Follow the Love Pilot Project - Strengthening Relational Permanency for Foster Youth in Florida Child Welfare Systems

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Annette Semanchin-Jones, Ph.D.

University at Buffalo

PROJECT TEAM:

Lisa Schelbe, Ph.D., Florida State University

Elizabeth Wynter, Ed.D., LMHC, Selfless

Love Foundation

OVERVIEW

Florida has yet to operationalize the concept of relational permanency for older youth in foster care and has yet to fully engage youth in discussions and decision-making around supportive connections. The Selfless Love Foundation (SLF), a Florida-based organization that promotes foster youth voice, approached the Institute about collaborating on a new relational permanency initiative. The SLF, with a team of collaborative partners, launched the Follow the Love – Youth Relational Permanency initiative (FTL) to address these current gaps in the field.

Follow the Love aims to:

1. Enhance Florida’s child welfare systems’ understanding and prioritizing of relational permanency. 2. Improve the number and strength of youth’s supportive adult connections. 3. Increase the engagement of transitioning youth in permanency planning and decision-making.

FTL includes youth engagement and strengths-based training to participating child welfare agencies, by training and deploying FTL Facilitators to implement FTL with youth ages 16 and 17 years old, who are in non-kinship out-of-home placements. These FTL Facilitators are Guardians ad Litem, clinicians, or independent living or youth well-being specialists. The FTL team is currently collaborating with three pilot agencies: Family Support Services of North Florida, Community Partnership for Children, and Heartland for Children. The Institute is funding the initial evaluation of FTL.

PROJECT COLLABORATION:

The FTL team is currently collaborating with three pilot agencies: Family Support Services of North Florida, Community Partnership for Children, and Heartland for Children. The Institute is funding the initial evaluation of Follow the Love.

CURRENT STATUS

As of June 2022, the three pilot agencies reported the following number of FTL Facilitators and participating youth in this quarter:

❖ Family Support Services of North Florida - 11 youth, 4 facilitators

PARTICIPANTS:

❖ Community Partnership for Children - 20 youth, 3 facilitators ❖ Heartland for Children - 20 youth, 2 facilitators

Trained FTL Facilitators use the Youth Connections Scale and Permanency Pact to support strengthsbased conversations with youth about past and current relationships. Facilitators began meeting with youth, completing the Youth Connections Scales, and identifying potential supportive connections identified by youth.

The evaluators noted that implementation of FTL has been slow at each agency, as evidenced by a return rate of 67 percent of the Youth Connection Scales. The team met in July to identify strategies to increase engagement in the FTL process, including the use of a fidelity checklist. There are no preliminary findings to report at this time.

NEXT STEPS

The team is continuing to work with the three pilot sites as well as onboarding a second round of pilot sites and modifying practices based on lessons learned so far. The team will provide quarterly updates to the Institute, with a final report due June 30, 2023. The final report will include final implementation and processrelated outcomes, preliminary youth outcomes, and other information that might inform the expansion of the FTL initiative.