How will Improved Outcomes affect children and families?
Our City’s services to children and families will improve in several important ways. First, through the introduction of the Family Team Conferencing model in both preventive and foster care services, Children’s Services will ensure that children and families are included in the major decisions that affect their lives. We believe that this type of engagement of families as full partners not only results in better casework decisions, but ultimately keeps children safer, provides more stability for them, reduces the likelihood that children require out of home placement, and shortens children’s length of stay in foster care. Second, we expect improvements in children’s experiences in foster care. Because IOC is structured to help foster care agencies more flexibly provide children in care with the help and resources they need to stay safely in their foster homes whenever possible, we expect that children in foster care will experience fewer movements during their time in care. In addition
