Families Together
Service Description:
In all its work with families, TFC strives to help families recognize, strengthen and broaden their assets, so they can be more effective as a family unit and as individual family members. TFC staff work with parents and children to help them understand and value their individual assets, strengths and skills, and how building upon these assets will strengthen not only their health and effectiveness, but the effectiveness of the family as a whole.
The program model combines residential programming in conjunction with support services to families to optimize family reunification and minimize a child/youth’s time in care.
A core of staff supports family members through three stages of family reunification.
1) Pre-unification
- Contact with family by the Family Support Worker begins within 72 hours of child/youth coming into care to begin the reunification process.
- Youth are placed in an interim residential group care home to prepare for successful reunification. Program staff (mentors) live in with the children/youth within the residence to create a family environment providing child/youth opportunities to be in relationship. We view the family environment (a variety of different age, gendered youth) to be an asset; a positive, healthy milieu to develop and practice life skills such as conflict resolution, negotiation, generosity and coexistence. This environment assists with supporting the child/youth to create new relational patterns that will be transferred and fostered in their family of origin or foster home setting.
- Intensive visitation to the home to identify priority issues through a family functioning assessment such as:
- Living conditions
- Financial conditions
- Caregiver supports and development
- Caregiver / child/youth interactions
- Developmental stimulations
- Interactions between caregivers
- Assess / address issues affecting successful reunification (e.g. parental readiness, ambivalence).
2) Re-unification
- Provision of intensive supports (e.g. face-to-face services up to 20 hours a week) for the family on a 24/7 basis for 60 to 90 days.
- Service Plan is developed based on strengths and concerns as identified through the family functioning assessment
- Child/Youth is spending as much time in family of origin / foster home as is conducive to successful reunification. Giving members an opportunity to rest, learn new skills, practice new ways of interacting, parenting, communicating with the support and guidance of an in-home support worker.
- As part of residential programming a child/youth experiences:
- A Secure Base where the child/youth knows what to expect; structure, rules, routines, etc. In our program this includes a low staff ratio (2-3) with an emphasis on forming attachments, trusting relationships.
- Positive Expectations, the second component, implies that we believe that the children/youth have capacities, gifts, resiliencies, strengths and many positive attributes. This also suggests a sense of hope and change, that life can be different for the child/youth and that we as helpers/mentors believe in them.
- The third component of Resources is the sense of physical, human, economic and community. Families Together places an emphasis on the human aspect of resources, recreating relationship and ways of being with one’s family of origin / foster family. Much attention is also placed on creating a life within the community that encourages relationships both personal and those that we need for day-to-day existence.
- The final component is the Individualized Process. In a relational/developmental program one sees the individual process in both interactional and developmental terms. In our program we focus on Erickson’s psychosocial stages of development and Henry Maier’s Caregiving Template as guides to assist us with the individual process that each child/youth will move through. This is addressed in partnership with the family / foster family to increase the child’s foundation of support and validate the important role that parents play in the child’s sphere of influence.
- Much emphasis is placed on the time spent in the family of origin / foster family. Patterns of healthy interaction and the barriers to such are the primary focus. Parental responsibility and influence increases with positive changes the family members are experiencing.
3) Step-down or Follow-up services
- Incremental increases in the time child/youth spends at home with family of origin / foster family.
- Ongoing provision of on-call assistance to stabilize home environment long term.
- Withdrawal of in-home supports by enhancing families internal and external capacities.
- Provision or links to other community-based support reduce family isolation and increase independence from program.
- Follow-up calls and support at 3 months and 6 months of graduation from program.
- Simultaneous to this process, a concurrent plan is also developed should reunification not work; however, the primary focus and commitment of all TFC staff is to a successful family reunification.
Client Profile:
- Clients have just had their child/youth taken into care and are committed to undertaking some work as a family in order to be reunited with their child/youth, ages 8-15 years.
- The family system demonstrates many or all of the characteristics:
- Inadequate parenting skills and communication skills that inhibit healthy parenting
- Low or limited family functioning
- Isolation
- Limited or ineffective financial management
- Mental health issues, including addictions, that inhibit ability to parent
- Inadequate provision of basic needs
- Abuse or neglect
- Family members with developmental delays (e.g. social, physical, emotional, and/or cognitive delays).
For more information please contact:
SCP Program Coordinator
| Phone: |
(780) 917-8226 |
| Fax: |
(780) 426-1563 |
| Email: |
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