Story of Strength: Family Finder Support Team
The goal of any placement is to find a safe and stable home for the child. Any family looking to welcome a child into their home must pass proper inspection of the home of potential placement, in order to ensure that the placement is appropriate for the child. Our Family Finder Support team works with parent alienation and other situations to find a safe placement outside of licensed foster care. Children typically have formed bonds with other relatives and feel more comfortable with someone they recognize. This can make the transition more comfortable as many other factors are effecting these children.
Our incredible Family Finder Support team recently worked closely with case management to find a safe placement for one child. After the child’s parents were no longer fit to care for their child, our teams worked diligently to find them a safe and stable placement. The team started to focus on one side of this child’s family having no luck. Family Finder Support stepped in and began to look at the other side of the family. A little while later our team was able to connect with the child’s grandparents on the other side of the family. These grandparents had been searching for the child but were not able to find them due to living in a different state. The grandparents were thrilled and the child did end up living with them after the home was determined to be safe.
As Family Finder Support completed the ICPC (Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children) process they ran into many obstacles. Our team worked across state lines and many different rules and regulations to ensure the child could move with their grandparents. They made multiple calls and waited to hear something as they finalized the ICPC process. This case was rather difficult because the previous team had only focused on one side of the family. Our team also struggled to prove the paternity of these grandparents. They had to advise multiple forms of verification to show the courts they were related even though they hadn’t been active in the child’s life for some time. We are so proud of the work our Family Finder Team has done to unite this family and we are excited to hear about more families coming together.
Pictured: Della Wallace, Kyle McCammon, Jen Dickinson
