Families for Teens: A Toolkit for Focusing, Educating and Motivating Staff

Written by:

Robert G. Lewis and Maureen S. Heffernan

Revised: January 2008

Society makes a promise to every child removed from his or her family of origin -- to provide a better family than the one from whom we have separated them. The challenge of finding permanent family connections for the teens in our care lies in the:

Ø inherent difficulty of the work – how do we find families for them?

Ø urgent needs of our clients

Ø weight of past experiences (theirs and ours)

Ø difficulty of negotiating new experiences and unknown territory

Ø sad fact that our agencies don’t always support us in this challenging task

Ø teens’ fear, misinformation and hesitation

Ø very real perception that time is short.

Meeting this goal is indeed challenging. It involves the introduction of new ideas and practices. It requires incorporating a new “filter” through which decisions about programs and procedures, practices and outcomes, staff and clients must pass to ensure a permanent family connection for all our youth. To do this, social workers and administrators need training and experience. They need time to try out new ideas and tweak old ones. They need support for change.

Families for Teens: A Toolkit for Focusing, Educating and Motivating Staff is a way to begin or continue the conversation on adolescent permanence, and provide for on-going support of staff already engaged in this work. Thoughtful use of this Toolkit can have these benefits for child welfare workers:

Ø Provide the building blocks of an effective teen permanence program.

Ø Provide support, re-enforcement and continued training for those already

engaged in the work

Ø Turn concepts into action for those who have difficulty doing this.

Ø Provide a forum for workers’ particular concerns to be aired and answered.

This book to designed to guide discussions of adolescent permanence concepts and issues in one-hour staff meetings. The Families for Teens Toolkit presents 41 separate topics in six units. Each topic includes a discussion of the concepts, a case study of actual teens in the child welfare system, and questions that will facilitate discussion.

To purchase Families for Teens, go to www.thetoolkit.org or email annaleecourt@yahoo.com for an order form. Discounts are available for orders over 20.

Unit 1: Believing that Teens Really Need and Can Have Families. Nine topics addressing our resistance to adoption and family reconnection for adolescents, why teens need families, the necessity of “believing” adoption for teens is possible, the difference between placement and permanence, and the hidden messages we give to teens in concepts such as “after care” and “independent living.”

Unit 2: Understanding the Process of Making Permanence Happen for Teens. Eight topics dealing with the meaning of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, making permanence what we do, the steps in the adoption process and how they can be derailed, dealing with siblings in our efforts to secure permanent families for teens.

Unit 3: Working Through Teens’ Feelings. Six topics about teens’ feelings about foster care and losses, their anger and shame, and identifying and using their strengths.

Unit 4: Exploring Shared Parenting. Six topics dealing with birth and foster parents as resources, shared parenting, and rethinking the practice of concurrent planning in the context of a search for permanent family connections.

Unit 5: Talking With Teens About Permanence. Six topics providing guidance on how to bring up permanence to teens, why they often say “no” and what to do about it, and preparing teens for family (re)connections.

Unit 6: Finding Families for Teens. Six topics presenting concepts and strategies to help find families for teens including what kind of families work for adolescents, child specific recruitment, kin adoption, and staff adoption.

About the Authors: Robert G. Lewis Bob Lewis is a consultant and author providing training and technical assistance to child welfare organizations. He focuses on policy and organizational development in support of permanence, and development of social work practices in permanency planning.

Lewis has a special interest and expertise in the area of permanence for teens. His book, Adolescents and Families for Life: A Toolkit for Supervisors, written with Maureen Heffernan, is a training program for social work supervisors. Published in 2000 and in its third printing, it is used in hundreds of agencies in the U.S. and Canada, and has been adopted by several public agencies including Administration for Children’s Services in New York City and state agencies in Colorado and Florida. His 2002 book, The Family Bound Program: A Toolkit for Preparing Teens for Permanent Family Connections, developed with Communities For People, Inc. in Boston is used widely from coast to coast.

Lewis is active nationally as a keynote speaker and workshop presenter. From 1978 to 1998 he was Executive Director of Special Adoption Family Services in Boston. He holds Master’s degrees in Social Work and Education. Phone: 978 281 8919; email:bob@rglewis.com; web site: www.rglewis.com and www.thetoolkit.org

Maureen S. Heffernan Maureen Staunton Heffernan is an author, consultant and trainer who specializes in adoption and permanence issues. She is currently an Adjunct Instructor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland where she teaches social policy and community-based practice courses. She is active as a trainer for foster and adoptive parents and child welfare professionals. From 1976 to 1997 she worked in Ohio public and private child welfare settings, holding positions in direct service, supervision, and administration. More recently, she has been the Executive Director of the national Family Builders Adoption Network (1999-2001), and the Director of the Spaulding Adoption Program at Beech Brook in Cleveland (2001-2002). Phone: 330-678-1922; email:msheffernan@earthlink.net.