Placement Stabilization Programs

TFCO-A (previously referred to as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care - Adolescents) provides foster care treatment for children 12-17 years old with severe emotional and behavioral disorders and/or severe delinquency. TFCO-A aims to create opportunities for youths to successfully live in families rather than in group or institutional settings, and to simultaneously prepare their parents (or other long-term placement) to provide them with effective parenting. Four key elements of treatment are (1) providing youths with a consistent reinforcing environment where they are mentored and encouraged to develop academic and positive living skills, (2) providing daily structure with clear expectations and limits, with well-specified consequences delivered in a teaching-oriented manner, (3) providing close supervision of youths' whereabouts, and (4) helping youth to avoid deviant peer associations while providing them with the support and assistance needed to establish pro-social peer relationships. TFCO also has versions for preschoolers and children. Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Preschoolers (TFCO-P) is rated separately on this website. Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Children (TFCO-C) has not been tested separately, but has the same elements as TFCO-A except it includes materials more developmentally appropriate for younger children.

Fostering Healthy Futures - Preteen (FHF-P) is a mentoring and skills group program for preadolescent children (ages 9–11) who have current or previous child welfare involvement due to one or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). These ACEs may include the experience of maltreatment; out-of-home placement; instability in housing, caregivers, or schools; and/or parental substance use, mental illness, or incarceration.

Skills Groups: Children attend skills groups which meet for 1.5 hours/week for 30 weeks. The groups follow a manualized curriculum that combines cognitive-behavioral strategies with activities designed to help children process experiences related ACEs. For example, topics include: emotion recognition, problem solving, anger management, cultural identity, change and loss, and peer pressure. Multicultural stories and activities are integrated throughout.

Mentoring: Children receive 30 weeks of 1:1 mentoring (2-4 hours per week). Mentors work to: 1) create relationships with children that serve as positive examples for future relationships, 2) advocate for needed services, 3) help children generalize and practice skills learned in group, 4) engage children in educational, social, cultural, and recreational activities, and 5) promote positive future outlooks.

FHF-P targets risk and protective factors that have been identified as strong predictors of adolescent mental health problems, risk behaviors and associated outcomes.

The Kinship Navigator (CHN-KN) Children’s Home Network provides supportive services to any relative or nonrelative raising a child on a full-time basis when a parent is unable or unwilling to provide care. Nonrelative refers to someone unrelated who has a significant or family-like relationship to the child. This program provides services to families regardless of their status with the child welfare system, therefore serving informal and formal families. CHN-KN provides a centralized intake line, comprehensive assessments, family conferencing, and navigation services that include securing concrete needs, enrollment in public assistance, linkage to key community resources, development of informal and formal supports, service and crisis planning, support groups, and follow-up contacts at 3-month intervals postcompletion of the program.

TFCO-P (previously referred to as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers) is a foster care treatment model specifically tailored to the needs of 3 to 6-year-old foster children. TFCO-P is designed to promote secure attachments in foster care and facilitate successful permanent placements. TFCO-P is delivered through a treatment team approach in which treatment foster parents receive training and ongoing consultation and support. Children receive individual skills training and participate in a therapeutic playgroup, and family of origin (or other permanent placement caregivers) receive family therapy. TFCO-P emphasizes the use of concrete encouragement for prosocial behavior; consistent, nonabusive limit-setting to address disruptive behavior; and close supervision of the child. In addition, the TFCO-P intervention employs a developmental framework in which the challenges of foster preschoolers are viewed from the perspective of delayed maturation.

FDGM is an innovative approach that positions the "family group" as leaders in decision making about their children's safety, permanency, and well-being. Children and their parents are nested in a broader family group: those people to whom they are connected through kinship and other relationships. Agency decision-making practices that are planned and dominated by professionals and focused narrowly on children and parents can deprive those children and parents of the support and assistance of their family group – and can deprive agencies of key partners in the child welfare process. FGDM recognizes the importance of involving family groups in decision making about children who need protection or care, and it can be initiated by child welfare agencies whenever a critical decision about a child is required. In FGDM processes, a trained coordinator who is independent of the case brings together the family group and the agency personnel to create and carry out a plan to safeguard children and other family members. FGDM processes position the family group to lead decision making, and the statutory authorities agree to support family group plans that adequately address agency concerns. The statutory authorities also organize service providers from governmental and non-governmental agencies to access resources for implementing the plans. FGDM processes are not conflict-resolution approaches, therapeutic interventions or forums for ratifying professionally crafted decisions. Rather, FGDM processes actively seek the collaboration and leadership of family groups in crafting and implementing plans that support the safety, permanency and well-being of their children.

