What We Do
This is a monthly newsletter that highlights all the great work that is going on throughout the state with the Permanency from Day One Grant! For more information about the grant, click the link here:
https://www.dcyf.wa.gov/practice/practice-improvement/permanency-from-day-one
The PFD1 Grant strives to encompass the following values: Inclusion, Respect, Integrity, Compassion, and Transparency. This process is meant to impact families’ experiences by promoting increased engagement of all case participants with the goal of enhancing youths’ wellbeing and strengthening family and community connections.
This month’s Grant at a Glance is combining current data on the PFD1 Enhanced Permanency Planning Meeting (PPM) intervention as well as Good News Stories.
This intervention was developed based on feedback from parents, youth, caregivers, community partners, attorneys and Tribes as well as evidence-based practice in family group conferencing.
The purpose is to increase family engagement in case planning by empowering family and youth voice. It is active in 22 offices in Regions 1, 4 and 6.
This intervention enhances the current Shared Planning Meeting policy by:
- Assigning facilitators to families; facilitators schedule PPMs and send invites which maintains consistency for families and supports workers by taking on those tasks.
- Pre-meets between facilitators and parents, youth and caregivers occur prior to a meeting to explain meeting purpose and agenda (you aren’t an equal at the table if you don’t know what the meeting is about).
- Expedited meeting timeframe (every 90 days) to increase communication and ensure case progression.
- Consolidating meeting types whenever possible.
Holding regularly scheduled meetings every 90 days provides opportunity to celebrate successes, no matter how big or how small, as they are occurring. A parent recently mentioned how powerful it was to be recognized for what they did do well after a setback, and how this fueled motivation to keep trying. A relapse had occurred prior to the PPM. The parent voiced concerns about the ability to maintain sobriety & a plan was developed that changed the primary plan from return home to guardianship. Conditions to achieve return home were also outlined & concurrent planning explained. At the most recent PPM, the parent had maintained sobriety and also secured full time employment. The treatment providers in attendance reported significant change in the parent’s ability to set boundaries and practice self-care. The parent described feeling like something had shifted internally also; a sense of despair was replaced by hope because the parent felt they were seen for their strengths rather than defined by their setbacks. The family team decided to change the primary plan back to return home.
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To date, this intervention has served 653 families from January 2021 through July 2023.
Preliminary data indicates that there are more relative, youth and parental participation in Treatment meetings:
- Participation of youth in the PFD1 meetings is between 5. 5 and 6.7 times greater;
- Children aged 0-5: 13 attended in Control vs. 105 in Treatment
- Youth aged 6-11: 19 attended in Control vs. 64 in Treatment
- Youth aged 12-18: 70 attended in Control vs. 123 in Treatment
- Youth of all ages attending meetings contributes to family focused meetings.
- Other extended family attending is between 2.6 and 3.1 times greater;
- Fathers attending is between 2.25 and 2.66 times greater;
- Mothers attending is between 2 and 2.3 times greater.
A young child is in out of home placement for over 3 years. The mother resides out of state and has not engaged with the case or her child. Recently the worker was able to connect with mom and she attended her FIRST PPM! The caregivers encouraged the child to say “hi” to mom during the meeting and both mother and child spent time after the meeting together on zoom. Mom was able to meet the caregivers, hear about and see her child for the first time and caregivers are planning to take child to visit mom. Including children in meetings impacts the dynamic of the meeting to be family-forward. Engaging family results in better connections and results for children!
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In general, participants in the Treatment group receive almost 6 meetings on average compared to 2.6 meetings in the Control group.
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11 grant facilitators held 4682 PPMs/combined PPMs for Treatment cases from January 2021-July 2023. This does not include separate FTDMs, 10-day hotel stay meetings and 17.5 staffings that they facilitated, that were not combined with a PPM.
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Over 150 facilitators/staff acting as facilitators held 1957 PPMs/combined PPMs for Control cases from January 2021-July 2023.
(in both groups, meetings are counted by child/youth in FamLink).
In a PPM, a father was able to articulate why he felt guardianship was best for his children at this time, and what a great relationship he has with the caregiver for his children. It was inspiring to see how transparent and honest the father was.
Facilitators will keep the zoom room open after meetings in case anyone would like to debrief or ask questions. For the first time in one R4 office, a parent attorney stayed after the meeting. She mentioned that these grant meetings seem to be more focused and support the case’s progress with accountability for following-through on task. Each member of the family team is accountable for their roles in case progression.
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