Minutes - Florida Department of Children and Families

State of Florida
Department of Children and Families
Rick Scott
Governor
Esther Jacobo
Interim Secretary
INDEPENDENT LIVING SERVICES ADVISORY COUNCIL
PARENTING TEENS IN FOSTER CARE WORKGROUP MEETING
Friday, July 25, 2014, 10:30 am – 3:00 pm
Florida's Turnpike Building #5315, Ocoee, FL 34761
MINUTES
Participants: Barbara White, FSU Center for Prevention Young Parents Project; Juanita Ambrister, FSU;
Ruth Patrick, Beta Center; Teri Saunders, Heartland; Diane Schofield, Hands of Mercy Everywhere
(HOME); Patty Roark, HOME; Deborah Gerard, HOME; Selena Abshier, HOME; Jennifer Garbutt, HOME;
Jenna Steffel, Lifeline Family Center; Kathy Miller, Lifeline Family Center; Patricia Langford, Alpha House
of Tampa; Chavonne Robinson, Alpha House; Kortnie Tirico, Alpha House; Barbara McCormick, Alpha
House; Courtney Smith, DCF; Kirk Brown, DCF; Becky Pengelley, DCF; Kristi Putnam, DCF
Overall recommendations:
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14.
Placement assessment/look at best practices
Risk assessment for teen and baby
Case plan (success plan) must include plan for children
Normalcy: permission to parent
Ensure mother and baby cases are connected in system and with case manager when possible
Cross training and sharing between case managers, providers, DCF
Community outreach
Pre-service training to include specialized training
Family engagement/holistic approach with safety focus
Review barriers for outside parties participating in parenting
Child care/inclusion
One day count
Adoption information: what is allowed? Standardized? Legal choices, counseling, all options
Create a maternity home association
Challenges and Barriers:
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Legal responsibility for the baby
Out of county placements
Heath care/manage care (pre-natal)
Scorecard
Funding how to best use Title IV-E
Medicaid
State of Florida
Department of Children and Families
Rick Scott
Governor
Esther Jacobo
Interim Secretary
7. Data (FSFN) look at DJJ to see how they capture
a. Graduation rates
b. # of teens who get pregnant
c. # of parenting teens
d. # pregnant teens with baby status
8. Incident reports
a. To report births/changes in family
b. Unnecessary requirements
Kristi Putnam:
a. Currently there are several open rules that pertain to child welfare
b. Powerpoint Presentation (see attachment)
c. Link to all the rules: https://www.flrules.org/gateway/Division.asp?DivID=342
Barbara White: Parenting teen work began with DJJ and DCF mom-baby programs
a. What does the research tell us, what are the recommended practices, what are we learning in the
field?
b. Standards for Mother/Infant Residential Programs Serving Court-Involved Youth:
i. When they began their work, only 14% of teens had full custody of parents
ii. By early of 2014, 65% had full custody
iii. Research found that about 2/3 can safely parent, 1/3 are not ready
iv. Baby-courts: focus on families with infans and toddlers to ensure they have appropriate
support
v. Need facilities that are supporting moms and babies to support the courts
vi. Suggestions to include in rule:
1. Trauma-informed care
a. DJJ statute included trauma informed care: Ch. 2014-162
b. Address trauma to address multi-generational impact
c. Staff of maternity homes should be trained in trauma informed care
d. 95-99% of court involved parenting teens have sexual trauma in history
e. Sexual trafficking is often part of the story
f. Without trauma informed care training, providers often characterize
behavior differently – sharing information must occur from a trauma
informed care perspective
2. Infant mental health:
a. Additional training that supports parents and child in a developing
relationship to grow parenting capacity
State of Florida
Department of Children and Families
Rick Scott
Governor
Esther Jacobo
Interim Secretary
b. Trauma informed lens
c. Design environment to promote parents ability to provide daily care of
child: schedule in mom-baby time that is un-hurried; supporting play
3. Licensed and accredited child-care
a. Large programs: onsite
b. It is a protective factor that makes the most difference for an at-risk child
4. Moms need respite
a. Maternity homes should plan for this and have clear expectations for the
moms for when they want to leave
b. System of accountability:
i. Occurs after staff develops a positive trusting relationship with teen
moms
ii. Work together with moms to develop agreements
iii. Focus on the positive not “consequences”
iv. Ask what is your dream for your child; what is your biggest fear for
your child: that’s where the work starts: this is what we can do to
keep that from happening
v. Repair work (explanations and conversations) is important and
often hasn’t happened for the teens in the past
5. Authorization of temporary custody of child
6. Emergency disaster planning
7. Child abuse and neglect
8. Involvement with the court
9. Program transition/ Discharge planning
10. Mother/Child Health and Development
11. Basic Infant Care and Safety
12. Child Care Facility
13. Parent and Child Relationships
c. Other recommendations:
i. Pay attention to small signs because they may not share in an assessment
ii. Not-consensus in the field about how to gather this information
iii. Assessment may not capture it; it comes from the narrative gathered over time
General Discussion
Deborah G:
a. Need early CBHA assessment when youth entered in care
State of Florida
Department of Children and Families
Rick Scott
Governor
Esther Jacobo
Interim Secretary
b. Notes don’t always follow youth when they come to a maternity home; other providers have
observed the youth and have important information
