On Monday, March 1, 2021, the ABA Center on Children and the Law, Casey Family Programs, Children’s Defense Fund, and Generations United hosted a webinar presenting a new tool that lays out the necessary steps for effective implementation of the kinship provisions under the Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First Act) which includes kinship navigator programs.

 

The Family First Act Kinship Checklist provides concrete steps to successfully implement the Family First Act. Specifically, the new checklist focuses on five key areas in order to impact kinship caregivers:

  1. Kinship Navigator Programs
  2. National Model Family Foster Home Licensing Standards
  3. Title IV-E Prevention Programs
  4. Engaging Family for Children and Youth Placed in Qualified Residential Treatment Programs
  5. Improvements to the Interstate Placement for Foster Care, Guardianship, and Adoption

 

The Kinship Checklist highlights the need to engage and consult with kinship caregivers, birth parents, youth, and other community members when carrying out systemic reform.

 

The number of children in foster care being raised by relatives has increased from 24 percent in 2009 to 32 percent in 2019, and social science research has shown that children do very well in kinship homes, including factors like increased permanency, safety, mental health, cultural identity, stability, etc. The effective implementation of programs like the Family First Act, which serves to better support children, families, kinship caregivers, and encourage a family and kin-first culture, can be facilitated by resources like The Family First Kinship Checklist.

 

This checklist, created in a partnership between the ABA Center on Children and the Law, Casey Family Programs, Children’s Defense Fund, and Generations United. For more information, visit www.grandfamilies.org.