Implementation of Permanency Roundtables, County of San Diego, California

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

The Child Welfare Services (CWS) division of the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) adopted a trauma-informed process to improve the outcomes for youth and families served by CWS. Working in partnership with Casey Family Programs, CWS identified Permanency Roundtables as an intervention and catalyst for culture and practice change to improve permanency outcomes for older youth. The Permanency Roundtable’s goal is to expedite the process of moving youth towards a legally permanent placement (reunification with parent, legal guardianship, or adoption). A Permanency Roundtable is a professional case consultation that is structured, in-depth, future focused, relentless and creates a sense of urgency around permanency. It is designed to support social workers as they apply innovative solutions and best practices in their evaluation of permanency options for the youth. At each Permanency Roundtable, a consultant external to CWS is present to provide a unique perspective and to act as a voice of a community partner. Another goal of the Permanency Roundtable is to develop a Permanency Action Plan that can be realistically implemented, which will stimulate thinking and learning about pathways to permanency for these and other youth, and to identify and address barriers to permanency. By creating a forum from which the main purpose is permanency, we have not only enabled staff to identify previously-unexplored alternatives, we’ve also provided an opportunity to re-explore connections from a families past that may have been a support to the youth or could now be a permanent connection. Of the 63 youth who received a Permanency Roundtable: 6 youth have re-connected with their parent, 1 youth successfully transitioned to the home of Non-relative Extended Family Member, 50 were referred to family finding services to search for lifelong connections and 30 established new permanent lifelong connections.