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DSS-1839. Regulation 7 Form Order for Expedited Placement Decision Pursuant to the ICPC - info dhhs state nc

often fails to achieve legal permanent store care the next slide on your screen talks about the number of children who aged out of foster care system every year in North Carolina you'll notice on the graph that it covers the span from 2001 to 2011 but if you look from 2005 on over 500 North Carolina youth aged out of foster care every year and at some points is even as high as 600 youth this number is not acceptable when we think about the number of children still aging out of foster care are we really doing everything that we possibly can and exhausting all of our efforts to help them achieve permanency when we disregard an out of state family simply because it might be a little more difficult I want to share something with you guys that that happened at maybe a week or two ago and honestly it really should not have come as such a revelation to me but I guess maybe all the pieces just kind of clicked at the right time but I have been working on this webinar and thinking about this actual slide has a matter of fact and maybe a day or two later it came to my attention that former foster youth in a previous county of mine had recently been in the local paper and she had been arrested and in jail for participating in a pretty significant crime and I thought to myself well there's another one to add to the list and over the years I can tick off a number of names well over a dozen or more of kids who had been in foster care system who had shown up in the paper and participated in crimes of one nature or another but then that's when it clicked and it wasn't just that these kids had been in foster care at one point or another but it's that the majority of them had actually aged out of foster care and this is what was happening with them they were participating in crimes they were in jail and this is what was happening to them and to me that's just not acceptable this is not an acceptable outcome for our youth it just isn't and I know when we're deep in the trenches and in the moment of the craziness of this job sometimes we don't see or we don't think about our action and how they impact kids down the road but honestly we have to and if you don't see the importance of permanency for your kids and they don't know that you value permanency for them then they aren't going to and there are hundreds and hundreds of families in the United States hoping and trying to adopt our children trust me we read tons of PPAs every day and they're out there and we need to be putting in the effort and legwork to make sure our kids do not end up as one of these statistics so why should we be considering or why aren't scuse me out-of-state placements being used and said just a few months ago we've sent out a survey through our listserv the NC kids to get some feedback on this question and some of the most common responses were workers were simply uncertain about the process itself there were a lot of fears about the process in terms of you know what happens if a disruption takes place in the child out of state the lack of support you might receive from an agency in another state the Medicaid issues the paperwork in general and ultimately workers wanting to maintain sibling contact and while some of these issues might be valid concerns we can't let them prevent us from finding children permanency in a timely manner now we recognize that one 90 minute webinar isn't going to be the answer to all of your questions but we do hope that we'll be able to alleviate some of these fears today or at least point you in the right direction to get some help and we want you to know that we know this is the big issue and a big need around the state because we've heard this from you in a work so this is just the start of the conversation about cross jurisdictional placement and we hope you know that we're planning on continuing this conversation throughout the coming year in different venues so now let's take a look at an example of how being open to considering out-of-state families provides greater opportunities to your children and we're going to actually take a look at one of our foster youth who's available for adoption and we're going to take a look at angel and you'll see angel on your screen here and angel is a 17 year old boy who has mild to moderate needs and he's been in foster care for several years the honestly none of his needs are outside the norm of what you would expect for a child who's been in care for the number of years he has he's not considered violent he doesn't live in a PRT F and he's not sexually reactive overall he's a very loving young man he's shy and he very much wants and desires to be adopted this is a young man who is asking to be adopted and desperately wants a family in fact he can tell his worker exactly what he would like for his adoptive family to look like so when we go into the adopt u.s. kids website and conduct a match or search for him looking for potential families and we'll put in the search criteria and if we limit it just to North Carolina families the results come up and that's what you're seeing on your screen here and if you look sort of at the top under find a family results you'll see that we get a four families and it's showing one of four thanks John so you get four families in the whole state of North Carolina that come back as a potential match for Angel and of those four that came back I can tell you that one of the families is actually inactive they don't have a current PPA with their agency and another family has actually just recently accepted a placement so they're not available they just haven't gone back to the website to make their profile inactive so in actuality you only have two potential families in the entire state that might be a possible match for Angel so you know what do you think is their likelihood that his best match is going to be one of those two families it probably isn't very likely but let's take a look now if we widen that search and we include the entire United States and his search so I'm going to advance to the next screen here and if you'll look again under find a family results you'll see that we automatically start with a hundred eight families through our potential match for Angel that is a huge difference started from two 208 families the reality is that is far more likely that the perfect adoptive family for Angel is available somewhere in the United States but by limiting our options for him to North Carolina he made this opportunity to be adopted and achieved permanence and unfortunately each day we are getting closer and closer to making angel one of those statistics one more youth aging out of foster care with no familial support we are doing angel and other children a disservice by not considering those 106 families who are out of the state and potential adoptive families we all have a responsibility to do better so thinking about assessing families and vetting agencies when we sent the survey out this was one of the concerns that a lot of folks who participate in the survey had not knowing what kinds of services the child would receive once placed out of state or that the out of state agency would not provide the same level of service that you would of course we all like to believe that nobody can provide the same level and quality of service that we can however everybody knows we can't do it all but what we can do is make good decisions and thorough assessments of families and agencies