Child & Family Team Meeting Process and Purpose 624-05-15-20

(Revised 1/15/21 ML #3606)

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The permanency planning process begins when a child enters foster care and the case planning continues to address the child's need for permanency until case closure. The Child and Family Team Meeting (CFTM) process is intended to ensure the safety and well-being of the child and to secure a permanent plan of placement. Key benchmarks in the Permanency Planning process are as follows:

  1. Child enters foster care
  2. Initial Child & Family Team Meeting (within 30 days)
  3. Quarterly Child & Family Team Meetings
  4. 12 month Permanency Hearing
  5. Case closure

Purpose

The purpose of the Child & Family Team Meeting (CFTM) is to ensure the child is receiving appropriate care consistent with NDCC 27-20, NDCC 50-11 and NDAC 75-03-14. In addition, the team along with the assigned Children and Family Services Field Service Specialists serve as an administrative review body and together fulfill the review requirements of federal law. Although the review participants input is very helpful in the decision making process, the final decisions rest with the custodian pursuant to the authority and responsibility conferred on the custodian through N.D.C.C. 27-20-38.

 

Child & Family Team Meetings are mandatory and are multi-agency and multidisciplinary to best meet the needs of the child in placement.

 

Function

The Child & Family Team has, at a minimum, the following functions:

  1. Periodically review the initial case plan and case review documents for every child in care.
  2. Determine if a specialized payment is needed to meet the child's needs in the primary foster parents home. Discussion regarding the specialized payment and the required department approval must be documented in the child's case file.
  3. Grant approval of foster care placements into therapeutic family foster care or a residential facility.
  4. Ensure and document that parents/guardian, child (when appropriate) and foster parent(s) are invited to attend the CFTM's.
  5. Develop, in writing, the case plan for the child, parent, agency, and foster parents with specified goals, tasks, and dates of the completion that address permanency for the child.
  6. Enforce local policies in accordance with federal and state law, regulation and policy related to foster care.

 

Notifications

The Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act of 2006, mandated that foster parents of a child and any pre-adoptive parent or relative providing care for the child must be provided with notice of, and a right to be heard in, any proceeding with respect to the child. This is a Title IV-E requirement at 475(5)(G).

The custodial agency must notify the foster parent, pre-adoptive parent, or relative caregiver in writing. A copy of the written notification should be kept in the child’s case file.

 

FRAME

The data management system allows concurrent goals to be entered under the goals section of the placement tab. Every child with an open foster care program must have a primary goal identified.