No. 1965
Permanency Planning
Permanency planning refers to activities undertaken to insure continuity of care for children. If children cannot remain in the care of their families of origin, the goal of permanency planning is to place them in a living arrangement that has the greatest likelihood of providing continuity over time, with preference to relationships that are legally binding. Alternatives for permanency planning in order of preference are (a) maintaining the child in his or her own home, (b) restoring children who are in out-of-home care to their biological families, (c) termination of parental rights and adoption, (d) court appointment of a legal guardian, or (e) planned long-term foster care. As Pike, Downs, Emlen, Downs, and Case (1977) have said, permanency planning refers to an intention that a child's living arrangements will endure over time, recognizing that this outcome cannot be guaranteed. ... Permanency planning supports the value that our society places on family life and the best interests of the child, which we assume are best served within a family unit [1985: 38].
This definition extends the focus for permanency planning efforts to children already in the substitute care system who need either to be reunited with their parents or freed for adoption or other long-term guardianship arrangements, and those children and families at risk of breaking up who, through intensive, in-home preventive services, can avoid placement. The term permanency planning typically implies a wide range of procedures, policies, and activities designed to achieve these ends, including: client information systems; procedures for case review and case management; legal advocacy; intensive, goal-oriented family casework; and various fiscal incentives designed to increase the attractiveness of non-placement alternatives. The centerpiece legislation embodying permanency concepts is Public Law 96-272- whose legislative history and effect have been amply documented elsewhere [AlIen 1983; Gambrill and Stein 1985; Laird and Hartman 1985] which, along with numerous state statutes, transformed the value statements so well articulated by Stein and Gambrill [1985] into clear statements of public policy and administrative directive.
While permanency planning has now achieved a permanency
of its own in the landscape of child welfare, it has by no means lost its
capacity to generate spirited debate as to intent, procedures, and desirable
outcomes. For at its core, permanency planning is, as Wiltse says, a
question of "subtle" rights and values:
When we speak of every child's right to permanency and continuity of care
... we are endeavoring to express a very subtle kind of right and one not
easily reduced to statutory expression or articulated in an agency manual.
It is more a concept of what every child needs to grow and develop as a
human being [1980: 13].
The problems in defining and operationalizing this "subtle right" continue to occupy leading investigators and scholars in social work, law, psychiatry, and child development [Goldstein et al. 1979; Stevenson and Siegel 1984; Wald 1980; Zigler et al. 1983]. If, as Gambrill and Stein note, an orientation toward permanency should "prevail across all services," the emergence of this present volume is indeed timely in working out its implications for group child care.
JAMES WHITTAKER
Whittaker, J.K. Family Support and Group Child Care: Rethinking resources.
In Carman, G.O. and Small, R. (eds.) Permanence and Family Support:
Changing Practice in Group Child Care. Washington DC: Child Welfare
League of America. 29-55
References
Allen, M.L., Golubock, C., and Olson, L. "A Guide to the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980.” In Foster Children in the Courts. M. Hardin, editor. Boston: Butterworth Legal Publishers, 1983, pp.575-609.
Gambrill, E.D. and Stein, T.J., editors. Permanency Planning for Children: Special Issue. Children and Youth Services Review, 7. No. 2/3 (1985): 7-281
Goldstein, J., Freud, A., and Solnit, A.J. Before the Bests Interests of the Child. New York: Free Press, 1979.
Laird, J., and Hartmann, A., edtors. A Handbook of Child Welfare. New York: Free Press, 1985.
Stevenson, H.W. ad Siegel, A.E. Child Development Research and Social Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984
Wald, M. “Goldstein, J., Freud, A., and Solnit, A.J. Before the Bests Interests of the Child”. Michigan Law Review, 78 No.5 (1980) 645-694.
Zigler, E.F., Kagin, S.L., and Klugman, E. Children, Families and Government. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983
