10.2.1 Principles of Preparation for Adult Living and Self-Sufficiency | 10.2.2 Independence vs. Independent Living
In order to successfully prepare youth in care for eventual emancipation, all members of the Child and Family Team must be actively involved in assisting the youth in life skill development and preparation for adulthood. The team's activities include assessing the youth's level of life skill development, developing transition plans for adult living and actively assisting the youth in developing or enhancing their skills. Caseworkers and caregivers must provide life skills for all youth 14 and older, regardless of their permanency goals. The best practice approach will be to shift the emphasis from independence to interdependence as defined above by Maluccio, et al. (1990).
A youth can be described as "independent" when he or she can be primarily self-supporting and able to make life decisions. However, the successful youth is interdependent in that he or she is able to network and interact with the greater community/society as a self-sufficient and productive member of society. In reality, all of us, as members of society, are interdependent on a variety of systems for survival.
This chapter on Independence describes:
· Ways to help youth master essential skills;
· Moving youth toward interdependent living through distinct phases, beginning with initial placement and ending with the youth successfully leaving care;
· Practice implications of each phase; and
· The roles of foster parents, birth parents, social workers and other service providers in helping the youth achieve successful adult living.
All efforts at preparing youth for adult living are based on the following principles:
· Preparation for adulthood is a life-long process beginning at birth.
· Planning and decision-making is best achieved through a Child and Family Team approach.
· The choices youth make as adolescents will dramatically affect the rest of their lives.
· Development of the skills necessary to lead self-sufficient adult lives is best accomplished naturally in day-to-day activities under the guidance of the birth parents and substitute caregivers.
· Key components for a successful transition to adult life and self-sufficiency include education, career planning and development of both employment and life skills.
· Transition planning for self-sufficiency should be a strength-based, planful, step-by-step process.
· All youth will need the opportunity to practice their life skills with support from caregivers, caseworkers and significant others. This can best be achieved when the youth's unique culture and language is ensured.
· Transition planning for self-sufficiency is important for all youth in substitute care, regardless of the permanency goal.
· Transitional planning should include re-examination of the "optimal level of connectedness" (Maluccio, Pine and Warsh, 1998) with the youth's birth family.
· A youth's progress toward self-sufficiency is a dynamic process based on the adolescent's changing maturity, qualities and needs. Targeted discharge planning involving the shared planning and decisions of the Child and Family Team should also be a dynamic process.
A distinction needs to be made among three similar-sounding terms: independence, independent living and transition services.
· Independence is the permanency goal itself (see next paragraph).
· Independent living is the living arrangement in which the youth resides, which is designed to facilitate learning independent living skills (see next section).
· Transition services are support services designed to support the adolescent in his/her preparation for adulthood, regardless of their living arrangement (see below).
The preferred goal for adolescents remains return home. If reunification is not possible, adoption and subsidized guardianship should be explored. Only when these goals have been ruled out should independence be selected as a permanency goal. Even with an independence goal, the caseworker and Child and Family Team must consider at every family meeting, and address in every service plan, whether changing circumstances might allow return home, adoption or subsidized guardianship to become the preferred goal.
In all cases, regardless of the goal, the caseworker must promote connectedness with birth parents, family members and appropriate others who the youth defines as significant (keeping safety considerations in mind). Connectedness with others builds the support system that promotes future success.
As stated earlier, while all youth need preparation for adult living, not all youth will have a permanency goal of independence. All children need to have learning experiences from an early age that will prepare them for eventual independence and adult living. However, Department policy specifies "all youth fourteen and older, regardless of their permanency goal, will have included in their service plan objectives and tasks designed to prepare them for self-sufficiency. This part of the plan is commonly referred to as a `transition plan.'" (Rule 302, Appendix M, Transition Planning for Adolescent Wards)
Independent living refers to various living arrangements and placements that include:
· Transitional Living Placements (TLP)
· DCFS Youth in Transition
· DCFS Scholarship
10.2.1 Principles of Preparation for Adult Living and Self-Sufficiency | 10.2.2 Independence vs. Independent Living