are such an important piece to alleviating this concern when kids are registered with NC kids your NC Kids consultant reviews and screens all of the PAS that we get from interested families and then once we determine if a family is appropriate or a possible match all of those ppas are sent to you to review in a more detailed manner so what we're going to talk about are a few key things to consider and keep in mind when you're reviewing ppas and assessing potential families first and foremost leave your biases out the door you're assessing a family to see if they can best meet hold on and think we might be having can everybody hear me I think my sound might be out can someone provides a chat and let me know if I'm being heard I think there might be a problem you okay I think we were having some trouble with the sound okay I think I might be back okay great okay so we're back on discussing assessing families so thanks John so first and foremost we were saying leave your biases at the door you are assessing a family to see if they can best meet the needs of your child not whether or not you personally agree with their life choices their personal beliefs etc the only thing that matters here is whether or not the family has the skills and abilities to appropriately and effectively parent your child and provide them with a loving and stable home you also want to make sure that the family can meet the general needs of your child for example if your child has to have their own room for safety reasons does the family have the space to make that happen now typically that's something that NC kids would screen for but unfortunately sometimes that information doesn't always reach us initially so those are some things that you might want to be looking for if your child has a specific medical therapeutic or educational need does the family live in an area where they have easy access to these services you know they could be a great family in every other way but I think maybe they have to drive 60 miles to the nearest mental health facility so those are some things that you may need to consider some children have specific medical or therapeutic needs that require extra training or skills does the family have the necessary training or do they have the ability to acquire it does your agents do require it licensure for all families and keep in mind if you like certain things about a family but you think maybe they need additional training in a certain area or if you would like or need for them to get licensed you can ask their worker to see if the family can do this and we've seen some families and agencies be extremely open to this and if a family won't or can't comply with your request you know you can move on at that point it doesn't hurt to ask and if you think I have if a family has potential you need to ask don't pass up the opportunity to get a great family simply by not asking now most PPAs address the family's feelings and beliefs about supporting birth family connections and important relationships you want to know if the family has willingness both emotionally and logistically to support the connections your child needs to maintain and if it isn't addressed to your satisfaction in the PPA ask questions and remember maintaining connections doesn't just mean visitation in this day and age there are many ways that we can keep kids connected with extended family or other people who are important to them and Jamie's going to talk a little bit more about that later on in the presentation and when we matched children and families we want there to be commonalities between the two when you're reading the PPA do things stand out to you about the family that makes you think of your child do they share the same interest in hobbies or personality traits like the potential adoptive father is he very mechanically inclined and does your child always love to take apart his toys and put them back together I mean other just similar things did they have religious or cultural preferences does the family have specific parenting experience that would benefit your child those kinds of things and the most important takeaway is this no to ppas are written the same and some are definitely written better and more detailed than others and some of you may read a PPA and get this wonderfully clear picture of a family and know right away this is the family other ppas may leave you with a lot of questions but if the PPA doesn't answer your questions don't rule a family out if you think they have potential take the time to call the families worker and ask questions so I want you to think for a minute about the agencies that you work with in North Carolina or maybe some of the agencies that you've worked with in the past fortunately when I was working in the county I know of some agencies that I just loved collaborating with and working with because I knew that the workers were great I knew they were going to answer my phone calls returned my emails and I knew that the reports I knew that we're gonna get there on time I just knew it was going to be a smooth variants and then there were others that when you had to work with them you kind of knew I don't know if I'm going to get the information I need I know I'm not going to get a return phone call it's just wasn't going to be that great of an experience I'm sure we all have had experiences like that working with an agency at some point or another but today you kind of know who the agencies are that you feel real good about and those that you kind of would rather steer clear of so you're really already doing the work of vetting agencies what we're talking about here is just expanding your network to include agencies outside of the state of North Carolina so here are some things to ask or do when you're considering to work with a new agency you want to find out what type of supportive services are provided to the family and child after placement you know some really well-written ppas that I've seen outline what services are provided I haven't seen a whole lot like this but some of them do and those are great but if you don't get that certainly call the agency you can talk to their director ask questions ask to talk to the family or other agencies who have actually placed children through this agency and find out what kind of experience they've had take the time to do your research make contact with workers at the agency see how quickly the families worker returns your call or email and how willing they are to share information this may give you valuable insight into the type of service they'll provide once a child is placed I think sometimes as workers and I've been guilty of this in the past as well we sometimes just assume well our child has medica Medicaid here so they'll have Medicaid when they go to Virginia or somewhere but that's not necessarily the case it may not quite be that easy in every state or even Virginia social workers should really be proactive in working with your ICPC consultant to the floor of the medicaid requirements in the receiving state and this should be done early on in the process because it varies from state to state and Charlie and Rebecca are going to address that in more detail later in the presentation but we're really fortunate with our eye CDC staff because they're very experienced they're very knowledgeable and they're always willing to help you if you just ask the questions you're also going to want to know early on if you're if the family's agency requires purchase of services and if so does your agency provide those so I think at this point Mel sent