Resource Family Advisory Board

Minutes from Face to Face MeetingOctober 23 & 24, 2015 Anchorage

Roll Call: Brian Headdings, Yurii Miller, Gwen Emel, Danielle Holt, Russell Pressley, David Garcia, Dora Wilson, Sabrina Owsley, Sara Childress, JoAnn Borges Lissa Rylander, Aileen McInnis

Unable to attend: Alana Ballum-Schwan

WELCOME AND OPENINGRFAB meeting began with a welcome from Chair Brian Headdings, and introductions of all Board Members. Sara Childress was present at her first RFAB meeting and her application as the OCS Child Protective Services Management Representative was approved by the board. The Agenda was reviewed and approved.

REPORTS:Licensing Updates – Yurii MillerYurii discussed the upcoming November Licensing Audit and provided the Board with a brief overview of the audit process. Preliminary reviews of provider files show areas of concern regarding homes being considered fully licensed including meeting the training requirement and issues with incomplete background checks and possible barrier crimes. This led into a discussion of issues around training including what counts toward training. Several forms were shared as a result with the board members including the Alternative Training webinar, Community Events, and Webinar information sheet all that can be used toward the training requirement. It was agreed that attention needs to be put toward getting the word out about training, training opportunities and how to use some of the forms to document training.

Yurii also reported that the updated Alaska Resource Family Handbook is getting ready to go to the printers. Foster parents will be able to get 2.0 hours of training for reviewing the new Handbook and filling out the documentation. Yurii gave an update on Foster Wear and handed out both an application that he encourages Board members to share with local vendors and also gave out examples of the Foster Wear cards sent to foster families with their license. Yurii alerted RFAB members that there seems to be a scam regarding Back to School Donations and

Foster child and showed everyone a copy of a postcard that the mother of an OCS employee received.

Aileen gave an update of the Reasonable Prudent Parent Standard that is also a change based on some recent Federal Legislation. She also gave an update on an Adoption related Fundraiser at Barnes and Noble which will raise resource for adoption books for children being adopted out of the foster care system in the upcoming year.

Invited Speaker: Travis Erickson Travis Erickson presented information about the current status of foster care, child protection, and the pressing issues at OCS. The number of children in foster care is rising quickly and this is due to several factors including a higher number of screened in reports and a move toward pattern recognition of reports through the “Five Under Five” rule which looks more closely at repeated reports regarding children under the age of 5. Travis also addressed a concern about the prevalence of repeated maltreatment and the Board had a lively discussion about how intervention into families can happen at an earlier rate and why that might not be happening at this point. Travis also addressed other OCS practice changes such as the pared down administrative reviews which will no longer include foster parents but should free up personnel to focus more on permanency and ICWA preferred placements. He said OCS is also considering other practices such as Birth Match which tries to track families with repeat maltreatment and to provide more oversight when families are pregnant or giving birth.

Invited Speakers: Danielle Holt (Kawerak) and April Stahl (OCS) Danielle and April provided a follow up ICWA Training to continue the education done during the spring retreat. Lots of discussion ensued regarding the level of knowledge and understanding that resource families have about ICWA. One discussion focused on the possibility of a regular call in training opportunity with April to give foster parent and opportunity to ask questions about ICWA.

ACTION STEPS: Aileen will work with April on seeing if there can be a regular teleconference

time for foster parents to ask about ICWA.

Foster Parent Call In/Email InRFAB offered an opportunity on Saturday morning for foster parents to express their concerns to the board directly. We opened up the phone line for input from foster parents around Alaska. No one called in however several email were received through the RFAB address. Concerns included:

Social workers not responding to emails or phone messages Foster child accusing foster families of abuse and foster families not having support

from OCS Recommendation that OCS staff mentor new foster families Regarding complaints again foster homes: foster parent feel like criminals, foster

parents wanting records clears with unfounded complaints; foster parent want an apology for false accusation;

Foster parents want better communication with workers; need after hour support, need better and quicker response to paperwork; always hear “we’ve been very busy)

Suggested foster parent liaison with Family Services Families want to be told about sexual issues with kids; want copy of the case plan,

wanting counseling for when child leaves One foster family talked about working with a dishonest caseworker Citizens Review Board Report Discussion about how we can get information and concerns to OCS management—

suggestion that we send our minutes directly to Christy Lawton to share with the management team

WORK ON INTITIATIVES FOR 2015

Initiative: Continue Starter Kit Program Sabrina talked about the updated post card, flyer and cover letter that she has been working on to publicize the Start Kit Project, which gives a bag or backpack of basic supplies to children coming into foster care. Sara mentioned that she didn’t know the RFAB is involved with this and suggested we need to make it clear that these are coming from the RFAB. The Board set a goal of 300 kits and reminded folks that community members are able to donate financially as well or donate items to be included in a larger kit and we can use this money to each board member talk to folks about starter kits. We need to update the flyers and postcard with drop off information (which can be the ACRF offices where available) and the information about the donation being tax deductible.

