Family Preservation Services

Children's Aid Society (CAS) social workers and counselors visit families' homes to provide counseling and help solve problems that might interfere with children's healthy growth and development.  With help from CAS social workers, families function more effectively, achieve self-sufficiency, and keep their children safe.  The goal of Family Preservation services is to help families remain together.

CAS social workers assess each family's strengths and needs, work with family members to set goals, and plan activities to reach those goals.  Families participate in all planning activities.

Family Interventions often focus on issues like budgeting and financial challenges, childcare, parenting, behavior management skills, adult education or employment goals, the use of needed community resources, coping with illness or physical disabilities, transportation barriers, and accessing safe and appropriate housing.

Typically, we provide family intervention services for 3-6 months.  Each family's case is assessed every 3 months and is managed until agreed upon goals are met.

Families can request CAS intervention services for themselves or be referred to CAS by another agency, school, medical office, friend or relative.

CAS provides specialized intervention services for different types of families:

• Family Options - new in October 2006, Family Options services are intensive, short-term, crisis intervention and stabilization services provided to families referred to CAS by the Alabama Department of Human Resources in Northwest and Southwest Alabama.  CAS provides support to families in which at least one child is at imminent risk of removal from the parent's home due to abuse, neglect, parent-child conflict, family instability, or when the child is returning home after foster placement.  The goal is to preserve or reunify the family, while ensuring the safety of children and helping the family learn new skills to stay together successfully.  Family Options operates in accordance with the philosophies set forth by the State Department of Human Resources and the Homebuilders Model of Family Preservation.

• Moms and Babies - provides shelter and transitional services for young mothers and their children in the custody of the State of Alabama.  Services are provided in foster homes or community apartments.  Services include case management, basic living skills, mental health consultation, family supportive services, local transportation, extra-curricular activities, youth allowance, financial assistance with special occasions, group and/or individual counseling, some financial assistance with child care costs, and 24/7 on-call emergency assistance.

• Project Independence - pregnant youth and young parents, ages 16 to 21, and their children are served in either homes of mentor families or apartment settings for up to 18 months. The goal of this service is to help these young families transition to adulthood with the skills they need to become productive and supportive parents.

Children's Aid Society also provides sponsorships to help families in need provide Christmas and Easter gifts for children.  Families whose specific needs cannot be met by CAS are provided information and referral to other community resources.

Prevention Services

CAS has been helping at-risk young men though our award-winning Project Dads program since 1994.  Through positive adult male role modeling, mentoring, parenting instruction, and peer group support, participating young dads learn to become the responsible, effective father many of them never had.

With our support, young fathers are much less likely to abuse or neglect their own children.  Any teen or under-age 21 dad who lives in Jefferson, Shelby, Walker, Blount, or St. Clair counties and wants to improve his parenting skills is eligible for Project Dads.

CAS social workers also conduct group Family Life Education programs for at-risk young women in schools, churches, health departments, community centers, and health fairs.  We help young mothers meet their children's developmental needs and avoid future family crises.  Group sessions are offered on such topics as:

• life skills

• self-esteem

• stress management

• peer pressure

• conflict resolution skills

• community resources

• family planning

• STD's

• career counseling

• pregnancy prevention

• infant care

• responsibilities

Permanency Planning & Support Services

Adoption Preparation and Post Adoption Services - Children's Aid Society (CAS) has a long history with adoption services.  While we have not directly placed children in adoptive families since 1993, we continue to provide home study services to educate, prepare, and support families who are adopting children through other agencies.  In addition, we continue to provide post-adoption support for children and families who previously received CAS' adoption placement services.

Fees for adoption and post-adoption services vary depending on what  is required and where the family resides.

• Home Studies - Families wanting to adopt a child independently of the agency either internationally or domestically are required to complete a home study process to insure the child being adopted will be placed in a safe and supportive family situation.  CAS social workers are available to conduct those home studies.

