Child Visitation. Provides information on
current and best practices in parent-child visitation
6. Setting clear time lines for
permanency decisions
ASFA limits the amount of time a child can be in the
foster care system prior to being placed in a
permanent home.
ASFA requires permanency hearings be held for
children no later than 12 months after they enter
foster care (6 months earlier than the prior law).
ASFA also requires, in most cases, that
Termination of Parental Rights be initiated for
any child who has been in state custody for
15 out of the most recent 22 months.
Resources:
Iowa Department of Human Services. (2008).
Concurrent Planning Checklist.
Provides time frames for all key concurrent planning activities
Kansas Department of Social and
Rehabilitative Services. (2005).
Case Review Timelines.
Sets out the timelines for administrative, court and desk
reviews in achieving permanency.
Resources:
Missouri Department of Social Services. (2009).
Child Welfare Manual: Components of Effective
Concurrent Planning
The list of components includes: front loading of services that
provides reasonable efforts and attempts to get the family engaged
early; and effective and timely court hearings with firm timelines for
permanency decision making; during which time, documented
steps are taken to achieve reunification and an alternative
permanency option.
7. Transparent written agreements and
documentation.
• The agency and the parents should document in a
written agreement the steps that must be taken for the
child to return home. The agreement should make
clear what is expected of the parents and what the
agency will do.
• The case plan should specify both short- and longterm goals and provide service linkages, such as
connection of parents to mental health services, drug
treatment, and family supports.
Resources:
Iowa Department of Human Services:
Child Welfare Case Planning Procedures (2007).
Describes required practices for developing the concurrent plan and
documenting case activities and progress.
Wyoming Department of Family Services. (2004).
Concurrent Planning Handbook.
Appendix C provides a case file documentation checklist.
8. Committed collaboration between child
welfare, the courts, and service providers:
• Creating a teaming approach with planned contact
between birth and foster parents can result in children
returning home sooner, having more stable placements,
experiencing better emotional development, and being
more successful in school.
• Icebreaker meetings or visits represent the first step to
integrating the birth family into their child’s life while in
out of home care.
Resources:
New Mexico Concurrent Planning: A Guide for Judges,
Attorneys, and Others Working with Children & Families
(2005)
Designed for judges, attorneys, and others working with children and
families in New Mexico, this guide explains concurrent planning in child
welfare. It is a process that allows the New Mexico Children, Youth, and
Families (CYFD) to provide reunification services to the child and the
family at the same time as CYFD works on an alternative plan, such as
adoption, permanent guardianship, or placement with a fit and willing
relative. It is explains why New Mexico adopted concurrent planning,
operating principles of concurrent planning, how cases are selected for
concurrent planning and how such homes are established, and the roles
of judges, advocates, and youth service workers, in implementing
concurrent planning.
Resources:
Bridging the Gap: Families Working Together – A
Northern Virginia Foster Care and Adoption
Initiative
Bridging the Gap is the process of building and maintaining
relationships and communication between the birth families
involved in a youth’s life, or between the foster and adoptive
families, with the goal of supporting family reunification or another
permanency plan. This work started in 2006 and has been a
process that evolved over time. The implementation of this best
practice is a true collaboration between the private/public
agencies in Northern Virginia.
9. Specific recruitment, training, and
retention of dual licensed resource
families.
These resource families need initial as well as
ongoing training and support. Effectively facilitating
the relationship between the birth family and the
foster family is essential. This relationship can
enhance placement stability as well as expedite
permanency.
Resources:
Handbook for Training Concurrent Permanency Planning
Resource Parents in Minnesota
This publication from the North American Council on Adoptable Children
contains exercises that help program managers and social workers
prepare concurrent permanency planning resource parents to facilitate two
contrasting permanency planning outcomes. By Mary Ford, M.S.W.
Practice Guide for Concurrent Permanency Planning.
Minnesota Department of Human Services
This guide promotes best practice in permanency planning by describing a
step-by-step approach to working with families in the child welfare system
Resource:
Wyoming Concurrent Planning Handbook
This handbook, prepared with the assistance of the NRCPFC, describes
the model of concurrent permanency planning adopted statewide, and
provides guidance to caseworkers throughout the process as well as
information on recruitment and retention of resource families.
Questions and Discussion
Next Steps
For further information, contact
Dr. Gerald P. Mallon, DSW
Professor & Executive Director
gmallon@hunter.cuny.edu