we have a poll question we don't we've lost it okay that's okay yeah sure can we wanted to ask the participants how much money do you think is potentially available from the state to help pay for services for out-of-state adoptions just go ahead and use your chat pod do you think there's any available if so how much would you guess is available from the state I see lots of people typing so we'll see oh look at that just a well-informed group very good all right cam I'll pass okay so we're going to talk a little bit more specifically about exactly what purchases service fees are let me advance my slide here while you guys are typing in so essentially in an effort to increase the adoption opportunities for some of our children state funds were made available to assist County DSS's with placement fees charged by specialized out of state agencies and you'll notice on the slide that specific services can be purchased from out of state providers and as many of you noted in the chat pod the state does provide 1800 dollars per child towards these fees the funds are to be utilized for hard-to-place children who meet certain criteria and we did put together a handout for you if you didn't download it prior to the webinar if you would do so afterwards that would be great but the hand outlet she knows what the specific criteria is and how to make your written request for the funds and there's also a link on the and out to the specific colorful items and secure education form to provide a 8 10 20 that there's a section to ask whether or not your agency pays any amount over the state offered 1800 a lot of times we don't see anything in there some counties may not offer anything over it but some counties may have a set amount everyone who is responsible for recruiting families for children should really know how much their County offers if anything as your supervisor or maybe your County finance officer oh dang it I think my sound went out again and I hear ok I'm back again anyway if you don't know how much your County offers or if anything you should check with your supervisor or maybe your County finance officer would be a good place to start to get that information all right so at this time I'm going to hand it over to Jamie to talk with you a little bit more about what to do once you have potentially identified a family for your child can I just say something before you go I want I want you to have time I just want to mention to folks since we lost some time in the webinar I just want to let people know this this webinar is being recorded for folks who may have not come right back on at the same time we started and also we are going to go a little bit past 12 today just to make up that time and so if you do need to leave at 12 we will have that recording available probably within about a week of the webinar so I just wanted to mention that we will go a little later than scheduled to make up that time but I know some folks might not be available okay thanks Mel can everybody hear me since we've had some sound issues just want to make sure okay everybody in the room can that's a good start good morning my name is Jamie Bazemore I am the program manager for the adoption services team as Mel stated and I'm just gonna dive into my slides okay so you have selected a family or you have a number of families you've narrowed down to a short list of your top matches what would you do at this point so first if appropriate we always want to involve our youth at this point we can discuss the characteristics of the family with the youth start sharing information this is also the perfect time to introduce a new concept that we've recently discovered called the Navy family we're all so quick to call a prospective adoptive family a forever family I'm absolutely guilty of it we talked to our kids about finding them their forever family but we need to stop and think are we putting too much pressure on our families and children by referring to them as forever before they've even met or had the opportunity to get to know one another in reality at this point in this in the placement well really in reality at this point in the placement we're still so early in the process that it's not realistic to expect everyone to make a permanent and unconditional decision to adopt so by using the Navy language and referring to a family as a maybe family it gives the child the professionals and the family the truth about the situation and helps to avoid feelings of rejection and abandonment if ultimately that decision is made that maybe this isn't the best placement for this child by using that maybe language with the family and the child it's also important to make sure that everyone is on the same page and not using those terms like forever family or even parental monikers such as mom and dad right away we've provided you with a great handout that was created by Wake County Human Services thank you very much Terrell who I know is on the webinar and helped share this information with us and provided it to us both Jennifer tuff Quintero Bowen at Wake County were really helpful but that handout has some more information about the maybe concept and some links to the adoption agency who created the concept and has more information so I'd highly encourage you to take advantage of that at this point in the process you'll also want an opportunity for the agency and the family to come together to discuss the impending placement in more detail now obviously if the family is out of state this meeting may not be able to occur face to face and that's okay so you'll want to be creative with conference calls Skype and other forms of communication and then that way you can decide if after that meeting everyone agrees to continue to move forward you want to remember as Kim stated that the prospective family's willingness to move forward is not always enough and that's okay you should also be continuing to vet the agency and the family continue to ask those questions can this family meet the child's needs do they have access to the resources vital to that child's success does this family fit this child all right so you've started talking to the child in the family you've shared lots of information about the child and you're still thinking that this family would be a good fit now it's time to initiate your ICPC process so you want to start pulling together your ICPC packet for that child in that family first off you want to submit the request as early as possible the reality is is that the packet is lengthy and can certainly seem daunting if you haven't done many but we promise that practice makes perfect and it does get easier over time there are some specific situations where your ICPC consultant may be willing to allow you to submit a packet for more than one family at a time I'm not saying this is a general statement you would want to have a one-on-one conversation with your ICPC consultant about those very specific circumstances before you did that but it is something that can be discussed you'll also want to make sure you're talking with the family and their agency about the ICPC process and what they need to expect we can't just assume that they know it's really your responsibility as the child placing social worker to be proactive and communicate with and facilitate collaboration with all of these different agencies this is also the perfect time to discuss your expectations around contact with the child and visits before it actually starts happening and we'll talk a little bit more about beginning contact in just a moment and lastly I know Kim talked