RESOURCE COLLECTION

Permanency Planning Resources- Creating Welcoming Spaces

Children and youth of color are significantly overrepresented in foster care and adoption. Knowing this, child welfare professionals must recognize that they will play a significant role in preparing those youth for the inequities they will encounter throughout their lives.

As we focus on permanency planning with youth—not for them—this means we must make conscious efforts to understand a young person's cultural values and community connections, including being aware of their associated historical and personal traumas.   Building a strong foundation for permanency planning starts with providing a space that feels welcoming and safe for youth to fully be themselves. Here, they can feel empowered to use their voice, explore their identity, and have tough conversations about race and bias and how society might perceive their identity.   Professionals can make or break what opportunities are available to youth. These conversations will help professionals build relationships and gain a better understanding of which services and communities might be the most beneficial for youth to consider in their permanency plan.   By connecting youth to the appropriate services and communities, youth can develop strategies to cope with exclusion, discrimination, bias, and racism which will help them maintain a positive identity and prepare for the future.   This collection will help you partner with youth in permanency planning. Find resources about culturally responsive practice, identity development, and youth engagement.

Featured Resources:

• Being Anti-Racist: A Critical Way to Support Children of Color in Foster Care and Adoption 
  Professionals must be committed to remaining vigilantly antiracist and taking action on behalf of children of color to ensure not just their safety, but their well-being. This resource discusses how professionals can provide youth with skills to lead and succeed, have confidence and trust in themselves, and lean into difficult conversations about race and identity.
  
  
• Supporting Cultural Identity for Children in Foster Care 
  A strong cultural identity leads resilience, well-being, and improved coping skills. This resource looks at the many small and large ways that professionals can work with youth to reaffirm and help youth explore their identity.
  
  
• How Teens Are Changing the Way We Collaborate on Permanency
  Teens change their minds all the time. They are growing and maturing and figuring out what they want in all parts of life. Supportive adults must prove to youth that they will reliably show up and engage in conversations about what they want—even as their feelings shift and change. Consistently giving youth time and opportunity for deeper engagement is critical to their empowerment.
  
  
• Finding and Working With Adoption-Competent Therapists
  After an adoption is finalized, therapy can be a useful support to help adoptive families with challenges that may arise at different phases of life. This factsheet provides suggestions for finding an adoption-competent therapist and offers information about the types of therapy that can help adopted children and their families. 

Download the "Creating Welcoming Spaces" quick tips graphic. Use it to help make youth feel confident to open up and talk about their identity.

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