St. David's Center for Child and Family Development
Report date
April 2020
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Stakeholder Engagement: The progress attained by the Minnesota Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI-MN) is entirely a result of the active engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders whose perspectives are critical to understanding the challenges of the current foster care system and generating the systemic change needed to redefine caregiving with the best interest of the child at its center. Each part of the structure that supports QPI-MN values collaboration as paramount: the steering committee, action work groups, and the newly established Train the Champions cohort. For the past two years, workgroups galvanized around specific systemic challenges and barriers in providing quality parenting, resulting in changed practices observable in more than 80 social workers and caregivers across the state. Foster parents now attend county and state planning
meetings. Social workers are now providing “comfort calls” when a child is initially placed that help biological parents and children know they are in the hands of a sensitive caregiver. Foster parent training is now led by foster parents and foster youth, whose voices have largely been silenced in the past.
meetings. Social workers are now providing “comfort calls” when a child is initially placed that help biological parents and children know they are in the hands of a sensitive caregiver. Foster parent training is now led by foster parents and foster youth, whose voices have largely been silenced in the past.
Child-Centered System Assessment/Practice Development: The vision of strong birth parent/foster parent relationships remains at the center of all the action workgroups. As part of our ongoing efforts to create practice guides and templates for communities and counties across the state, Minnesota participated in the QPI Evaluation Toolkit Design Session for the Youth Law Center that resulted in a plan to disseminate practice guides and toolkits by Dec 2019 and track their application and the experience in implementation. Included in the dissemination are the practice guides for: comfort calls, circle of support meetings, child/youth information sharing form, and out-of-home placement information. At the end of 2019, 57% of the foster homes tracked were identified as meeting QPI-MN foster parent expectations, an increase from the mid-year point of 44%. These changes are aligned with similarly child-centric initiatives like the state’s Foster Care Sibling Bill of Rights, supported by QPI-MN and signed by the governor in May 2018, and the national Family First Prevention Services Act, which seeks to improve the wellbeing of children in out-of-home placement.
Recruitment/Retention of Foster Parents of Color: Early in the Initiative, Gregory and Barbara Van Leer and Curtis and Darlene Bell took leadership in addressing systemic racial inequity and an interest in increasing recruitment and retention of foster parents of color. Their outreach within the Black community through presentations and event participation changed perceptions about and generated interest in foster parenthood. Their leadership within the steering committee and action work groups and their participation in state and private agency training have been instrumental. With national influence, they have presented at the National QPI Conference and frequently speak about their lived experience at state launches across the country. Comparative 2018/2019 data of 7 private agencies indicates an increase from 89 to 136 homes of cultural alignment (increase of 25% to 34%). In 2020, Minnesota established a Train the Champions cohort to further pollinate QPI across the state, including people with lived experience and child welfare staff dedicated to QPI as an effective approach to transforming our child welfare system, which includes 8 out of 12 members from diverse communities.
Key lessons learned
We originally anticipated a 50% reduction in placement disruptions, defined as a move from a foster home that occurs without a planned transition by the child’s care team. Baseline data from seven private agencies in 2018 indicated a range of 8% to 32% of transitions were unplanned. Similarly, eight private agencies that provided data for 2019 indicated 9% to 33% of transitions were unplanned. Unplanned transitions can occur for a variety of reasons, including court orders to return home, older youth who run away, and moves to kinship homes that occur without planning, in addition to foster parent request for immediate removal. Though the year-over-year change was minimal this past year, where QPI-MN has the greatest influence is in supporting foster parents and their relationships with biological parents and foster youth, thereby reducing stress, overwhelm, and risk of disruption. As QPI-MN continues to evolve, there is opportunity to provide education to all stakeholder groups about the impact that unplanned transitions have on relationships and child functioning.
Communities who self-identify as interested in full implementation of QPI will require their own community-based launch with representation of those with lived experience (i.e. youth, birth parents, relatives, foster families). We have been reminded in this process of how critical it is to create space for county-specific system discovery and assessment and to tailor solutions at the county level, because we know that in the state of Minnesota, this is where change in practices need to take place in order to set the stage for broader pollination. Counties continue to come forward with their own interest in launching QPI in their specific communities, simultaneously expanding the larger initiative. QPI will launch in at least three new Minnesota counties in 2020. The launch process will include site-specific implementation and ongoing support provided by QPI-MN Leaders and Champions, tailored to each individual community and including individuals with lived experience in all aspects of the region’s work. We intend to assess the efficacy of QPI-related policy and practice changes in each county, thereby fueling the cycle of learning as we bring the movement to scale across the state.
Tribal community involvement continues to build at a pace that reflects the historical and current distrust of the child welfare system and initiatives to “fix” the system and practices within it, including QPI-MN. We intend to work to repair the ways this work launched and gained traction in our state that failed to thoughtfully engage tribal community leaders and members in a way that honors their experience and holds true to our values around collaboration and full, active engagement of stakeholders. Within the second year of the grant period, relationships with the ICWA Law Center in Hennepin County and a former foster youth of tribal affiliation has deepened to include two indigenous individuals in the QPI-MN Train the Champions cohort that began in 2020. Our efforts must remain intentional every step of the way, and their voices in leadership within the cohort will ensure the Initiative makes good on its promise to place the child’s best interest at the center of every decision through perspective-sharing and problem-solving that reflects greater awareness and new or deepened sensitivity.
Reflections on the community innovation process
Increase collective understanding of the issue:
Collective understanding of the issue, made possible by creating space for dialogue and relationship-building within the steering committee and action workgroups, was instrumental in gaining traction and reaching results to date. People with lived experience - birth parents, foster youth and foster parents – have gained access to the others’ perspectives, both locally and nationally, and have joined together to offer wisdom in creating new practices that keep the child’s best interest at the center of decision-making. For example, the 2019 Youth Voice action workgroup developed three recommendations to create a better experience of youth involved in the foster care system: 1) a communication platform; 2) a system for children/youth to know age-appropriate rights while in foster care; and 3) training developed and led by youth for potential foster parents.