about this earlier but I just can't reiterate enough that your ICPC consultant is not just someone who processes your paperwork they are really your partner in this process and they should be included and aware of large decisions that are made like any other member of your team they have an absolute wealth of knowledge and they are more than willing to assist you in this process okay so beginning contact what do you think of when I say the words beginning contact I think it's fair to say that a lot of us would automatically think about having the prospective family come and visit the child but we may be putting the cart in front of the horse contact doesn't automatically mean visits so here are some tips that we and other agencies have found helpful during this process first you'll want to start with written and verbal communication you can share a life book a family book letters telephone calls start using Skype I'll say Skype a lot during this webinar initially you'll want to take things slow and ease into this communication after taking one or two of these steps you might be able to stop right there if you or the family can see that this really isn't going to be a good fit for the child and that'll be prior to making any kind of financial or emotional investment of having the family and the child meet face-to-face if all goes well with those initial communications then you can certainly make contact more frequent make it more meaningful and begin talking about establishing that face-to-face contact in those visits it's also extremely important at this phase for the family to continue to truly understand the needs of the child that they are considering parenting again there's still the maybe family at this point the best resource to share that information are who they're the child's current placement provider and treatment team so you need to start involving the prospective family in all meetings for the child even if that always has to be by a conference call you can connect them with others in the child's life to share detailed insightful information about the child and their day-to-day needs and this is really another great way to make sure that that family has a true understanding of the child and that they have an opportunity to ask the professionals involved any questions they may have again this could be an opportunity for everyone involved to decide the families not the best fit for your child and avoid getting into situations where everyone's starting to feel rejected specifically the children that you're serving okay I'm gonna jump on my soapbox very quickly for those of you who know me I do that occasionally so we as a state me included really need to consider a paradigm shift when we think about face-to-face visits between adoptive families and the children in our care especially when we're considering these out-of-state families you know this was really a lightbulb moment for me as we were preparing this webinar the NC Kids team I just kept saying over and over again I need to reduce some of the placements that I've done over the past 10 years because it finally clicked me that when an out-of-state family comes to visit a child for the first time there's this automatic increased financial and emotional investment in that journey and commitment to the child and ultimately that could backfire against you so let's think about that the families probably shared with their family and friends that they're going to be traveling out of state and making this huge trip to come and quote/unquote meet their child they've obviously built the trip up in their minds and tapped and attached all of the anticipated emotion of that first meeting to the trip kind of a TV movie moment of meeting their child so they're really getting very emotionally invested they've also spent a considerable amount of money on travel maybe they've taken time off work they're paying for lodging so this is all gonna increase that commitment that they're making to a child before they've even met that child and while that's wonderful and we certainly want to see families making those steps and making those commitments to our kids it could also backfire and be detrimental to the final placement so what if they've done all that they come out they meet the child in team they haven't had a lot of information a lot of detailed information about the child ahead of time and they start to get that gut feeling that maybe this isn't the best fit for their family how likely is it that they're gonna gloss over those feelings how likely are you if we're being honest going to do the same if you know how emotionally and financially invested they are and making this work and maybe you're feeling some of that pressure as well the reality is that both you and the family and the child might press forward with an adoptive placement that might not be a good fit so if we start contacting the ways we discussed during the last slide you're making the family is truly aware as possible of the child's needs and the reality of parenting that child first before they ever come and eat the child there are more opportunities for everyone involved to keep things realistic so that everyone feels maybe a little more comfortable just being honest and saying whether or not they truly feel the placement is a good fit before that family even meets the child which could ultimately decrease your likelihood of disruption later on okay I'll jump back off my soapbox and we've done you've done all of these things and you've had all this contact and everything continues to go well and you do feel comfortable starting visits which is perfect and that's what we want to see all right so we want to take that same slow and steady approach to visits that we did with contact just because as a family's been identified it doesn't mean now you have to rush to placement children and families have to get to know each other before they can make an adoption decision before they can truly connect to each other and make that commitment and the only way to truly get to know each other is to spend a significant amount of time together before the placement let's be completely honest three visits all spent at hotels theme parks in the mall are not going to give a true representation of what everyday family life is going to be like for that child or for that family so the reality is is that speed sometimes can be the enemy it's a successful adoption and we have to take it slow you'll want to continue to use navy language even during these early visits and that way the moments where they start to call the family mom and dad would happen naturally over time it's not a forced forever family situation you always want to start visits in a child safe place with familiar people present and then over time transition to more neutral locations without supervision and that should all occur through a series events or a series of visits not just the first visit and then the second visit and we fully recognize that multiple visits is a lot to ask of these out-of-state families but our experience at NC kids is they will do some amazing things in order to be matched with these children in addition you can be really creative ask your community use your resources in your community some of the suggestions we got on an mrs call last year were to request gift certificates and vouchers from local hotels restaurants and activity locations we've all got that licensed foster family who needs a break but they want to help in some way maybe consider asking them if they could use the empty bedroom to house a visiting