Family and Friends Together Program
In March 2023, we launched our new kinship support program, “Family and Friends Together Program” (FFTP). The Family and Friends Together Program was formed as an innovative public-private partnership between Angels Foster Care and Santa Barbara County Child Welfare Services (CWS), serving the youngest and most vulnerable members of our community.
This voluntary program provides intensive social worker support to kinship and non-related extended family members (NREFMs) caring for foster children from birth to age five throughout Santa Barbara County. Kinship caregivers typically include grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, or cousins of foster children. Kinship and NREFM caregivers encounter unique challenges. Our aim with FFTP is to create personalized support plans, enabling these families to offer the optimal environment for the infants, toddlers, and preschoolers under their care.
Decades of research have demonstrated that children in foster care do best when placed with family members. Long term studies have shown that children in kinship care have better mental health outcomes, higher competence levels, better emotional well-being, and less maltreatment in care than children placed in unrelated resource homes. Yet providing foster care for a family member can be challenging. Kinship families often have very little time to prepare for fostering and there are frequently intergenerational challenges in families involved with the child welfare system. Kinship caregivers may be afraid, wondering if they can successfully care for the child. Grandparents may feel guilt that the child ended up in the foster care system. Relatives may also feel anger toward the parent who has lost custody. Confidentiality may be a challenge. Non-related families fostering children are not required to share personal information with a foster child’s parents, but biological parents often know where, and with whom, their children are living. These distinct hurtles make it crucial to provide kinship caregivers with the necessary and appropriate support to ensure the best outcomes for both the children and their families.
The FFTP program is an expansion of our Angels Foster Care services. We will continue to operate our core Angels Foster Care program while also offering Family and Friends Together. Both programs are overseen by Jennifer Mills, LCSW with Marlene Velasquez, MA, who is the lead social worker for FFTP. The FFTP program provides case management, referrals, and intensive individualized social worker support for kinship caregivers and the children they are fostering. As part of the services provided by FFTP, Marlene meets with each kinship family within 30 days of placement to conduct an assessment and then craft a personalized family plan. Marlene also provides monthly reports to CWS documenting the well-being of the entire family, including any older siblings in the home. The below components are factored into each personalized family plan:
Skill building tailored to the needs of the family
Child welfare system navigation
Brief therapeutic intervention
Psychoeducation
Assistance identifying childcare providers
Emotional support for kinship caregivers
Liaising with Santa Barbara County Child Welfare Services (CWS)
Help with Medi-Cal coverage for the children
Attendance of all court hearings by FFT social worker
Supplies upon placement, and as needed, including car seats, strollers, cribs, diapers, formula, and clothing.
Since March 2023, we have had 35 families participate in the program.
We look forward to continuing to build and grow this program in order to provide essential support services to kinship and NREFM families in Santa Barbara County.
Read more about our FFTP program in Noozhawk here and in the Santa Barbara Independent here.