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In this Issue:
+ Third Annual Permanency Summit
+ NY Counties Increasing Family-Based Care
+ RFPs for Provider Agencies
+ Recent Grants & Resources
 

January 2018


A new year always brings a reckoning: What could we do better in the coming year? And where did we fall short in our vision during the prior year?  As a foundation, we learn from our grantees as well as our grant-making, building on successful strategies and analyzing the “why” of grants that did not achieve what we hoped. We are pleased to report that 2017 was a productive and exciting year for the Foundation’s work to increase and improve family-based care and to reduce time to permanency for all children in the foster care system in NY.

Most significant is our deepening partnerships with government agencies and policymakers, nonprofit providers, foundations, consultants, and advocates for foster youth, collaborations that permit us to develop scalable practices and expand our reach across New York.  Our public-private partnerships are yielding measurable results in improving family-based care, kin placement rates, and permanency outcomes in a short period of time – including in Westchester, Onondaga, Suffolk, Dutchess, Erie, and New York City, and at the state level with OCFS.

We are pleased to share news of progress from a sample of these partnerships.
Community Redesign: Kinship Practice Strategies
Panel featuring innovative kinship-focused strategies to improve permanency in Suffolk and Onondaga Counties
RHF Co-sponsors Third Annual Permanency Summit with OCFS and Casey Family Programs
 
New York is a county-based child welfare system, which means effective practices and new ideas in one county may never find their way to neighboring counties. The Permanency Summit, a two-day convening in December, brought together child welfare leaders, judges and stakeholders from the 11 largest NY counties to learn from experts and each other about strategies to enhance permanency in their counties.

The collegial and collaborative atmosphere included sessions focused on: improving kinship care, addressing disproportionality, developing reinvestment strategies, permanency for youth with intellectual & developmental disabilities, rapid permanency reviews, engaging birth parents, and more.

This year, we are pleased to make available the Summit materials to those not in attendance.  Permanency Summit materials available here and video sessions available here
RHF Supports County Initiatives to
Increase Family-Based Care
 
RHF has been working closely with four counties – Onondaga, Westchester, Dutchess, and Suffolk – on a variety of strategies to improve permanency and increase family-based care. Initiatives are at varying stages of development, and notably, Onondaga and Westchester Counties have achieved measurable improvements in a short period of time due to their bold efforts.

Through key reforms including expanded family finding, a triage team for initial placements and offering flexible training options for caregivers, Onondaga County has increased family placements by 7 percentage points in 6 months. In addition, 77% of cases reviewed by the triage team have been placed in approved kinship homes.

Westchester County has made nearly no new residential care placements since implementing a Director’s Approval process that requires documentation of the youth’s mental health or behavioral needs for these placements. They have also nearly tripled their KinGAPS from last year.
RHF Invests in Foster & Kin Families
 
Through a competitive RFP process for upstate providers, RHF has selected Parsons Child & Family Center and Children’s Home of Jefferson County to receive combined grant funding of $450,000 over two years. Parsons will implement “30 Days to Family” to find relatives and make placements within 30 days of removal, and Children’s Home will embed a kin navigator with CPS to make kin-first placements.

And in NYC, RHF has partnered with other foundations through the Foster Care Excellence Fund to support up to four providers to improve kinship and foster parent recruitment and retention. Proposals are due to the NY Community Trust by January 22nd and recipients will be announced in late spring.
New Foundation Grants
 
Fiscal Model Reform at ACS
With financing from RHF and Casey Family Programs, the Administration for Children’s Services is working to transform its financing structures to align with, and incentivize, improved outcomes for children.  Child welfare financing structures often operate at odds with best practices for children in foster care, resulting in longer lengths of stay and a high foster care census. This two-year project aims to re-design fiscal models to achieve measurable advances in the areas of permanency, safety and well-being by, in part, eliminating the siloing of preventive and foster care services at provider agencies.
 
Hope for Youth
In support of Hope for Youth’s #kidscantwait initiative, RHF’s $50,000 grant will assist the Long Island-based agency in recruiting and supporting more therapeutic foster homes for children aged 0-5 with acute trauma.
  

Adoptive & Foster Family Coalition NY 
RHF is pleased to continue its support of AFFCNY with a $200,000, two-year grant to assist the organization in expanding services to kin, foster, and adoptive families across the state. The Coalition has become an increasingly signficant voice and source of support and information for these critical caregivers.









Chronicle for Social Change
Augmenting funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, this grant will allow The Chronicle to expand its child welfare investigative reporting to cover issues in Albany and the rest of New York. https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/
Copyright © 2016 Redlich Horwitz Foundation, All rights reserved.

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