Welcome to Module 4, an Overview of the Kinship Caregiver Home Assessment! Please refer to your workbook for the corresponding notes page so that you can take notes while you are viewing this presentation.

Hi! My name is Megan Stevens and I work for Franklin County Children Services. I’ve worked there for the past 24 years and presently I work in our kinship department supporting kinship caregivers. What do I love about my job? I love the fact that when kids need to come out of their homes for reasons of safety, we ensure that kids get to stay with people that they know and whom they love because that really lessons trauma of children for kids in our care.

In this module, we’ll discuss the Kinship Home Assessment and its critical components. We’ll also talk about the ProtectOHIO Data System which is also known as PODS. Finally, we’ll talk about the importance of connection among family members.

By now, you should have completed worksheet four in your workbook. Have this page available as we discuss the question posed. Which home did you chose and why? In considering placement options for Olivia, which home did you chose? What factors did you consider when making your decision? When I think about the training classes that we have in regards to this course, about 90% of the participants chose Isabella and Ethan, the step-mother and birth father. And although this choice reflects best practice in terms of placing Olivia with her birth father, there really is no true right answer.

Something to note at this point, this was a real case. The courts placed Olivia with Sophia, her maternal grandmother. As a worker, you may come across these situations where you have one recommendation and the court says something different. You need to be prepared for such situations.

So we all know that our goals are for kids, safety, permanency, and well-being so we’ll move on to a discussion about the assessment process. The goal of the kinship home assessment is to document safety needs and concerns, the ability and willingness of the kinship caregiver to provide permanency for the child, and identify what the kinship caregiver will need to care for the child. Child safety is paramount when identifying kinship caregivers and workers need to ensure that children are being placed in a home that will meet the child’s needs of safety, permanency, and well-being.

I want to take a minute to talk about emotional safety. As workers, we’re always thinking about the importance of physical safety for kids which typically is the reason that children are removed from their families. But emotional safety is just as important as physical safety for our kids. And many times when workers first start working with kinship caregivers, the emotional safety piece is something that could be left behind because workers are more concerned about children’s physical safety. I don’t know if this makes sense to you or not but physical safety and emotional safety are paramount to the child’s well-being. Both of them are as critically important as the other.

The questions included in the kinship assessment process are designed to spark discussion with the kinship caregiver and to ensure that vital topics are covered such as the history of kinship caregiver’s interaction with and their current knowledge of the child and family situation. The kinship home assessment should be part of every county’s kinship provider approval process. While each agency may have a different home study tool, there is commonality in the assessment components. Investing the time to assess the suitability of the kinship caregiver, as well as explaining to the kinship caregiver what resources and supports are available is critical. One of the basic tenants behind kinship care is that children are able to remain with people that they love and trust.

Workers should plan for adequate time to complete the assessments, taking into consideration the length of time needed to receive completed background checks.

The Kinship Home Assessment is just one of the tools developed by HSRI, the Human Services Research Institute, to help collect data. The data collected is entered into the ProtectOHIO Data System, otherwise known as PODS. It is the goal of the strategy to eventually collect the data directly into SACWIS. This data is then used by HSRI as a means of evaluating the implementation of the Kinship Strategy. In order to keep the flexible funding that is so beneficial to the kinship families, Ohio must demonstrate, through evaluation of the data that the Kinship Strategy is working. The data must be entered by all counties in a similar way so that aggregate data can be evaluated.

PODS data must be kept on all children in kinship placements during any case that is open to ongoing services. This means that while the child is living with the kinship caregiver and the case remains open, that data is to be entered into PODS. For example, if a child reunifies or enters foster care, then PODS data collection is no longer necessary.

Specific information entered includes: IDs associated with each kinship caregiver and child; demographics on each child and caregiver; the Needs Assessment and Family Resource Scale; and the Kinship Home Assessment Tool. There is an instruction manual available to help walk you through these more specifics. You can access the manual on our OCWTP website. You can also consult with your supervisor about how documentation is managed at your agency.

Something to note – you will want to consult with your supervisor to determine if your county completes Part I and Part II of the ProtectOHIO Kinship Home Assessment tool at the same time or at different times. Although these are two different components, some agencies complete them together. For this training, we will discuss them separately.

Part I of the Kinship Home Assessment Tool is an assessment of safety and completed at the time a child is initially placed with a kinship caregiver or the home is being assessed for a possible kinship placement. This assessment occurs regardless of the intended duration of the placement or the custody status of the child. Let’s take a closer look.

