Refuge House Policies & Procedures

Child-Placing Agency Policies

Statement of Services......

Foster Care

Selection Criteria for Applicants, Foster Parents, and Child Care Staff

Foster Parent Training Requirements......

Criteria for Determining Characteristics of Children Who May Be Placed in an Agency Home

Rights and Responsibilities

Placement of Emergency and Non-Emergency Children/Admission......

Respite Plan and Reimbursement

Pre-Service Training Policy for Foster Parents and Child Care Staff

Conflict of Care

Individual Service Plan Review Policy

Foster Home Verification......

Medical and Dental Care

Medical and Dental Care

Emergency Medical Care

Records Retention Policy

Child Rights

Child’s Rights

Meal Plan…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………39

Preparation for Adult Living……………………………………………………………………………………………..45

Policy on Child’s Contact with Biological Family, Including Siblings

`Substitute Care Intake

Screening Procedures for Foster Parents and Child Care Staff

Sample Placement Agreement

Written Notice to Parents/Managing Conservators

Discharge/Removal of Children

Subsequent Placements……………………………………………………………………………………………………54

Client Rights

Appeal Process for Agency Clients

Problem Management

Discipline and Behavior Management

Restraint Policy

Chemical Dependency……………………………………………………………………………………………………..63

Administration

Informing Licensing Representative of Changes

Evaluation for On-Going Compliance with Minimum Standards and Documenting/Correcting All Non-Compliance

Responding to Patterns of Non-Compliance with Minimum Standards

Decision Tree for Reporting and Investigating Allegations or Incidents

Incident Reports

Foster Family Annual Evaluation of Quality

Governing Body’s Responsibilities

Fiscal Accountability

Budget

Reserve Funds

Reports and Records

Runaways

Required Material

Fee Policy

Structure of a Child Placing Agency

Level 1 Child Placing Staff Services

Agency Homes Meet Minimum Standards

Personnel Policies

Personnel Qualifications and Responsibilities

Job Descriptions

Volunteers

Screening Program

Informing Licensing Representative of Changes

Refuge House Policies & ProceduresChild Placing Agency Policies

Child-Placing Agency Policies

Subject /

Statement of Services

Applicable Standards / 1400.2
Date Board Approved / 04/28/03; Changes Approved 3/07/06

Policy:Refuge House will provide a full spectrum of foster care services to the children referred to this agency for care.

Procedure:

1)Children Served
Refuge House accepts children of all ages and both sexes who can benefit from foster/adoptive care. Children’s needs must fall within the range of levels of care Basic through Specialized. Since children’s needs often change, we will adjust the level of services within the same home if possible, rather than asking the child to move because his/her needs have changed. Children’s needs sometimes do not fit into neat categories, such that we will develop foster/adoptive homes prepared to cope with the unique situation of children who are both emotionally and behaviorally disturbed and children with developmental disabilities.
We only accept children who are placed by the Department of Family and Protective Services, and they have in common the experience of having been abused and/or neglected by their families.

2)Foster Care Programs
Therapeutic Foster Care-The therapeutic program is structured family living in homes in which experience, well-trained professional foster/adoptive parents and their families help emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children to shape their skills and abilities to the point they no longer require specialized care. Components of the program include comprehensive support for the foster family, counseling/therapy from qualified therapists, remedial educational help, and aggressive service planning.

3)Staffing

Refuge House seeks out bright, capable and caring individuals to be a part of our agency family. All professional staff has college degrees in social work or other human services fields and relevant experience. In addition to this, all staff and foster/adoptive families are asked to sign the Refuge House Statement of Faith when they become affiliated with Refuge House. This is to ensure that all are aware of the Christian philosophy and principles which Refuge House strives to support in all that we do, and to set the expectation up from that these principles and beliefs will be upheld by all.

Refuge House staff members are ably assisted in working with children by our team of consultants including, but not limited to, licensed social workers and therapists, a psychologist, psychiatrists, physicians, nurses and trainers. Decisions are made via team consensus whenever possible.