family who could stay with them for a night or two so you can cut down on the lodging cost really think outside of the box about that your community and agency can support these families and I'd an achievement placement for these children obviously around visitation I can't say it enough you want to keep your ICT consultant in the loop because there are very strict rules about when a child can actually go to another state to begin visits at the family's home and Rebecca and Charlene will address that in a moment this is also a great opportunity to start having conversations at your agency about how a child would travel to an out-of-state placement or visit who would travel with them how long would the social worker stay would that be something your agency could manage financially you don't want to figure out you don't want to wait to figure out these logistics once you already have a placement you should be having these conversations now in your agency so that policy and practice can be explored in a hypothetical manner so the reality is is that anyone who's been working in adoptions for any a period of time has probably had an experience where a family would where a family or other professionals or a child that you're working with will attempt to speed up visits and move towards placement faster than you had already planned I think anyone who's been doing adoptions for any period of time can talk about multiple experiences of that and so I wanted to just share a personal story that illustrates how a long transition can really be used in a very difficult adoptive placement to ultimately achieve success so when I was in one of the local counties I worked with an extremely difficult to place child who had a lot of ongoing behavioral needs of course she was adorable and sweet of the button but when she wasn't she really really wasn't so we identified an adoptive place that we felt good about it we felt good about the home she had a number of visits probably six to eight visits with the family we thought we had done a good job of transition and she exhibited some behaviors during those visits but certainly never to the extent that she was capable of with those really negative behaviors and so when we went to make the final placement literally the final placement I had her in my car with all of her belongings driving her to the home she had a complete meltdown she got really scared this was a really big deal she recognized this was supposed to be her forever family and so we pull up into the driveway she has this complete meltdown and right then and there in the driveway the family decides that they cannot parent this child that these behaviors are outside of the norm of what they thought she was going to be exhibiting no matter how many times we had told them that actually seeing it they said we can't do this and that same day we had to pack her up return her and all of her belongings to her foster family and it was absolutely devastating to the child a couple of years later we identified a second adoptive family and we recognized that the risks were huge her first few visits her first six to eight visits with that family were also pretty much ideal and we continued to see honeymooned behavior so over time we decided to slow that transition down and she literally transitioned and had visits over a nine-month period of time it was long it was hard it could be very emotionally complex and difficult at times to manage everyone's feelings during that transition but the reality is that her adoptive mother got the chance to truly get to know her and see the reality of parenting her she fully understood what she was committing to and what she could expect as a parent to this child before the child ever moved into her home and she went in wise I'd open before moving forward with that final placement and the reality is if that adoption continues successfully four years later and the child is doing wonderful because that parent got it she understood who this child was and she had no preconceived notions about what parenting her was going to be like so I personally challenge each of you to be the strong voice on a treatment team that makes your placement doesn't occur before everyone involved really understands the realities of day-to-day life for both the family and the child and this also has extends to these out-of-state placements sometimes we still just have to go slow okay maintaining connections so this is something that a lot of you had expressed us when we sent out at our survey is one of the main reasons that you weren't open to considering out-of-state placements and honestly in this day and age of technology and mobility it's sounding a bit like an excuse I mean the reality is is that we have Skype letter-writing phone calls families are willing to take regular vacations send care packages there are lots of forms of contact that could be really meaningful and valuable ways of maintaining connections when I was recruiting for a couple of children on NC kids I actually had a family who contacted us and said they would move to North Carolina that they worked remotely and both parents if that was going to be a requirement to adopt these children they felt so strongly then they would just move and relocate so they could maintain that child's connections so these families are willing to do what it takes in many ways your expectations for maintaining connections should be part of the conversation with those families early on lay it out if they can't make that commitment from the beginning then move on and assess a different family and in a perfect world all our siblings would be placed together and in close proximity to those they have a relationship with but the reality is even if kids are placed in state there's no guarantee that any family is going to preserve those relationships Kim actually has a great personal experience about this topic so Kim would you mind sharing more when I previously that I worked in we had a sibling group in foster care was five children and they ended up being freed for adoption and the youngest child was an infant and that child actually ended up being adopted by relatives but the four older children needed adoptive placements and they were adopted two together and then the other two together and we wanted to make sure that these kids maintain connections and contact with each other ongoing and so the agency was very excited because they found two families that were located within I like two miles of each other I mean they were literally right down the road from each other and since the adoption has taken place to my knowledge those kids have seen each other one time and this has been four or five years ago but this took place so you know you can you know all you want to all day long say that if the child stays in North Carolina that means their connections are going to be maintained but you can't even guarantee it in the same town let alone the same state so yeah that was that was pretty disappointing for those kids yeah I'm sure so the reality is is that we have to recognize that proximity is not going to automatically mean that connections are going to be maintained for our kids instead what we have to do is really focus on building those connections early between the adoptive family and the other parties so another benefit to slowing down your transition is that you also have time to facilitate and play an active role in establishing those relationships and encouraging that rapport building so if you've got an out-of-state family who's coming to visit the child regularly