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Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care

(DVD) Voices of Youth: Supporting Adolescents in Foster Care

This DVD features a candid conversation with foster youth as they describe their experiences in the foster care system. (17:30 minutes) more >>

(Spanish Subtitles/Video) Building Partnerships in Child Welfare

This video, Building Partnerships in Child Welfare, with subtitles in Spanish, is an overview of the guiding principles and the four core strategies that are the basis of the Family to Family initiative. Child welfare stakeholders including birth parents, foster parents, foster youth, community partners, child welfare workers and leaders discuss the impact and advantages of Family to Family’s neighborhood based, family focused approach to working with children and families. (16:00 minutes) more >>

(Spanish) Family to Family: Recruitment, Training, and Support - The Essential Tools of Foster Care

This tool is about recruitment, training, and support of foster families. The lessons taught in this tool kit can also be applied to kinship and adoptive families, for their preparation of becoming families to foster children. more >>

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(Video) Building Partnerships in Child Welfare

This video features an overview of the guiding principles and the four core strategies that are the basis of the Family to Family initiative. Child welfare stakeholders including birth parents, foster parents, foster youth, community partners, child welfare workers and leaders discuss the impact and advantages of Family to Family’s neighborhood based, family focused approach to working with children and families. (16:00 minutes) more >>

(Video) Make a Difference

The Make a Difference video was developed by the Oregon Department of Human Services as a tool for resource family recruitment and training. The video illustrates the value of birth parent/foster parent relationship building and offers examples of short-term and permanent foster care living arrangements. (10:05 minutes) more >>

(Video) Team Decisionmaking: Involving Family and Community in Child Welfare Decisions

This video from Casey's Family to Family initiative provides a look at team decisionmaking meetings and the benefits derived when placement decisions are made in partnership with parents, youth, community members, and other key stakeholders in a child’s life. (21:00 minutes) more >>

(Video) Voices of Youth: Supporting Adolescents in Foster Care

This video features a candid conversation with foster youth as they describe their experiences in the foster care system. (17:30 minutes) more >>

A Family for Every Child: Strategies to Achieve Permanence for Older Foster Children and Youth

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series. The research highlighted in this publication identifies successful programs, policies, and strategies that have been helping older children find permanent families. This research also examines how lessons learned from effective programs and policy changes can be distilled into action steps that others can replicate. more >>

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A Model for Public and Private Child Welfare Partnership: Collaboration for Change

This tool, part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series, is designed to help agencies integrate new experiences and lessons into practice, build upon common goals, and develop new skills for working collaboratively. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the lives of children in foster care. more >>

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Back from the Brink: Women, Crack, and the Child Welfare System- The Challenge of Drug Abuse in Child Welfare, Part One

This paper analyzes some of the information that has emerged as people struggle to understand and overcome the challenges that crack cocaine presents. This paper evaluates current effectiveness in handling crack-addicted women, and presents approaches at model design and frontline-practice levels. This document is part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series.  more >>

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Building Bridges for Child Welfare with Families, Neighborhoods, and Communities (in Spanish)

This report describes the child welfare situation in the United States, followed by a description of the Family to Family Initiative, and the initiative's strategies for implementation of change. more >>

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Building Community Partnerships, Step by Step

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series, this document outlines the benefits of using community partnerships, but for neighborhoods and child welfare staff as well. more >>

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Building Partnerships with Neighborhoods and Local Communities: Building Community Partnerships in Child Welfare, Part One

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series. This document details the tools used by the Family to Family initiative to build partnerships with neighborhoods and communities. It highlights tool development, marketing strategy, and the integration of the tools into different communities. more >>

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Building Support for Innovation Inside Child Welfare Agencies: Summary

This organizational development tool from Casey's Family to Family initiative focuses on the ways that social services agencies can manage the tensions that are a part of system-wide reform. It discusses how organizational development can be of use to leaders, managers, and supervisors in child welfare. more >>

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Family to Family: Building Bridges for Child Welfare with Families, Neighborhoods, and Communities

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series. The child welfare system is plagued with many challenges ranging from enormous caseloads to a limited number of foster and adoptive parents. As a result of this strain, several states are working together to bring about a system-wide overhaul of child welfare serves that combines traditional and tested principles with new practical tools for daily practice. This brief details some of the principles and tools used in these efforts. more >>

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Family to Family: Goals, Strategies, and Outcomes (Spanish version)

Resultados, metas, y estrategias provides a comprehensive overview in the Spanish language of the goals, strategies and outcomes of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Family to Family initiative.The guide focuses on the initiative’s four core strategies designed to achieve the desired outcomes. more >>

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Family to Family: Lessons Learned

This report captures the lessons learned from the implementation of the Family to Family Initiative. It highlights the perspectives’ of child welfare experts who set out to make major changes in their child welfare systems using the lens of the Family to Family initiative’s principles, strategies, and tools.  more >>

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Family to Family: Our Work Flyer

This two-page flyer, revised in 2006, describes the Casey Foundation's Family to Family initiative along with its principles, outcomes, goals, and strategies. There are versions in English and Spanish. more >>

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Implementing Change in Child Welfare: Lessons from Family to Family

During the implementation phase of the Family to Family initiative, agency leaders were able to make significant changes in the policies, structure, and resource allocation patterns of their foster care programs. Using data from focus groups, this report examines the success of the Family to Family implementation as perceived by social workers and foster parents.  more >>

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Implementing the Values and Strategies of Family to Family