c. Ensure that maternity home staff attend court to share information
d. Continuance of care in maternity home with staff if teen mother is absent for short periods
Kristi:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Sharing of information is currently in rule
Assessment process to determine if group care is an appropriate placement for each youth
Envision a special section for maternity homes in group care rule
Medical concerns for parenting teens are unique
Will review statue for adoption counseling guidelines to add to rule
A “partnership plan” can go beyond what will go in rule: agreement of best practices to support the
work of each partner in the process
g. Community focus groups for cross systems training to achieve common goals (big picture)
h. Care plan for mom and child to include work with families when appropriate
i. CBC areas could have a meeting with providers to determine what services might be missing
Courtney S:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Rules can be more specific about what information is shared between providers
Many things are already in rule, but don’t always happening: need additional training
Pre-service training includes how to work with providers
Currently the adoption advisory board is creating a pamphlet to send out to courts to inform about
the process of intervention: parents can surrender rights for adoption without DCF involvement
Diane S:
a. Youth are off medication while pregnant and the delay in returning to medication after delivery can
cause additional problems
b. If there are foster parents who have parenting teens, maternity homes would like to invite them to
some events for peer support
c. In Idaho, case plans for teens parents in the state’s custody include provisions for the babies
d. DCF Scorecard doesn’t meet needs of parenting teens
e. Youth in group homes have two different requirements to see a medical provider
f. Two Casey Foundation trainings: Ages and Stages; Lionhart.org Foundation
g. Title IV-E Waiver: prevention dollars for teens
h. Sunshine heath is researching a list of providers that provide specialized services to parenting teens
State of Florida
Department of Children and Families
Rick Scott
Governor
Esther Jacobo
Interim Secretary
i.
j.
What information should we provide youth about adoption? Guidelines and recommended
materials from the Department would be helpful
Part of the trauma work is the “process of saying goodbye” if it isn’t a good time to parent
Ruth:
a. If a case plan for a baby not in the custody of the state might scare the mom: call it a success plan
b. Motivated to invite case managers, providers, and others to an open house for the “surround
sound” experience to understand the care provided
c. Fathers/co-parents should participate in some training while teen moms are in care
d. Youth have a right to be told their legal options: appropriate timing of abortion
Juanita:
a. Judge may open a case on the baby in order to provide care for the baby
b. DJJ system has an alert that is added when girls are pregnant or parenting
Kortnie:
a.
b.
c.
d.
VPS are not always shared with youth
Case managers for baby and moms should be the same
Requirement of medical assessment before placement in maternity home
Youth arrive with empty resource records
Mia:
a. Rules in place to help mom parent, because the state has responsibility to care for the teen
b. Has a child information form to ensure that information transfers (will send to the group)
c. QPI addressed many of these similar concerns for foster parents, is there something to address
these practice concerns for group care? (normalcy, permission to parent, etc.)
d. In the past, there was a paper book that listed all licensed homes around the state. That would be
helpful for placement offices to know.
Barbara M:
a. Should track teens in the system who have children
b. Incident reports don’t fit maternity homes if they are used for doctor visits
Terri S:
a. Will work on building relationships between homes and case management staff
State of Florida
Department of Children and Families
Rick Scott
Governor
Esther Jacobo
Interim Secretary
b. Group care is an important part of the system of care: it can be the most appropriate placement for
some youth
c. We don’t have a data system that can tell us if a teen gets pregnant in care: we have to start here
with modifying FSFN to capture this
Barbara W:
a. Out of county challenges are unique and should be defined in rule
b. In Illinois, case managers are trained to work with teen parents
c. In Miami, there is one case manager who is the specialist, the go-to person for teen parents and
preventing teen pregnancy
d. There shouldn’t be automatic rules in maternity homes that exclude fathers; safety concerns are
real: how do we address this concern without pushing the fathers away or push the mothers away
by pushing the fathers away: part of our value system to do the work to make the changes needed
e. Evidenced based parenting programs for moms and dads are important
f. Florida can pay for infant mental health providers through Medicaid; it can be a challenge to find a
provider; email for assistance in finding someone in your area
g. Helpful data would include:
a. How many teens are pregnant
b. How many have had children: female and males?
c. How many have custody of their children?
h. DJJ did a one day count a couple years ago
Kirk B:
a. Case management challenges perhaps should be addressed in practice, not rule. Can CBCs address
these challenges?
b. What information sharing is ideal?
c. Professional respect is paramount for our system: we are all here to save kids
d. Maternity homes should tell us what works for your system

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