you can have them start to meet the siblings meet those siblings parents the foster families the community members whoever it is you want them to maintain a connection with and you can facilitate them incorporating each other into their support networks before that placement is even finalized so that by the time the adoption is complete you feel strongly that those connections will be will be maintained even if it's going to be not involve a daily face-to-face visit but could involve other opportunities for meaningful contact does anyone have any other suggestions who are on the webinar for maintaining connections if your children were B to place we're going to be placed outside of North Carolina we'd really love to hear your ideas so if you want to write in any ideas into the chat box or anything you may be done to successfully maintain those connections in a quote/unquote non-traditional way you oh I've got somebody typing great a couple people typing I'm not great at dancing so I apologize for any quietness on the line yeah okay so I'm going to come back to that we looks like we've got some people getting ready to share their ideas but I'm gonna move forward especially for the sake of time oh wait here's Terrell in Wake County is that plan a joint vacation get together with siblings who are not placed together absolutely these families are more than willing to travel and set up vacations and make these connections with these kids great suggestion Terrell okay so you've made it to placement and this is the final time you're going to hear from me that final transition to placement is first of all going to completely depend on your i CPC approval so don't do anything until your i CPC requirements have been fully met and you have the approval also you want to make sure that all the decisions and the prep work is completed before that child moves make sure school registration is done therapeutic and medical providers are arranged for and set up and all the paperwork is complete at NC kids we fully recognize that placing a child in a different state is not going to be as simple as driving down the road if you forget to sign a form so you need to be very intentional and diligent you may want to talk to your agency about that final move and if you're able to travel maybe considering staying for two or three days so that you can meet with the new therapist sign any remaining paperwork go to the school meet the teachers and then also be that face-to-face support for both the child and the family a lot of these kids who have been in care for many years especially our older kids sometimes we as their social workers are their main source of support and connection and they're going to need our support as they make that final transition we recognize that this is a this is a lot of work we know that and we know that the process can be really complex but the reality is is that we should be doing everything possible to find these children an adoptive home and not only identify that adoptive home but ensure that it's successful and we truly believe that if you're organized and strategic in your planning you really can make it happen and the payoff is so going to be well worth it we all owe these children so much and more than anything we owe them the ability to achieve permanence for them even if we have to work harder to make it happen and consider those out-of-state families we've condensed a lot of the tips and suggestions in this webinar into a one-page handout that's a great little cheat sheet for you it's available in your file share pod so I would encourage you to access that as well one more offer we want to make at NC kids is that we also recognize that utilizing out-of-state placements successfully is really going to take your agency support and you're not going to be able to do this work alone so if you need assistance in talking with your agency about the importance and benefits of cross-jurisdictional placements and see kids can be a support to you and we're here to help and also on that cheat sheet is a list of your NC kids consultants and what counties they're assigned to so feel free to reach out to them at any time for support as you work through these things Thanks yep Mel's gonna jump on now thank you thanks Jamie and Kim so I just want to feed some questions that have come in well first I just want to say thank you to Joe Allen for I think you all may have seen his personal experience of being a foster care worker for almost 10 years and now being on the other side of the desk as he says as a adoptive parents from Texas and the importance of that communication and taking it slow and really full communication and sharing about the child so thank you so much Joe for that we did have a few questions a couple about the $1,800 funding the purchase of service fees okay that's what so if the placement fails would another 1800 be available for another placement I'm looking at Jamie and Kim not sure of the answer to that so we're actually not 100% sure of the answer to that but we can easily find it out and then provide that information in the follow-up document great all right thank you so great question we'll add that to the follow-up and how about I think Kimmy you have already answered this but just in case people didn't see it is the 1800 in addition to non reoccurring fees yes it's completely separate okay the purchase the service is something that you would apply for through this date awesome okay and then we also have one if when people make an inquiry about kids they see on the website and wish to adopt from out of state what is the level of priority that's sure and also should they go through map I'm not cool this is Jamie I'm not quite sure what they're asking about level of priority we at NC kids are always going to evaluate them on the exact same level as an in-state family we certainly say that if you have to equal families and one is here and one is in Alaska you can certainly take that into account if all over there things are equal but that overall we're not going to automatically prioritize North Carolina's families over out-of-state families and then the question about should they go through map that's ultimately going to be your agency's decision some states have classes that are comparable to map or the family may have gone through map in their home state so that's going to be part of the conversation you need to have about what you think the family needs in order to be able to effectively parent this child or children great thank you and we do have one about ICPC but let me just I'm going to ask it now but then Charlene you can say if this is something you're going to cover if we have an approved adoptive home study with the I CPC process the only a request to place a child in the pre adoptive home would the original packet include the family's adoptive home study I don't know if Charlene or Rebecca if one of you would like to address that um this is Charlene and I think we do talk about this a little bit during that presentation so who will answer this hopefully once we were presenting the information okay great thank you so I'm gonna ven pass it to Charlene and if will try to address those questions but let us know if the specifics don't get answered well we'll try to come back to it okay go ahead charlie okay well good morning again the fish Charlene Simmons I'm wealthy for ICPC consultants and we myself for Rebecca Richmond will be discussing the ICPC process and hopefully just giving you a little bit of information about what we do and what's expected in terms of getting