Here is a copy of the Kinship Home Assessment Tool. If you have not looked at this before, please take a few minutes to read the questions. The first three questions are crucial questions to ask regarding safety and the appropriateness of the placement and they need to be documented. Some criminal convictions are considered exclusionary offenses which means if the caregiver or someone in the home has been convicted of a specific crime on the exclusionary list, a PCSA may not place in that caregiver’s home. Be sure to ask your supervisor for the exclusionary offenses list if you don’t already have one. Something you will want to note, and that staff have asked questions about in trainings before, is who the questions relate to. Each question should be related to the primary caregiver when answering the question.

In looking at the Kinship Caregiver Home Assessment Tool, workers should complete Part I then enter into PODS. Once it’s completed and entered into PODS, in some counties, workers do this, and in other counties, specific staff are assigned to enter data into PODS. Ask your supervisor if you don’t know whose responsibility this is in your county.

So it’s also important to assess the caregiver’s perception of the situation. Why did the caregiver think that the child needs to come out of their home? What does the caregiver think that the birth parents have done? What do they think about the situation in its entirety? These are different situations that you have to think about as a worker is how does the caregiver perceive the situation.

Has the caregiver made efforts to protect the child in the past? What have those efforts been like? How successful has the caregiver been able to protect the child? How long has the caregiver been trying to protect the child? Those are questions that you can ask as a worker as well.

Why would the caregiver want to step forward and care for this child at this time? That addresses the motivation of the caregiver. Is it because they want to genuinely care for this child because they love and are connected with this child? Is it because they have an ulterior motive because they are interested in receiving money to help care for this child? Is it because they have a relationship with the birth family and they feel that they want to support the birth family in this challenging time in their lives? Looking at the motivation is critically important in this home assessment.

We also need to think about the quality of relationships and what those relationships are like. Does the caregiver have a positive or negative thought about birth parents? Do they talk consistently negatively in front of anybody that will listen about the birth parents or do they see strengths in the birth parents? Do they have the ability to work towards reunification with the birth family and to honor that process? Those are the things that we need to think about in regards to the quality of relationships.

When one thinks about the history of alcohol or substance abuse, oftentimes families may have a history of that but not be currently using. Workers will need to make an assessment on whether that would impact current placement of the child as opposed to what happened historically.

The physical and mental health of the kinship caregiver will also need to be assessed and is a question on the tool. If there are any physical or mental health limitations that would prohibit the caregiver from caring for the child would need to be addressed.

In most situations because the kinship caregiver is in fact, the kinship caregiver, they have a relationship with the birth family. Although this may seem obvious, it’s important to consider how placement will impact this relationship and the caregiver’s ability to cope or handle this change. Some caregivers may need additional support. For example, staff can help kinship caregivers think through what may happen in the future. So if this is their daughter and in the past when the daughter has had a need for a place to live, has come to this family. What often has happened is they have served as a resource for this family member before just like they are serving as a resource now. But what may change then is the agency’s involvement and the level of protection needed. So what we ask staff to do is to think about how they can help best prepare kinship families. And so then one of the things we help kinship caregivers think about is “what will you do when and if birth mother comes to your door in the middle of the night and says she needs a place to stay?” Thinking through those situations and having a plan of action prior to having it happen helps the caregiver manage those situations more appropriately.

Part II of the Kinship Home Assessment Tool assesses the kinship caregiver’s ability to ensure a child’s well-being and permanency. Part of the homestudy process also includes completing the Family Resource Scale, which is covered in Module 5.

Here is what the Kinship Home Assessment tool looks like. If you have not had an opportunity to review the questions yet, please take some time to do so now. These questions are ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions or ‘not applicable.’ Many times staff question who they should be answering these questions for. You as the worker will need to identify who the primary caregiver is and answer those questions according to the primary caregiver. Please note, there is also a ‘comments’ section there. All of that information in the comments is for your own reference but is not entered into PODS. Some counties have incorporated all of the questions in the home assessment tool into their home studies while others have opted to keep these tools separate.

It’s also important to assess the following seven components. Motivation and expectations. Thinking again about the motivation of the kinship caregiver and why they are doing this and what do they expect to happen.

Stress management and problem solving. How have the kinship caregivers managed stress in the past and how have they overcome challenges that they’ve experienced. Helping to assess that is going to help us understand how they’re going to best be able to manage through this situation currently.

What kind of parenting skills do they have? Do they know how to appropriately discipline children? Do they know that there are developmental expectations according to a child’s age and developmental abilities? Are they able to recognize that a three year old may have issues with potty training or that a five year old may regress and have issues with potty training even at five years of age? So talking with the kinship caregivers about their parenting skills and their experience is an important component.

What is the emotional maturity and stability of the kinship caregivers? Do they move frequently? Are they stable in the home environment? Are they able to provide the children in their care with a stable home environment?

Interpersonal relationships. Who is it that comes in and out of the kinship caregiver’s home and how does that impact the family system within their own home? Do they have strong relationships with the parents of the children coming into their care and what do those relationships look like with the kinship caregiver and the child’s birth parents?

