Reasonable or Active Efforts - Maintain Family Connections 624-05-15-25-10

(Revised 1/15/21 ML #3606)

View Archives

 

 

Reasonable or active efforts to maintain family connections and place siblings together are required. Agencies shall make every effort to place siblings in the same foster, relative, guardianship, or adoptive placement, unless it is determined to be contrary to the safety or well-being of any of the siblings. Also, in the case of siblings not placed together, a judicial determination must be made that reasonable or active efforts will be made to provide for frequent visitation or other ongoing interaction. An exception to maintaining connections is permissible only if such joint placement or contact would be contrary to the safety or well-being of one or more of the children.

 

The sibling provisions apply only to children with siblings and only to those removed from their home. However, visitation and ongoing interaction should be maintained between children in foster care and their siblings who have not been removed from their home.

 

Whenever possible, foster care case managers should make every effort to place siblings who come into foster care together in the same home. It is also necessary to:

  1. Identify whether a child entering foster care already has siblings in public custody (aka: foster care.) If a sibling enters foster care, the case manager must determine if it is appropriate for the child to be placed in the same foster care setting as the sibling currently in care; or
  2. If a different relative or foster family could provide care for all children; or
  3. If a child already in foster care is being moved to a new foster home, consideration should be made whether or not placement with a sibling would be safe and consistent with the child’s well-being; and/or
  4. Review the sibling placements and family connections at each Child & Family Team meeting. All factors taken into account in making placement decisions, as well as decisions about maintaining contact between siblings who are not placed together, should be documented in the child’s case file to demonstrate that reasonable or active efforts were made.

 

Agencies must make efforts to locate relative and non-relative families who are willing to care for a sibling group. All efforts for child placement must be in a location where the parent/s can have regular access to the child without undue economic, physical, or cultural hardship. When ICWA applies to an Indian child, placement preferences apply to each foster care, pre-adoptive, and adoptive placement, unless the court finds good cause to deviate from the placement preferences, or the Indian child’s Tribe has established a different order of preference. Review ICWA policy 624-05-15-52 for more on this topic.

 

Services and supports should also be identified that would make it possible for relatives to care for the siblings together. It is known that financial assistance is more readily available to families who are licensed foster parents. If financial assistance is necessary to best meet the needs of the children, agencies must help relative caregivers apply for TANF Kinship Care or begin efforts to become licensed foster parents. ND does allow for non-safety related licensing waiver to be applied to relatives, on a case-by-case basis, for individual children in relative foster family homes. For example, this authority can be used to prevent certain licensing standards from hindering maintaining sibling placement.