the my CPC complete and moving forward with with the families that you've selected for your child as most of you probably know the I CPC is federal law and is required when your placement child across state lines it is uniform law enacted in all 50 states Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands again there are four I CPC consultants in the North Donna interstate compact office and we do have a listing if for some reason you don't know we do have that listing that shows who's assigned to your County or to a specific County so we'll move on it's been discussed about visits and placements and in terms of visits again for I CPC purposes this are duly short in duration in less than 30 days and they have a set in beginning and end date as opposed to a placement that is for longer than 30 days and this generally being some sort of placement decision made when an actual placement is me okay and you will see that the icy piece of regulation 9 is what governs and speaks to placement versus visit we do I think we had one slide that had well not yet you'll see one slide tux but gives you the an actual drop down that allows you to see all of the regulations and we do encourage you to take a look at the regulations when you have questions about the visit and or placement that we will talk about a little bit more right now and again that drop down is here but when preparing to submit and ICPC request there are actually 12 regulations that the ICPC is governed by at the moment and ICPC regulation 2 is the regulation that we're required to use when making the public adoption placements and or foster and relative placements ok so again that that area up at the top does give you a full detail of all of the ICPC regulation and when making the referral you should be most I'm sure most of you are familiar with the I CPC checklist that tells you the documents that you're using in terms of making an ID CPC request it's again you're using the case managers statement of interest as well as your cover letter and the I CPC form 100 a is the actual document that that's required for all I CPC requests it's the binding contract more or less between ourselves and the other state in terms of making a placement so actually the I CPC request is for an out-of-state adoptive placement it's quite similar to any other placement that you're making in that the documents are quite similar you're doing cover letter form 100 a case manager statement of interest the child's profile and I think there was a question about the doctor's home study for the family that is included and at this point we're actually trying to get a more specific recommendation for that particular child from the other state and Shirley and I just want to reiterate that the that I CPC checklist and the form start on page 8 of folks handouts okay in addition to knowing in the documents that you're going to be included and included in your packet we do ask you to check with us us being your I CPC consultant in in your situation so that we know and can share with you whether a particular state has licensure requirements or medical educational childcare requirements so that if that state requires licensure in all cases and or if your child has specific needs and you and I or you and your consultant feel that there is a need for that family to be licensed they were able to discuss that on a case-by-case and also some of the medical requirements for the other state as well as you know if your child of childcare age if it's expected that you will pay for that child subsidy childcare such the or if that's going to be paid by the family there are some states as well that required tuition for children who are coming from other state to be paid so again when you're speaking with your ICPC consultant will be able to talk with you more on case by case basis as to whether or not the state you're looking at would require that type funding so at this point Rebecca notes Rebecca which one I did every time well talk to you a little bit more about the I CPC process and we will attempt to answer any questions that you have later oh there can you hear me better so good morning everyone this is Rebecca Richmond it used to be Nelson I'll point that out for anybody who's confused along the way my name did change and I'll start out I see a question that was posed about what's the difference between ICPC regulation 2 & 7 and primarily the difference is when you use regulation 7 you're asking for an expedited home study and that will not be used here for the purpose of a public adoption so those are used the ICTs regulation 7 is applicable to parents studies or relative studies but certainly not for the purpose of foster care or adoption so our next slide talks about the violation of the compact and I'll start here because it is important to note that if a child is placed in another state prior to submitting the I CPC packet or prior to obtaining the I CPC approval for placement it is considered a violation and we want to point that out because what's important to note here is that if the child is place prior to either one of those the packet being submitted or the approval for placement then we as a sending state would be taking full responsibility for that child in the other state and any services that child would need in the other state and we need to make our judges aware of what this violation entails because if they're ordering kids into placement out of state they should also be aware that they're their services are probably not going to be available to that child while they're in that adoptive home and that's very important because without those services we could ultimately be looking at the receiving state asking for the children to return to North Carolina and which would be devastating for any child who's made a connection out of state so moving on the next slide about processing those requests that come into our office so you've identified the potential adoptive family out of state and that family may need to be licensed for foster care and then you're going to go on to submit the ICTY CTC request to our office and that does need to be in triplicate so that we can turn that around quickly to the other states so we thank you when you send that in triplicate sometimes packets do come back because they're not sent to us in triplicate and it really really does save time and get your request out sooner than later when we get it correct and in triplicate and we don't have to make copies or return it back to you so then the ICPC will review your request and we'll pass it on to the receiving state and you're probably wondering why we need to send that on to the receiving state if you already have an adoption home study for the family I think this question was asked and I'll address it here and the reason why we're gonna ask for another adoptive home study is because we're looking for a child cific home study generally what you have will be a general home study about the family but we really want to see a child specific recommendation in the home study so if for some reason your request cannot go on to the public agency in the receiving state we will follow up with you individually to consider others resources moving on to the next slide about safe and timely home study reports so once the request is submitted to the receiving state the federal law does allow that state sixty days to return a report to our office we call this a preliminary report it's not the same as a placement decision this report is going to tell us the statuses families home study and any reasons for