An Update on Services
Family Resources has a long history of serving youth and families throughout our communities. We have been successful for over 173 years, because we evolve and adapt based on the needs of the community.
In the last four years, we have watched an evolution of child welfare services with the signing of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), which was signed in to law in February 2018.
FFSPA was enacted to turn the focus of the current child welfare system toward keeping children safely with their families to avoid the trauma that results when children are placed in out-of-home care. To increase the number of children who can remain safely at home with their families, the law provides families with greater access to mental health
from
Nicole Cisne Durbin
President and CEO
services, substance use treatment, and/or improved parenting skills. This law significantly shifts how the country provides services for families and youth. In particular, it changed the role of community service providers, how courts advocate and make decisions for families, and the types of placements that youth placed in out-of-home care experience.
We at Family Resources support FFPSA and know that the best place for a child is with their family. Our organization offers an array of services to assist in keeping children healthy and safe with their families, as well as support to their family in order to address challenges that they may experience.
We also provide out of home placement for youth through our Qualified Residential Treatment Program and Child Welfare Emergency Services, located on the Annie Wittenmyer Campus, more commonly known as Foster Group Care Services. However, because the focus has been on keeping kids with their families, the need for out of home placements has significantly decreased. In addition to a reduction in need, we have experienced a global pandemic, significant workforce challenges, and financial constraints due to the rate of pay for these services.
We support keeping kids with their families and wrapping services around them. We want to keep kids from entering into out of home placement. We believe that if we invest more of our time, energy and resources into services that will prevent youth and families from entering into the system, we will have a greater impact on our youth, a better success rate, and our community will be a healthier and safer place for all. In order to do that, we have to assess where our current resources are allocated and make tough decisions.
The Family Resources Board of Directors and our leadership feel that the time has come to shift our resources towards these types of preventative services and in order to do that, we have made the difficult decision to stop providing Qualified Residential Treatment Services and will work with partner providers and the State to transition out of these programs by June 30, 2023. This was a difficult decision, and one that was not taken lightly. We care deeply about the youth who we serve on our Annie Wittenmyer campus, but this shift does not mean we will stop serving our youth. Instead we will serve them in different ways in order to increase their success.
One way in which we will do this is through our new Crisis Stabilization Residential Services. This is a residential program for youth ages 8-17 who are having an extreme mental health crisis, and need out of home placement to address their needs. This is a short term (five day) program, designed to provide intensive services in order to stabilize and prevent longer term out of home placements. It will be a new residential program located on the Annie Wittenmyer Campus and is part of the Eastern Iowa Mental Health Region. Our hope is that this new residential program will allow our community the opportunity to wrap services around youth and their families and prevent longer term placements outside of the home. In addition, Family Resources will also be launching Crisis Stabilization Community Based Services to help stabilize youth and adults in their home and community. We will continue to evolve our services so that we can support successful lives to build strong communities.