Cl. Co. DSS: Foster families 'rolled with the punches'
Jun. 19—PLATTSBURGH — While many businesses and industries shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, that wasn't the case for the child welfare system, including foster care.
"We've always asked a lot of foster parents," Clinton County Department of Social Services Commissioner John Redden said.
"But during this pandemic it's quadrupled of what we've asked and what they've done."
ROLLED WITH PUNCHES
DSS Director of Legal and Social Services Christine Peters explained that in-person visitation between children and their birth parents was only shut down for two months.
"We knew we couldn't shut down the parent-child bond and so we asked our foster parents to take on what I think was probably a little bit (of an) anxiety-provoking experience, allowing a child to go from their home to visit their parent in DSS and come back.
"We did not have a single person balk at that."
Special Projects Supervisor Dana LePage noted how foster parents "rolled with the punches" of the child care and school issues that came up since last year.
Redden added that DSS staffers did as well, at times helping out foster parents by picking up kids from school when they were sent home with symptoms.
No foster parents really stepped away due to the pandemic, Peters said.
"I think a lot of our foster parents come from helping professions and a lot of helping professions could not shut down — police, teachers, hospital personnel."
RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN
The agency is in the process of restarting foster family recruitment efforts by contracting with Carlin Media for an advertising campaign.
Peters said that will involve creation of video deliverables for both TV and social media that incorporate the perspectives of staff, foster parents and children in care.
She added that the particular focus will be on attracting those willing to take kids with special needs, teens and large sibling groups.
FAMILY FIRST ACT
The costs for working with Carlin Media are covered by the Family First Transition Fund offered through the state Office of Children and Family Services.
According to the OCFS website, the Family First Prevention Services Act "reforms federal financing to prioritize family-based foster care over residential care by limiting federal reimbursement for certain residential placements."
Essentially, the push is toward stepping children down from congregate care in favor of either foster or kinship placements.
Peters estimated that, back in 2019, children in congregate care made up about 20 percent of DSS' total. As of this week, they comprised 7.3%
Redden credited Peters, LePage and the staff for the work they have done to make the county well-positioned for implementation of Family First.
That included forming a working group and establishing the Triage Unit, headed up by LePage, which seeks to identify family members as potential kinship care resources.
Clinton County DSS was also awarded a grant to work with consultants through the Redlich Horowitz Foundation who helped frame the problem and gave the agency the tools needed to prepare.
Peters explained that the first phase of Family First was about reducing reliance on congregate care in favor of kinship care, followed by increasing prevention, which DSS is looking into now.
BEST PLACE
Even if a child does not end up with a family member and instead resides with a foster family, the Triage Unit's work is still a worthwhile and meaningful process that enables extended family members to have closure, LePage said.
Peters added that some foster families maintain and facilitate contact between a child and their relatives.
"I firmly believe children benefit from more people in their lives that love them."
Redden said Family First is really about a paradigm shift. Many caseworkers believe foster care is the best place for children as relatives come with too much of a connection.
"You've got to shift that mentality to say, 'No the relatives are the best place for this child, for that very reason.'"
Email Cara Chapman:
Twitter: @PPR_carachapman
MORE INFORMATION
The Clinton County Department of Social Services is looking for people interested in becoming foster parents.
For more information, call 518-565-3320.