ACTION STEPS: Sabrina will update the flyer. Each board member will reach out to encourage others to build starter kits. Aileen will send Sabrina updated information about ACRF offices and the nonprofit

verbiage for the flyer.

Initiative: Develop Board Members as Mentors/Develop and Answer a List of FAQs about Foster CareThere were six general FAQs identified by RFAB Board Members and our hope was to answer these and put up on our website as well as having Board members be knowledgeable of the answers to share with their fellow resource families. Yurii answered most of them as best he could though some were more from the CPS side and probably would be better answered by Sara Childress. There was discussion about the use of social media by foster parents and youth.

One of the questions inspired a longer discussion on a Foster Parents Bill of Rights and the Board had a long discussion about the need for a Foster Parent Bill of Rights. Aileen handed out a list that included the listing on the OCS web page and other rights taught in training and defined in policies and procedures. This could serve as a beginning of a Bill of Rights that might be able to be enshrined in the P and P or in statute. Much of the discussion revolved around foster parent rights around investigations and how much say foster parents have in the

permanency plan of a child. There was more discussion about foster parents not being invited to administrative reviews and concerns about how foster parents get their voice heard. Sabrina shared her experience of how the admin reviews were the place she was able to connect and meet with the birth parents which led to a better relationship between them. She expressed concerns that limiting foster parents in this process would not allow for this opportunity. The board discussed possibly making the Bill of Rights one of our initiatives for the upcoming year.

ACTION STEPS: David Garcia offered to look into Bill of Rights from other States. Aileen will look into FAST Teams which support foster families during investigations. Aileen will also contact Amanda Metivier about the Foster Youth Bill of Rights to

learn more about their role in making the Youth Bill of Rights a reality and possibly modeling our process after theirs

Yurii offered to do an investigations training for board to give us all more information about this process.

Board members are encourage to re-read the Alaska Resource Family Handbook to keep up to date about foster parent policies

Aileen will work on writing up Yurii’ s responses for review by the Board. Aileen will send copy of the Keeping in Touch Handout and the Citizen’s Review

Panel Report to the Board.

Initiative: Develop Resource Family Advisory Board Bylaws We did not get to this at the meeting though a copy was placed in all the RFAB Board Packets.

ACTION STEP:All Board Members should look over the RFAB by Laws and review for next meeting

Initiative: Compile and Share Region Specific Lists of ResourcesWe did not get to this topic at the meeting.

OTHER BUSINESS AND DISCUSSIONS:

National Foster Parent Association Conference: Brian Headdings brought up the possibility of sending Board members to the National Foster Parent Association Conference in Las Vegas in June coming up on June 22-25. Fundraising would be necessary to make this possible but having Alaska representation at the National Foster Parent Association might help in the long term goal of establishing a state association associated with the National Foster Parent Association.

ACTION STEPS: Brian will research more into this to determine costs. Board members who are interested in going should let Brian know. Fundraising will need to be considered at a future point.

Next Face to Face Held in Juneau: We are hoping that our next Face to Face meeting will take place in Juneau during the legislative session with hopes that we can combine the meeting with meeting with our legislators on issues relevant to foster care. We talked about the importance of being prepared and knowing what our purpose is in meeting with them. Teri Tibbett was mentioned as someone who has done workshops with folks about telling your story and being precise and exact. Russ Pressley shared his experience of lobbying on behalf of the University and could offer experience as well. In the discussion we decided to talk with FFCA to see if there is any current legislation that they are working on that RFAB might consider backing or lobbying for.

ACTION STEPS: Board members should look at their calendars in anticipation what dates would

work the best. Aileen will research places in Juneau to have a meeting/hotel rooms. Aileen will check with FFCA about current legislation being considered regarding

foster care.

Discussion about Resources Lending Library Sabrina led the discussion about trying to address the possibility of a resources lending library where resource parents can borrow larger equipment like cribs and car seats for emergency placement of children, especially young children. She talked about how in her situation her family had to lay out close to $1000 for equipment since the child came suddenly on a weekend. Discussion revolved around how a lending library would work, who would take responsibility for inventory and loan, and liability. There was discussion about using a database available on line to track what was available. We got bogged down in the liability piece But other suggestions such as having a Facebook page to announce what was needed to encourage informal swapping between families or having a “foster parent swap meet” on a certain day where foster parents could share clothes, equipment, etch.

ACTION STEPS: Sabrina will approach the Fairbanks ACRF office to see if they would help with a

swap.

Telephonic Opportunity for RFABACRF has reserved its December 9th teleconference spot to focus on the Resource Family Advisory Board and give rural resource families a chance to call in and learn more about the board’s initiatives. The teleconference will be from noon to 1 p.m. and all board members are encouraged to call in.

ACTION STEPS: This should be on the agenda for our November 23 Meeting for planning.

Wrap Up & Review

Thank you cards were signed for Travis, April and Danielle. Aileen will send a thank you to the IBEW for use of their space.

****************************************Next meeting will be held November 23 at Noon via teleconference. This is a change in the regular meeting time because of vacations by the chairpersons.