- Home
- » Achieving and Maintaining Permanency
- » Overview
Overview
Permanency in child welfare means a legally permanent, nurturing family for every child. Child welfare professionals first focus on preserving families and preventing the need to place children outside of their homes. When children must be removed from their homes to ensure their safety, permanency planning efforts focus on returning them home as soon as is safely possible or placing them with another permanent family. Other permanent families may include adoptive families, guardians, or relatives who obtain legal custody.
Child welfare agencies employ numerous strategies to achieve permanency for children. Permanency planning involves decisive, time-limited, goal-oriented activities to maintain children within their families of origin or place them with other permanent families. Permanency plans include the child's goal for permanency, the tasks required to achieve the goal, and the roles and responsibilities of all involved.
- Concept and history of permanency in U.S. child welfare
- Permanency strategies and programs
- Legal and court issues in permanency
- Preparing and supporting children and youth
- Interjurisdictional placements for permanency
- Postpermanency services
- Funding permanency services
- Related resources
- Frequently asked questions
Adoption and Foster Care Statistics
Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Statistics from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System reported by State child welfare agencies, including data on permanency outcomes for children exiting foster care.
Child Welfare for the Twenty-First Century: A Handbook of Practices, Policies, and Programs
Mallon & Hess (Eds.) (2005)
View Abstract
Explains the key principles of safety, permanency, and well-being of children and youth embodied in the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, and how these principles impact child welfare services.
Handbook of Adoption: Implications for Researchers, Practitioners, and Families
Javier, Baden, Biafora, & Camacho-Gingerich (2006)
View Abstract
Designed for researchers, practitioners, students, and families, this handbook explores issues surrounding adoption that impact birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted persons.
National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections
Provides training, technical assistance, and information services to State, local, and tribal child welfare agencies on safety-focused, family-centered, and community-based approaches to meet the needs of children, youth, and families.
Permanency Planning Today
National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections
Addresses key issues in family-centered practice, foster care, and permanency planning.