• Birthparent Interviews - CAS social workers can also conduct birthparent interviews to document social and medical family history and the reason for the adoption.  Only non-identifying information is released to the adoptive parents unless written consent is obtained.

• Post-Adoption Placement Supervision - When requested or required to observe, assess, and document a family's adjustment after adoption, CAS social workers provide needed family supervision.

• Counseling - CAS social workers can provide counseling to everyone involved in the adoption process.

• Non-identifying background information is provided to adult adoptees and adoptive parents who previously received adoption placement from CAS.  Identifying information is released only with the written, notarized consent of a birthparent.

• Search and contact services are available to adoptees previously placed for adoption through CAS and are at least age 19.  Such efforts are handled confidentially and the birthparent's preference is always respected.  In 95% of our cases, CAS has successfully located a birthparent.

• Intermediary Services - CAS social workers are available to serve as an intermediary to facilitate information exchanges between adult adoptees and their birthparents.

• Support Groups - CAS hosts a free monthly support group for adult adoptees and birthparents.  The group provides needed advice and emotional support for people at all stages of the life-long adoption process.

Alabama Post Adoption Connections (APAC) is a statewide collaboration with the Alabama Department of Human Resources.  CAS social workers provide education and support to adoptive families and professionals who work with them.  The goal of APAC is to strengthen relationships within adoptive families through education and support.  APAC serves adoptive parents, their minor children, and the professional community serving these families.  We maintain resource centers in Birmingham, Mobile, and Montgomery and sponsor a week-long summer camp for adopted children.  Visit www.casapac.org for more information on APAC services.

AdoptUSKids - In October 2002, The Children's Bureau contracted with The Adoption Exchange Association and its partners to devise and implement a national adoptive family recruitment and retention strategy. In turn, AdoptUSKids contracted with Children's Aid Society to serve as the Recruitment Response Team for Alabama. Answering The Call, the National AdoptUSKids Recruitment Campaign, officially began in July 2004 at which time television, newspaper, and radio advertisements created by the Ad Council were shown nationwide in an effort to recruit adoptive homes for waiting children. The Recruitment Response Team Leader responds and provides support to potential resource families who contact AdoptUSKids through their website link. Log onto www.adoptuskids.org for more information and to view photo listings of Alabama's children awaiting adoption.

Alliance Services - The Alliance is a formal collaborative effort between Children's Aid Society, Gateway, Glenwood Mental Health, and Agape of Central Alabama through which children and families referred by the Jefferson County Department of Human Resources (JCDHR) receive needed support services. 

Circles of Care - Children with extensive placement histories who need more intensive help to find a permanent home received the attention they need from a team of professional social workers.

Continuum of Care - Services are provided to children and their families who are at high risk of disruption and not appropriate for Family Options, children and their families who have completed Family Options but need additional services to remain intact, or children and their families in which a child needs placement outside the home to assure safety while working toward the goal of reunification with family as quickly as possible.  When a child is placed outside the home, a permanency plan will be pursued while work is being done with the biological family.  The continuum model allows for continuity of case with the same service providers working with the family from admission through discharge and aftercare.

Clinical work is based on a family-centered, child-focused approach in which family members are involved in all decision-making and are seen as the "experts" on what is needed in the family to provide a safe, stable home for their children.  Work with the family is intense, community-based, allows for flexible scheduling, and involves the support of existing community and family resources.

Stabilization, Treatment, Appraisal (Star) Foster Care And Therapeutic Foster Care (Tfc) - Designed to provide comprehensive family-based assessments of children in a foster care setting, STAR services assist with permanency planning.  The therapeutic foster care program was designed to extend services to support unconditional care until the permanency plan is realized.

Wraparound - At risk families with a history of substance abuse, poverty, unemployment, unstable housing, lack of education, untreated mental disorders, or a lack of support networks receive intensive, in-home services designed to preserve the family unit.

North Alabama Alliance Services - Children's Aid Society, Gateway, Agape of North AL, and Childhaven provide Continuum of Care services to families in Madison County.