PERMANENCY
Reunification
An intensive search is an initial step of the YGB permanency journey model in which the youth’s family of origin is located, contacted, and engaged to help identify if there are available family members who can make an unconditional commitment. Searches include but are not limited to reviewing the youth foster care agency records, online Seneca search, exploring relevant social media accounts, and talking to people from the youth’s community, neighborhoods, schools, and churches.
Fictive/Kin
When the youth’s family of origin does not produce a permanency resource, the YGB team expands its efforts to include significant adults identified by the youth and/or their family of origin.
Moral adoption
An adult makes an unconditional, lifetime commitment to becoming the parent to a child/youth, regardless of legal status.
Legal adoption
An adult or adult formally/legally becomes the guardian of a child and incurs the rights and obligations of a parent.
FAMILY READINESS
We use the power of credible messengers and peer-to-peer engagement – by former foster youth and adoptive parents of foster youth – to connect youth in foster care to permanent adoptive families. We do this to provide youth with the lifelong system of love and support healthy families provide. The following aspects contribute to family readiness;
Counseling
The YGB team engages youth in a grief and loss curriculum to help acknowledge the losses they have endured as a result of the impact of their experiences in and out of the child welfare system.
Prepare kids for adoption
Our Advocates for Youth team provides peer-to-peer advocacy and support to foster youth to help them to open their hearts to the possibility of permanency/family, prepare them for the long journey of permanency, and build their self-advocacy skills. Advocates are knowledgeable on how to engage youth in conversations about the important people in their lives. Advocates assist youth in gaining a deeper understanding of what family means to them and that family is possible for them. They also (re)connect them to adults within their network or to someone new.
Locate, train, and certify parents:
Prospective parents are recruited to participate in the Group Preparation and Selection/Model Approach to Partnership In Parenting (GPSII/MAPP) Class with You Gotta Believe. This is a 10-session, 30-hour course designed to help develop an understanding of the key concepts of the YGB Model of Child and Youth Permanency and decide if they are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to a human being who becomes their child and that there are no “returns.” This focus on permanency is typically not present in other New York MAPP training. Traditionally, foster agencies teach parents they can have a youth removed when things get tough. The parents that we recruit, train, and support are expected to make a lifetime commitment to a child that is placed in their home.
Credible messengers
credible messengers, specifically a team comprising both former foster youth and parents who have adopted youth from foster care. Together, the team is highly effective in building trust with youth in care. The youth we serve have often experienced severe abuse and/or neglect.
EVALUATION
YGB values evaluation and outcome measurements; as such, we have a comprehensive system of records in place to document success.
YGB Permanency Journey: The YGB team conducts extensive, specialized family-finding/recruitment services in partnership with the youth to identify whether reunification, kinship placement (people known to them such as family members, social workers, teachers, neighbors, and friends), or placement with an unknown adult who is trained and supported by YGB. This work is intensive and life-changing; it typically takes 12-24 months to complete.
Lived Foster Care/Adoption Experience
Building trust is critically important to the process of connecting them to family. Youth respond well to people with lived experiences like their own and the result of this strategy is their increased openness to finding a permanent family.
Culturally Appropriate/Inclusive Curriculum
The YGB team develops curricula from a youth-centered perspective to help (1) deepen the knowledge about child welfare, foster care, and adoption, (2) highlight and demonstrate skills, tools, and resources effective in achieving permanency for youth.
Match Youth with Families
YGB’s GPSII/MAPP Parent Preparation Training Classes feature a panel of youth who, ostensibly, are present to educate our prospective parents on why families are important to them, and secondarily allow the prospective parents and youth to engage and potentially connect. YGB events, such as monthly game nights, create similar opportunities for youth and prospective parents to spend time together and potentially form a connection.
PERPETUAL SUPPORT
Group Support
Our families often rely on our support services heavily for the first 6-12 months. YGB understands this need and provides opportunities on a weekly basis for families to engage in their experiences while building a community.
Mental Health Services
Our therapeutic approach is flexible and made available to families at no cost by Adoption-Competent therapists.
Training
Parents are engaged in custom training pertaining to parent and youth needs and often within the trauma-informed framework delivered by the YGB clinical team. This in-house training also serves towards parents’ recertification requirements.
Crisis Intervention
Crisis response and individual parent support are available on an individual, as-needed, basis as well as access to resources and referrals.