Intensive Alternative Family Treatment (IAFT®) is a specialized family type, therapeutic treatment foster care service provided to children/youth and their families in a community setting founded on (14) IAFT® Practice Elements. Individuals with a need for this level of care often present with challenging behaviors; need an out-of-home placement; will benefit from clinically focused treatment to avoid placement in a higher level of care; and/or are making a planned transition from a more restrictive setting. The desired outcome is to exhibit improved individual and family system functioning upon successful return to a natural living home/least restrictive setting after treatment. IAFT® provides a trauma-informed, structured, therapeutic, and supervised home environment to decrease problem behaviors and improve the level of functioning for children/youth and their families or natural supports. Through continuous quality improvement activities and quarterly compliance reviews, fidelity to the IAFT model and its 14 practice elements is monitored.

The objective of KEEP is to give parents effective tools for dealing with their child's externalizing problems, trauma, and other behavioral and emotional problems and to support them in the implementation of those tools. Curriculum topics include framing the foster/kin parents' role as that of key agents of change with opportunities to alter the life course trajectories of the children placed with them. Foster/kin parents are taught methods for creating a safe environment, encouraging child cooperation, using behavioral contingencies, strategies for self-regulation, effective limit setting, and balancing encouragement and limits. There are also sessions on dealing with difficult problem behaviors including covert behaviors, promoting school success, encouraging positive peer relationships, and strategies for managing stress brought on by providing foster care. There is an emphasis on active learning methods; illustrations of primary concepts are presented via role-plays and videotapes. An adaptation of KEEP, for foster and kinship parents of teenagers called KEEP SAFE, has been reviewed by the CEBC and is rated a 2 –Supported by Research Evidence on the CEBC Scientific Rating Scale in the areas of Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare and Resource Parent Recruitment and Training Programs. KEEP SAFE has also been rated a 3 –Promising Research Evidence in the area of Placement Stabilization Programs; that entry is accessible here.

The objective of KEEP SAFE is to give parents effective tools for dealing with their child's externalizing and other behavioral and emotional problems including trauma and to support them in the implementation of those tools. Curriculum topics include framing the foster/kin parents' role as that of key agents of change with opportunities to alter the life course trajectories of the children placed with them. Foster/kin parents are taught methods for creating a safe environment, encouraging child cooperation, using behavioral contingencies and effective limit setting, and balancing encouragement and limits. There are also sessions on dealing with difficult problem behaviors including covert behaviors, promoting school success, encouraging positive peer relationships, and strategies for managing stress brought on by providing foster care. There is an emphasis on active learning methods; illustrations of primary concepts are presented via role-plays and videotapes. There is also a component of the model that involves having the youth meet weekly with a skills coach. The emphasis is on developing and maintaining positive peer relationships, increasing skills to deal responsibly and safely to avoid drug use and participation in health-risking sexual behavior, and to help these youth problem solve difficulties and stresses in social relationships with adults and at school. KEEP SAFE is also rated in the Placement Stabilization Programs topic area. Please click here to go to that entry.

The Neighbor To Family Sibling Foster Care Model was developed by Gordon Johnson as the Neighbor To Neighbor model while he was President & CEO of The Jane Addams Hull House Association. The unique child-centered, family-focused foster care model is designed to keep sibling groups, including large sibling groups, together in stable foster care placements while working intensively on reunification or permanency plans that keep the siblings together. Neighbor To Neighbor began in 1994 serving targeted communities in Chicago where the majority of children came into foster care. The program uses a community-based, team-oriented approach, including foster caregivers and birth parents as part of the treatment team. Trained and supported foster caregivers are key to the model's success. Neighbor to Neighbor professionalized this key role by placing these trained foster caregivers on the payroll with salaries and benefits. Foster families, birth families, and children receive comprehensive and intensive services including individualized case management, advocacy, and clinical services on a weekly basis. Mr. Johnson incorporated the Neighbor to Neighbor model in 2000 as the Neighbor To Family Sibling Foster Care Model, retaining Neighbor to Neighbor's essential components and expanding its operating model and geographic presence beyond Illinois.

Wraparound is a team-based planning process intended to provide individualized and coordinated family-driven care. Wraparound is designed to meet the complex needs of children who are involved with several child and family-serving systems (e.g., mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, special education, etc.), who are at risk of placement in institutional settings, and who experience emotional, behavioral, or mental health difficulties. The Wraparound process requires that families, providers, and key members of the family's social support network collaborate to build a creative plan that responds to the particular needs of the child and family. Team members then implement the plan and continue to meet regularly to monitor progress and make adjustments to the plan as necessary. The team continues its work until members reach a consensus that a formal Wraparound process is no longer needed.

The values associated with Wraparound require that the planning process itself, as well as the services and supports provided, should be individualized, family driven, culturally competent and community-based. Additionally, the Wraparound process should increase the "natural support" available to a family by strengthening interpersonal relationships and utilizing other resources that are available in the family's network of social and community relationships. Finally, Wraparound should be "strengths-based," helping the child and family recognize, utilize, and build talents, assets, and positive capacities.