Involve kin prior to removal

About this recommendation

Many families interacted with their child welfare agency prior to a child ever being removed. Identifying kin early and often ensures that kin placements are already known to the agency if a removal is ultimately necessary. Plus, involving kin earlier may provide some families with the support they need to avoid a removal altogether.

How to do this

• Explicitly encourage parents and youth to bring their supportive kin to meetings. Update templates for meeting invites and notification letters to include this encouragement.
• Ask youth and parents about their support network at the earliest possible interactions, including investigations and meetings. If removal is not imminent, do not frame this as asking about potential placement options. Instead, this is about helping to identify and activate the family’s support network, in the hopes of helping the family to take action and get support earlier.
• Keep asking about kin at every interaction. The stress and potential shame at being involved with the child welfare system may discourage people from sharing at first.
• Make it possible for kin to complete approval steps like a background check ahead of time, so they are already approved if removal becomes necessary.

Anticipated costs and benefits

Who's doing this

• Many states allow kin to begin their kin-specific approval process, such as getting fingerprinted, prior to removal, so they are ready if removal becomes necessary.
• Listen to Outagamie County, Wisconsin share their strategies for engaging kin during intake on the Let’s Have a Conversation podcast.
• View Iowa state's example release of information form for parent(s).