Family Connections Project
Adoptions Unlimited, Inc. participates in a cooperative agreement with the Children's Bureau's Administration for Children and Families in the funding priority area, "Developing Adoption Services and Supports for Youth Who Wish to Retain Contact with Family Members in Order to Improve Permanency Outcomes."
The Family Connections Project proposes a new model for seeking youth permanency, which emphasizes the exploration of open adoption and other permanency options for wards of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Major components of the project include:
- developing a free online training course called "Maintaining Connections" for caseworkers;
- developing an openness curriculum and video for training foster/adoptive families;
- developing an openness curriculum and video for training court and legal personnel;
- developing an openness curriculum and video for training youth;
- beginning a mentoring program; and
- creating a theatre troupe and developing a DVD of their performance.
In addition to DCFS, we work with two private agency partners: Lutheran Social Services of Illinois and Hull House.
The grant evaluators are Susan Smith and Jeanne Howard from the Illinois State University Center for Adoption Studies. They have completed a literature review on openness and permanency arrangements, have conducted focus groups with workers, families, youth and legal personnel to learn about the barriers to openness, and have evaluated trainings.
The project plans to serve 50 youth, 14 years of age and older, who will leave the child welfare system with a permanent connection to an adult.