This practice of intentionally engaging, creating space for perspective-sharing and relationship development, and seeking creative solutions in the context of a diverse set of stakeholders who understand challenges from multiple angles has been critical to our success to date.
Collective understanding of the issue, made possible by creating space for dialogue and relationship-building within the steering committee and action workgroups, was instrumental in gaining traction and reaching results to date. People with lived experience - birth parents, foster youth and foster parents – have gained access to the others’ perspectives, both locally and nationally, and have joined together to offer wisdom in creating new practices that keep the child’s best interest at the center of decision-making. For example, the 2019 Youth Voice action workgroup developed three recommendations to create a better experience of youth involved in the foster care system: 1) a communication platform; 2) a system for children/youth to know age-appropriate rights while in foster care; and 3) training developed and led by youth for potential foster parents.
This practice of intentionally engaging, creating space for perspective-sharing and relationship development, and seeking creative solutions in the context of a diverse set of stakeholders who understand challenges from multiple angles has been critical to our success to date.
Progress toward an innovation
Ensuring excellent, developmentally informed parenting occurs for all children/youth who enter foster care (be it a day or multiple years) is at the heart of our mission. Shifting focus to the experience from the child’s perspective and their needs – very much dependent upon the quality of their parenting - is necessary for true innovation in the child welfare system. We believe we are closer to this goal than before the grant, and in many ways have achieved innovation. The practice guides we have built and disseminated broadly are in use within counties across the state, and Representative Erin Moran introduced legislation to require that one of our practices - comfort calls – be instituted as a standard practice. That is the definition of progress toward innovation, seeded in some communities, expanded to others, and positioned for statewide resolution. Common understanding, the ability to generate the best possible solutions based on shared perspective, and deep, passionate, in many cases, longstanding engagement are key indicators we are not only tracking but palpably feeling as we continue at both a statewide Initiative level as well as within counties.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
Our future work will need to continue to actualize both explicit to implicit principles for true system change. We look at our practices and resources as structural (explicit) flowing to shifts in power dynamics, relationships and connections (implicit) to our final transformative change when mental models of the foster care system have truly changed. To reach that breakthrough of true system change, when children’s experience reflects societal and individual sensitivity to their needs and best interests, we need to continue in both our explicit and implicit work: launching in more counties and garnering the perspectives, strengths, and concerns of stakeholders at local levels, developing additional best practices, pollinating them through our Initiative structure, seeking opportunities to legislate change and support the Initiative in counties across the state, continue to include, engage and amplify new voices, and measure and reflect on our progress and learning.
What's next?
Our next steps for continuing this project include the following:
1) Continue to further embed best practices in communities and counties across the state, through Champions, steering committee and action workgroup committee members.
2) Continue YLC Train the Champion Training to support existing and new engagement within communities and counties throughout each state, and ensure participation in virtual national and state convenings that further our work.
3) Launch county-level QPI processes in at least three new Minnesota counties in 2020.
4) Follow recommendations of foster youth, voiced and built into a plan in 2019.
5) Continue to deepen and expand relationships within tribal communities, engaging leaders as well as people with lived experience.
6) Continue to increase and maximize opportunities with DHS for QPI-MN involvement in setting best practices in the state.
7) Seek state funding to support Initiative activity ongoing.
1) Continue to further embed best practices in communities and counties across the state, through Champions, steering committee and action workgroup committee members.
2) Continue YLC Train the Champion Training to support existing and new engagement within communities and counties throughout each state, and ensure participation in virtual national and state convenings that further our work.
3) Launch county-level QPI processes in at least three new Minnesota counties in 2020.
4) Follow recommendations of foster youth, voiced and built into a plan in 2019.
5) Continue to deepen and expand relationships within tribal communities, engaging leaders as well as people with lived experience.
6) Continue to increase and maximize opportunities with DHS for QPI-MN involvement in setting best practices in the state.
7) Seek state funding to support Initiative activity ongoing.
If you could do it all over again...
If we could give ourselves one piece of advice, it would be to pay attention across all cultural communities to create space for engagement, seek perspectives, understand root and historical issues, co-create mutual understanding, and imagine solutions together. The two communities with disproportionate rates of child protection involvement are the Black and indigenous. Because of the pace and early, powerful momentum post-launch, with passionate, focused engagement of the diverse stakeholders who participated, we missed opportunities to engage voices within tribal communities so deeply and traumatically impacted by experiences with the child welfare system. This past year, we have taken action, sought engagement, began building toward trusting relationships and genuinely seeking perspectives. We will continue on this path with intention to continue to deepen relationships and expand connections, lift up experiences for learning, and point ourselves collectively toward solutions that address micro-level practice changes as well as deeply rooted complex challenges and historical systemic trauma.
One last thought
We knew diverse stakeholder engagement would be the key to a successful Quality Parenting Initiative in Minnesota, based on the model and learning from our peers in other states across the country. It is important to name just what that diversity has resulted in. Our “experts by experience” – foster youth, biological parents, and foster parents with wisdom to share from oftentimes painful experiences – have been instrumental to not only creating effective solutions but in creating sensitivity and profound understanding among system stakeholders who otherwise would never have known how deeply communication early in their child’s placement out of their home, for example, affects parents’ experiences. Assumptions and misunderstandings from literally every angle, every person involved in a child’s placement, that are never debunked or spoken to lead to decisions that have terrible consequences. This project, with funding and advisory support from the Bush Foundation, has honored and lifted the voices of so many and shaped the thinking, relationships, and decisions of so many others.