delay and completion and when we can expect to receive a completed home study and moving on to supervision so supervision we is indicated on the 100 a form that you're completing and it's near the bottom of the form you do need to check this if you are asking for the receiving state to supervise the child during the placement you want to make sure that you have identified which agency is going to supervise that child in placement and it's typically the agency that's completed the home study so on to the next slide with regard to supervision a supervision begins with the receipt of a 100 B so when you send that to us and we send it on to the other state that's when supervision typically begins and it will continue until the child reaches the age of majority or is legally emancipated - a child is adopted or if the child no longer result resides in that home if supervision is no longer needed for any one of those above reasons then we do need a 100 B to close the case so what's important to note here is that supervision begins and ends with the 100 B and if you open a case you should close the case with the 100 B otherwise we're going to continue to send and generate mail to your office and to the receiving state looking for progress reports and that can be really timely and prevent us from doing new reports and new requests so I think my last slide here we're going to talk about really just summarize what we've talked about so step one DSS you're going to send us your ICPC request to consider your out of state family going to make sure that you've considered the financial medical education on child care requirements and the receiving state if you still have questions please get in touch with us and we'll be sure to help you in any way that we can with each receiving states different criteria and step two once your placement is approved by the receiving state we're going to send you back that 100 a with the approval and we'd like to note here that prior to that approval you'll want to make sure that you're doing your visits in North Carolina so and once you receive the approval from us then you can start your visits in the family's state in what we call the receiving state step number three you're making the placement and you're going to send us the 100 B so that we can begin supervision and then finally step number four when the finalization does occur or if there's a disruption unfortunately in your case then we do want to receive another 100 B to close our case so we can't stress that enough about the 100 B it is an important document for us in our office and and it opens cases for supervision and it closes our case as well I think that's it for me so I see there are a number of questions that are coming in and Charlene and I can address those it's great thank you so much Rebecca so let's see the first question is what why would a request not be able to go to a public agency in another state can you say a little more about that so I think it was saying sometimes I think you said if if it can't go to a public agency then you would be in touch with the individual could you say a little bit more about why that might happen sure sometimes we receive requests from private agent a family would have a private agency home study and that's what we're talking about is is that we would then turn and and if it's not a child specific home study from the private agency we would expect to receive a request from D it from our DSS here and send that on to the receiving state public agencies for that child specific home study and also because the child is here in our custody in a public agencies custody and we want to offer our state the services from a public agency in the other state when it when services are needed or requested from a private agency then that's when you get into contracts and fees for services so in other words it's gonna the first choice is gonna be to go to a public agency to do that child specific home study yeah avoid the fee-for-service but there might be some cases where the public agency if not declined that or is not able to do that and then it would go to a private agency I'm sorry I was reading question art so it's just gonna say so is this situation that sometimes if the public agency might decline that request or not be able to accommodate that request then would it go to a private agency or it really wouldn't ever go to a private agency no typically a public agency in the receiving state would not decline our request okay so another question was if the family has an approved home study through a private agency can you ask the private agency for placement approval yeah again that's that's kind of what Rebecca touched on that you know you're going to do a contract with that private agency and a lot of times we see this happening when there the child has like therapeutic needs or something that the public agency would not be willing to take on because of behaviors or even medical at times so you would contract with the private agency in the other state because of the child's their punic needs so certainly you know okay thank you so another question from Deborah hair could we place the child and during the six months the child is in the home request the child specific home study I see head shaky no if you want to say a little bit about this is what I referred to in our violation this would be a violation because you do need the I CPC approval in order to place a child out of state for any reason okay thank you then we have an example for children in North Carolina from another state Connecticut in this case they came into custody parents while here they came into custody the parents are still in Connecticut and ICPC was done on relatives in Connecticut for placement but that state requires payment from us for relatives to adopt so is that North Carolina's responsibility since the children are from Connecticut unfortunately it is because we've now taken the children into custody it is a situation that again working with the nice EPC consultant we might be able to get Connecticut to see that you know these children were initially Connecticut children and they might be willing to bear some of the responsibility but because again we have taken the children into custody into North Carolina they are north Karen and we are responsible for their care okay thank you and there was this was not actually as a question but I just want to clarify it do children and agency custody have to be in a license placement if they're out of state unless the court approves otherwise turn your mic on kids sorry Kim's having mic issues so she passed that one over to me so no if the child is an agency custody but is legally free for adoption then the placement isn't required to be licensed so that would certainly be an option to consider if your child's a legal risk placement there are a lot of judges who will consider putting in place a court order for the child to be in an unlike licensed home in a very specific situation but that's that's really gonna have to do with your county policy and and your relationship with the judges but know if the child is legally free for adoption they can be placed in a family that is solely approved for adoptive placement that family is not going to receive any kind of board payment which sometimes throws people off and the family would want to understand that from the get-go but it's still a possibility okay and I think that was the comment that someone made that right North Carolina will pay those forward payments if they are licensed so so there is a cost to not doing that okay