Although they are not part of our staff, DFPS caseworkers, and parents who are working toward reunification are all considered to be valued members of the Refuge House team.

4)Description of Services

  1. Case Planning
    A temporary individual service plan is ready for the child and foster/adoptive parents within 72 hours of placement, based primarily upon written referral material. The initial individual service plan is completed within the first 30 days of placement in consultation with the child, the managing conservator, the child’s parent(s), Refuge House Staff, foster parents and professional consultants. The service plan is reviewed and updated by the interdisciplinary treatment team every six (6) months for children with basic needs and quarterly for children with therapeutic needs. Addendums are made to the service plan as needed when individual items are changed.
  2. Case Management
    Experienced staff ensure that children’s individual service plans are carried out, through at least weekly contact, including, but not limited to, at least two home visits per month and two telephone contacts per month for homes with children leveled moderate or above and at least one home visit per month and three telephone contacts per month for homes with basic level of care children. There will be at least one on call Case Manager available via cell phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to support foster/adoptive parents.
  3. Preparation of Foster/Adoptive Families
    Refuge House accepts experienced, successful foster/adoptive parents, or foster/adoptive parents who have completed the required 40 hours of pre-service training. Thereafter, Refuge House staff and consultants provide training opportunities through which single foster/adoptive parents gain 50 hours of in-service training per year, and married couples each get 30 hours for a total of 60 training hours for the family unit. Our foster/adoptive parents often obtain training specific to one prospective child’s needs from our personnel.
    At the time of placement of a foster/adoptive child in a particular home, the Level One Child Placing Staff and the Executive Director will assess and evaluate the home and make a determination regarding the appropriateness of future placements in that particular home.

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Refuge House Policies & ProceduresFoster Care

Foster Care

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Selection Criteria for Applicants, Foster Parents, and Child Care Staff

Applicable Standards / 3100.2a, 3100.2c
Date Board Approved / 04/28/03, Changes Approved 3/07/06

See Standard 2320.1, Screening Program for Foster Parents, Child Care Staff.

(Pg. 82)

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Refuge House Policies & ProceduresFoster Care

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Foster Parent Training Requirements

Applicable Standards / 2410.0 and 3100.3
Date Board Approved / 04/28/03, Changes Approved 3/07/06

Policy:Refuge House foster and adoptive families will be well prepared and capable of dealing with the behaviors exhibited by children in their home. They will understand the needs of therapeutic children and youth, and they will ensure that DFPS licensing standards are met. Refuge House will only verify therapeutic foster/adoptive homes.

Procedure:

  1. All prospective foster/adoptive parents must attend an orientation class. This will include information about the mission and vision, services provided, and Roles and Responsibilities. This class is one (3) hours and will not count towards annual training hours.
  1. All prospective foster/adoptive parents must attend pre-service training that will be provided to them by Refuge House (or in association with other local child-placing agencies) before the verification of their home. Pre-service training is 40 hours of classroom time.

Pre-service training will include the following classes for therapeutic foster/adoptive homes:

  • PRIDE classes (30 hours)
  • First Aid and CPR (4 hours)
  • Medication Training – Psychotropic Medications (2 hours)
  • Behavior Management – PMAB (8 hours), 4 hours yearly udate

PRIDE Classes include the following:

  • Connecting with Pride (3 hours)
  • Teamwork Towards Permanence (3 hours)
  • Meeting Developmental Needs:Attachment (3 hours)
  • Meeting Developmental Needs:Loss (3 hours)
  • Strengthening Family Relationships (3 hours)
  • Meeting Developmental Needs:Discipline (3 hours)
  • Understanding and responding to the Issues of Sexual Abuse (3 hours)
  • Continuing Family Relationships (3 hours)
  • Planning for Change (3 hours)
  • Taking PRIDE:Making an Informed Decision (3 hours)
  1. Experienced foster/adoptive parents are those foster/adoptive parents who have already received the training outlined above and who have been previous foster parents for therapeutic children. These parents must have been actively fostering children within the last 12 months. Experienced foster/adoptive parents will not be required to repeat PRIDE training for verification of the home when transferring from another agency. Those who have current certification in First Aid or CPR will not need to repeat this training until their certification expires.
  1. For those potential foster/adoptive parents who took PRIDE classes over a year prior to applying for verification through and who do not have experience in providing foster care, the PRIDE classes will need to be repeated. PRIDE classes may be taken at any local agency offering classes.
  1. Foster/adoptive parents must take Medication training and Behavior Management training on an annual basis. This training must be provided by approved staff.
  1. Medication training includes basic pharmacology – classifications of medications, desired actions, monitoring of side effects and adverse reactions. Medication administration and documentation is taught as well as related policies and procedures.
  1. The Case Manager will ensure documentation of this training according to the agency’s criteria. Documentation of this training according to the agency’s criteria. Documentation will include the date of training, subject, number of hours attended, and the name of the training provider.
  1. Professional staff is responsible for attending 30 hours of training each year within the social, psychological, or behavioral fields of study and/pr area of licensure including the courses listed below, if applicable. All qualifying clock hours must relate directly to child-placing responsibilities. For Level 1 Child-Placing Staff, a minimum of 20 clock hours are needed annually with 10 clock hours relating directly to child placing responsibilities.
  1. Single foster/adoptive parents are responsible for attending an additional 50 hours of training each year, married couples totaling to 60 hours. Refuge House will provide ongoing in-service training opportunities for the foster/adoptive parents and staff. Topics to be offered by for annual training requirements will include:
  • Counseling and Active Listening (1 hour)
  • Self-determination (1 hour)
  • Youth Rights (1 hour)
  • Cultural Diversity (2 hours)
  • Shaken Baby Syndrome and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (2 hours)
  • Professionalism and Evaluations (2 hours)
  • Monitoring and Supervision (1 hour)
  • Respite Care (1 hour)
  • Risk Management (6 hours)
  • Documentation (3 hours)
  • Quarterly Individual Service Plans (3 hours)
  • Working with Sexually Abused Children (3 hours)
  • Learning Theory (1 hour)
  • Motivation Systems (2 hours)
  • Observing and Describing Behavior (1hour)
  • Effective Praise (1 hour)
  • Preventive Teaching (1 hour)
  • Corrective Teaching (1 hour)
  • Teaching Self Control (1 hour)

Other topics will be offered depending upon the needs of the children and current licensure standards. It is the responsibility of the individual receiving the training to ensure documentation is turned in for all training received to the Case Manager. The Case Manager will help the foster/adoptive parents develop a plan in order to acquire necessary training.

  1. Staff and foster/adoptive parents are also able to receive training hours for:
  2. Attending pre-service training for review
  3. Attending seminars which are relevant to their responsibilities
  4. Reading professional publications and writing a brief synopsis (each 30 pages of reading is equal to one hour; no more than 12 hours of the required trianing hours may be earned this way)
  5. Viewing videotapes or listending to cassette tapes pre-approved by the Case Manager.
  6. Hosting new families for observation in the home and training the parent(s) in the specific items listed on the training verification form (up to nine hours for experiences foster/adoptive parents only.)
  7. Staff cannot take vacation time unless their training hours are current.
  8. Foster/adoptive parents who lack training hours and are not responding to a plan to acquire needed training will not receive new children in their home. For more information, see the policy for responding to chronic non-compliance with licensing standards and/or Refuge House policies and procedures.
  9. When foster/adoptive parents complete training in excess of the minimum annual requirement, up to half of the following year’s annual training requirement may be accrued from the extra hours acquired during the previous year.
  10. At least 75 % of the required annual training for foster/adoptive parents must consist of the course work from an accredited educational institution; workshops, seminars, other direct training provided by qualified agencies, organizations and individuals; in-service training; or self-instruction programs. To qualify, in-service training and self-instruction programs must include stated learning objectives, curriculum and learning activities, and an evaluation component.