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series. This guide is a practical resource for child welfare agencies to use in crafting a more family-focused and neighborhood-based service system. It suggests a framework that agencies can use to assess their current practices and develop plans to integrate Casey's Family to Family initiative’s values and strategies into existing activities. more >>

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In the Moment Strategies for Facilitators of Team Decisionmaking Meetings: When Domestic Violence is Present or Suspected

This guide is intended to supplement the extensive, skills-based five-day TDM facilitator training curriculum that every TDM facilitator in a Family to Family site receives. As a supplement, this guide should be used as a tool for facilitators who have either witnessed or suspect that a family has experienced domestic violence. This guide provides some suggested strategies, skills, and background information for facilitators to assist in coping with such a problem if it arises. more >>

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Partnerships Between Corrections and Child Welfare: Collaboration for Change, Part Two

The criminal justice system interacts with many of the same families involved in the child welfare system; while it makes sense that these systems have official contact with each other they often do not. This document describes ways that the two systems can work together to improve and strengthen family and community bonds.  more >>

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People Helping People: Partnerships Between Professionals and Natural Helpers, Building Community Partnerships in Child Welfare, Part Four

Interventions designed to create connections through neighborhoods have been found to build community capacity and help lift struggling families out of poverty. This guide shows families and communities how to build interconnectedness and reliance upon one another for the mutual support that is needed to strengthen neighborhoods and improve quality of life.  more >>

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Recruitment, Training, and Support - The Essential Tools of Foster Care

This tool, part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series, is about recruitment, training, and support of foster families. The lessons taught in this tool kit can also be applied to kinship and adoptive families for their preparation of becoming families to foster children. more >>

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Safety First: Dealing with the Daily Challenges of Child Welfare

This manual, a product of Annie E. Casey’s Family to Family Initiative, discusses tools, skills, issues, and dilemmas related to safety for child welfare professionals who work with families in their homes and neighborhoods. more >>

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START: A Child Welfare Model for Drug-Affected Families- The Challenge of Drug Abuse in Child Welfare, Part Three

This document highlights the work of the Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams (START) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. START is a program that incorporates addiction-services treatment, good child welfare practice, and family preservation into case management. Also included is an evaluation of program implementation, operations, and child-welfare and substance abuse treatment outcomes. Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care.  more >>

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Team Decisionmaking: Involving the Family and Community in Child Welfare Decisions- Building Community Partnerships in Child Welfare, Part Two

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series. Child placement decisions are the most difficult decisions that an overwhelmed child welfare agency has to make. In order to address the challenges associated with placement, sites in Casey's Family to Family initiative have designed and tested a new approach called “team decisionmaking.” This brief defines and portrays the benefits that team decisionmaking has on children and families involved with the child welfare system. more >>

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The Annie E. Casey Foundation: Family to Family Initiative DVD

This DVD contains the following Family to Family videos in Spanish and English versions: Building Partnerships in Child Welfare (16 min.); Team Decisionmaking: Involving Family and Community in Child Welfare Decisions (21 min.); Voices of Youth: Supporting Adolescents in Foster Care (17:30 min.); and Make a Difference (10:05 min). more >>

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The Need for Self- Evaluation: Spanish Version

This document describes how to use data to guide policy and practice in foster care. This publication is written in Spanish. more >>

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The Need for Self-Evaluation: Using Data to Guide Policy and Practice

Part of the Family to Family Rebuilding Tools for Foster Care series. For many child welfare agencies data can be overwhelming and sometimes not useful. This document describes an attempt by Casey's Family to Family initiative to reinvent the way data in child welfare is used by creating better structures and processes for compiling data, conducting analyses, and linking data to evaluation. more >>

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The Need for Self-Evaluation: Using Data to Guide Policy and Practice (Summary)

For many child welfare agencies data can be overwhelming and sometimes not useful. This document describes an attempt by the Family to Family Initiative to reinvent the way data in child welfare is used by creating better structures and processes for compiling data, conducting analyses, and linking data to evaluation.  more >>

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Undercounted, Underserved: Immigrant and Refugee Families in the Child Welfare System

This report focuses on the specific needs of immigrant and refugee children in the child welfare system and presents best practices and policy recommendations for better serving these populations. It is a result of targeted interviews, a consultative session with national immigration experts and child welfare practitioners, and an extensive literature review. more >>

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Walking Our Talk In the Neighborhoods: Partnerships Between Professionals and Natural Helpers

The human services industry is faced with many challenges ranging from a dissatisfied workforce to problems with implementation to a lack of resources. This document summarizes some attempts to improve the situation by raising awareness, providing concrete examples for the ways partnerships improve human services, and specifying alternative solutions. This is Part 3 in the Family to Family Building Community Partnerships in Child Welfare series.  more >>

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Walking Our Talk In the Neighborhoods: Partnerships Between Professionals and Natural Helpers

Part of the Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care series. The human services industry is faced with many challenges ranging from a dissatisfied workforce to problems with implementation to a lack of resources. This document, Part Three of the Building Community Partnerships in Child Welfare, attempts to improve the situation by specifying alternative solutions, raising awareness, and providing concrete examples for the ways partnerships improve human services. This document is part of Family to Family Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care. more >>

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Working with Drug-Affected Families: Training for Child Welfare Workers - The Challenge of Drug Abuse in Child Welfare, Part Two (Summary)

This training guide is helpful for child welfare workers working with families that have drug and alcohol problems. This training module incorporates different theories and techniques that have been used by social workers and have found to be effective with certain individuals, in particular low-income female addicts who have interfaced with the child welfare system.  more >>

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