Are they open to child welfare involvement? Many times, as you all know as workers, sometimes families are little bit more hesitant to become involved with child welfare. They may be afraid of authority and we need to kind of watch how we interact with our kinship caregivers to encourage them to have them understand that we are here to really be a support to them.

The impact of placement. We’ve talked about this a little bit already but what does that mean for the kinship caregiver? What does that mean in regards to relationship that they now have because that relationship will change. That relationship that they had with the parent of the child that they are caring for is going to change because they’re in a different role. The kinship caregiver is in a different role than they were before. If they are grandmother to the child, they now become mother to that child in a sense because they’re the ones that have to establish the rules and the boundaries in the family home system. Whereas before, the grandmother could say “oh, come over and treats and have chocolate and have ice cream” all of the time and say “yes” probably more often than saying “no.” That caregiver is now having to take that role of a parent and putting more rules and responsibilities on that child so that’s going to change. That relationship between the caregiver and the child. It will change the relationship that the caregiver has with the birth parent of the child as well because they will have to put up boundaries that perhaps they didn’t have to put up prior to that.

We haven’t talked about support systems but support systems are critically important for kinship caregivers because they’re not going to be able to do this alone many times. We need to help kinship caregivers realize who their supports are and who their natural connections and networks are. So that if they need help taking the child to the doctor, if they need help with child care, if they need help with somebody coming over on a Saturday night and watching the child, that we help kinship caregivers realize who their natural support are and that we can build that network with them.

There are times when workers need to proceed with extreme caution and although in Module 4, the reference page, it lists many examples of this, I just want to talk a little bit about some examples that I’ve had experience with.

The first one on the reference page talks about the “draggee” and the “dragger.” So when you think about two parent couples, and one person is extremely enthusiastic about becoming the caregiver for a child and the second person isn’t necessarily so enthusiastic about it and they might be dragged into the situation. I think that can also be broadened to including the kids in the family. If the kids in the family are not excited about this, if they are not buying into this process, those are the important things that we to consider in regards to us as workers and it’s not to say that we can’t proceed with those placements, but we do need to have conversations with the caregivers about what that means for their own kids.

Why are connections important? Connections are important for so many different reasons even more than what’s on the slide here. It talks about increases the chances for success. Well that’s true. It increases chances for success in school. It increases chances for success socially for kids. It increases chances for success developmentally across all spectrums. And so it’s vitally important for kids.

There’s a protective function. The more connected kids are, the more protected they are. If they have school teachers that are involved in their lives, if they have boy scout leaders that are involved in their lives, if they have church leaders that are involved in their lives, if they have a friend that’s involved, if they have a friend’s parent involved, those are all eyes on that child. They’re all ears that listen to that child and so it increases the kids’ protectiveness.

Possible future placement. Obviously as workers, we don’t want kids having to move from place to place but what research shows us is that if kids go into a kinship home first, their likelihood of increasing placements, going to a subsequent placement decreases. Their likelihood of entering residential care, foster care decreases. On the flip side, if you think about kids that enter foster care or residential care, the likelihood of them stepping down to a kinship caregiver decreases. And so really, as workers, its paramount that we think about the importance of connections for kids because it impacts them not just today, not just when we’re making this placement decision about where to place this child. Do we place with kin? Do we place in foster care? At this point in time, it’s pivotal we make the direction for that child for the rest of their life.

It is vital for our kids to maintain connections and to not lose those because of what we just talked about in regards to the importance of connections for kids. So how do we do that? We do that by collaborating with the child’s worker. We make sure we pass on important information to the child’s worker and that that important information is also passed on to the caregiver and to the family.

We educate. We talk to the kinship caregiver about resources that are available within the community and we talk about how we can link that kinship caregiver with those resources and link that child with additional resources. We talked a little bit before about building the network for the kinship caregiver and this is really about educating.

We also need to ask lots of questions. We need to ask questions of the kinship caregiver. We need to ask questions of the kids. We need to ask questions of the family to say who is it that is important for you to maintain connections with. One of the critically important things that we don’t want to miss out on is connections that child has with their parents. So helping the kinship caregiver set up a strategy or ideas about how they can maintain those connections. Is that through phone? Is that through email? Is that through visits? What does that look like and work with the worker at your agency to establish that, so that birth connection is not lost for that child.

This concludes our agenda for Module 4. Congratulations! As you wrap up Module 4 work, please refer back to your workbook and review the reference pages. You will also be asked to complete a Home Assessment as homework for this module. Instructions can be found in your workbook on worksheet number 4b titled Home Assessment. You will need to complete this homework assignment prior to completing your reflection assignment. As with previous module work, you will also meet with your supervisor. Your next module, Module 5 will provide you with an overview of the Needs Assessment process.