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Refuge House Policies & ProceduresFoster Care

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Criteria for Determining Characteristics of Children Who May Be Placed in an Agency Home

Applicable Standards / 3100.2b
Date Board Approved / 04/28/03; Changes Approved 3/07/06

Policy:Refuge House assures that the knowledge base, skill level and personal abilities of foster parents are considered at time of verification for the health, safety and well-being of children placed in the home.

Procedure:

The Level 1 Child Placing Staff, with input from the Executive Director and Child and Family Coordinators, will review the foster family file at time of verification and make a determination as to specific characteristics of children that, when placed will have successful outcomes in the specific home environment.

Criteria to be considered will include:

  • The age of the parents - infants and toddlers (age 2 and younger) will generally not be placed in a home if the main caretaker is 65 years old and above.
  • A single foster parent – a foster child of the opposite sex will not be placed in the home of single foster parent from age 13 or older unless the foster family has a proven record and experience fostering.
  • The age and gender of children in the home – consideration will be given to assure protection before placing teenagers (age 13 and above) into homes with teenagers (foster and biological) of the opposite sex.
  • A newly verified foster family with no previous fostering experience – to allow for experience to validate success in outcomes in a variety of situations, a newly verified foster family will be allowed to care for no more than four foster children initially. Therapeutic children with fewer needs will be placed with this type of family until three (3) months of experience is obtained. At the end of three (3) months, the family will be re-evaluated to continue or remove admission limitations. (Refuge House staff will make every effort to abide by this policy, however, sometimes this will not be possible in the situation of emergency placements due to the limited information that is often available at the time of placement. In
  • The strengths and experiences of foster parents with certain types of behavior management skills will be considered when reviewing a child’s history before making a placement recommendation.

The foster family will be evaluated monthly to ensure family development. Pertaining to the above-mentioned criteria, the visit will focus on areas of strength and opportunities for improvement and/or specialized training as referred to in the Monthly Evaluation of Foster/Adopt Home form.

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Refuge House Policies & ProceduresFoster Care

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Rights and Responsibilities

Applicable Standards / 3100.2d Contract 3A-B, 13 A.1, 14 C, 16 A-F, 19 E, 32 A.1, 33 A.13a-b
Date Board Approved / 04/28/03; Changes Approved 3/07/06

Policy:The relationship between Refuge House and foster families will be specifically defined. This will allow potential foster families to make an informed decision about working with the agency.

Procedure:

Both Refuge House and families have obligations to one another and to the children receiving care. These responsibilities will be provided in writing and reviewed at time of orientation to the agency.

1)Placement procedures

  1. Roles and Responsibilities of Refuge House
  2. Matching Process – when a child is available for care and a family profile matches with the child’s needs, the family will be notified by the Intake Coordinator and given verbal information about the child.The CPMS along with the Intake Coordinator, will qualify families based on discussion of criteria that include:
  3. Physical capacity
  4. Current family circumstances such as the amount of time since last placement or the amount of since last child left
  5. Strength of the home’s behavior management program
  6. Foster family preferences, biases of family
  7. Temperaments
  8. Recreational resources
  9. Desires of the family and desires of the foster child, interests, ages
  10. Previous experiences of foster family, rural vs. urban issues
  11. Effects of other in the home
  12. Current compliance with licensure standards
  13. Visitation transportation requirements
  14. CCMS availability

The family is then selected through mutual consent of Refuge House and the family, based on background information available about the child and family strengths. This process is also followed for subsequent placements, however, before a child can be moved from one home to another, prior written approval must be obtained from the managing conservator. In the event of an emergency, and if prior approval cannot be obtained, the Department must be notified of the move within 24 hours or the next working day.