Foster Care & Adoption

Differential Response System:  Family Assessment, Comm. 450

Sistema de respuesta diferencial:  Evaluacion familiar, Comm. 450(S)

Quick Guide for Families Involved with HHS and Child in Need of Assistance Proceedings

Family Team Decision-Making Meetings, Comm. 265

Reuniones para la toma de decisiones en equipo familiar, Comm. 265(S)

• Group Foster Care 515-281-9368
• Independent Living (Foster Care for 16 & Older) 515-242-5271

Rights of Youth in Out-of-Home Placement, Form 470-5337

Iowa Foster Child and Youth Bill of Rights, Comm. 437

The Treatment Outcome Package (TOP), created by Outcome Referrals, is used to:

• assess a child’s current treatment needs within 12 domains;
• track a child’s improvement or deterioration;
• identify data trends around stronger/better performing providers and foster parents; and
• identify other data points that would impact practice decisions made by Department of Human Services’ and Juvenile Court Services’ staff.

TOP provides another avenue to empower individuals involved in a child’s care, including parents and the children themselves, to have a voice in the assessment and placement process through entering information into the same system. For more information on how the Department intends to utilize the TOP toll please refer to the Iowa TOP protocol document below.

• Video Training: Iowa Provider Wellness Check TOP Training - April 2020
• Video Training: Incorporating TOP into FTDM meetings and YTDM meetings: What Facilitators Need to Know - May 10, 2018
• Video Training: How To Be An Effective TOP Rater - April 6, 2018
• Iowa TOP Protocol
• TOP Q&A
• TOP PowerPoint Presentation for Iowa Providers
• TOP Clinical Scales Form
• TOP Domains
• TOP Brochure

Foster Group Care is one service of Iowa’s child welfare service continuum that offers a safe and protective structured living environment for eligible foster care children.  Care is provided in licensed facilities 24 hours a day and seven days per week offering room, board, and age appropriate and transitional Child Welfare Services.

Group care contractors provide casework services that meet the needs of each individual through the child’s care plan.  Casework services may include, but are not limited to:

• Crisis intervention;
• Daily living skills;
• Facilitating interpersonal relationships; and,
• Future planning and transitional placement services as required by each Child. 

Contractors provide foster group care services that are responsive to the unique needs of each child and that promote life skills development through training offered in this setting.  The service offers a safe and protective structured living environment where youth can thrive.  Around the clock parenting-type support is provided by qualified and competent staff and programs are designed to suit individual children in placement.  The safety, permanence, and well-being of children is addressed by:

• Providing a stable living environment;
• Engaging families to help eliminate conditions that may have led to a child’s Removal from their home;
• Maintaining connections to home and community (in collaboration with the referral entities); and,
• Providing for Children’s rehabilitation needs.

Licensing Information for providers of residential group foster care, shelter and detention services

HHS Maintains a complete list of child-placing agencies, children's residential facilities and group foster care facilities in Iowa.

Child Welfare Emergency Services (CWES) are short term and temporary child welfare interventions provided through the child welfare system.  They focus on children’s safety, permanence, and well-being and are intended to immediately respond to the needs of the eligible target population.  CWES approaches range from the least restrictive “crisis interventions” that can be used -- e.g., family conflict mediations or in-home services provided before children require removal from their home -- to more restrictive “emergency” child welfare services including out-of-home placements with relatives, foster families, or emergency juvenile shelter care (as permitted by the Iowa Code).  Eligible children are referred by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, Juvenile Court Services, and law enforcement.

Short-term child welfare related interventions that may vary per contractor.  These could include, but are not limited to, child welfare crisis lines, family conflict mediations, or in-home or other on-site services provided before children require removal from their home.  More restrictive service—i.e., out-of-home placement to emergency juvenile shelter care—is part of the CWES array.

Supervised Apartment Living Foster Care (SAL) is the least restrictive foster care placement in Iowa.  Youth either live in a cluster site living arrangement (where up to 6 youth can live in the same building and are supervised 24/7 or is a scattered-site living arrangement (where a youth is placed in their own living arrangement, such as an apartment, and have access to contractor staff 24/7.  The living arrangement must provide the youth with an environment in which the youth can experience living in the community with less supervision than other types of foster care placements.  Contractors must provide life-skills training services to youth in SAL. 

Youth must be at least 16 ½ years of age for cluster site placement and 17 years of age for scattered-site placement; youth must be mature enough to handle living in the community with less supervision.  Youth must be attending high school or classes leading to their GED or if a youth is under 18 years of age and has completed their high school education the youth must be working an average of 80 hours per month or participating in a work training program leading to employment. 

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services offers several options for youth that are preparing to exit the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. 

The department is committed to ensure teens who exit the foster care system at or around their age 18 are prepared for adulthood. Transition planning should begin well before the youth prepares to exit the system in order to have a solid discharge plan when the time comes to leave foster care.

Transitioning Into Adulthood Webpage

How to Adopt or Become a Foster Parent

Foster Parent Handbook

Manual Para Padres Sustitutos (Foster Parent Handbook)

The safety of children is important to all of us. For information on keeping children safe while they sleep, visit the Safe Sleeping for Infants webpage.

Support Organizations:

Resources

Support Groups

Your child has just been put in foster care with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As a parent, you have many questions. Click The State Has My Child booklet or The State Has My Child booklet - Spanish version for more information on what happens next.

Parents Rights & Responsibilities

• Licensing Information - for people who conduct home studies to provide adoption services to individuals and families independent of an agency.
• HHS maintains a complete list of Certified Adoption Investigators licensed in Iowa.

• Licensing Information for agencies that provide adoption, foster care, and supervised apartment living services
• HHS maintains a complete list of child-placing agencies, children's residential facilities and group foster care facilities in Iowa.

According to Chapter 600, Adoption, in the Code of Iowa, adult adoptees may receive medical and developmental family history provided the names of birth parents are not released. They may also petition the court to open their sealed record and reveal information for "good cause".

The Legislature amended the Code of Iowa to make access to sealed adoption records easier for adult adoptees that were adopted prior to the July 1, 1941, sealing of adoption records. When you complete the Affidavit Requesting Opening of Sealed Adoption Records, indicate the date of adoption. If you were adopted prior to July 1, 1941, indicate on the affidavit that Iowa Law does not require you to provide "good cause". This amendment of Chapter 600, Termination of Parental Rights and Adoption, should expedite the process for you.

Records compiled prior to the 1960's were not as complete as they are now. The information you receive may not answer all the questions you have about your biological history. The records may include opinions, values, moral beliefs, racial comments and other insensitive comments dictated by the child or family's worker. Current practice does not allow social workers to inflict their values, morals, or beliefs into a narrative regarding a child or a family. Only factual information should be included. Also, past testing mechanisms were not as accurate as they are currently. An IQ test may have concluded that a child had an IQ of 75-80 (border line). Children have proven the tests inaccurate. Some children who have tested "low" have been very successful in life's endeavors. I warn adoptees whose adoption was finalized many years ago to try not to be upset by information that may be in the record, especially if the information borders on, or is opinion, beliefs, etc. of the person writing it and not fact.

Effective July 1, 1999, Iowa law enables adoptees, their "birth parents," and their blood-related brothers and sisters to find each other if the birth is registered with the State of Iowa. The "Mutual Consent Voluntary Adoption Registry" was established in order to match those persons requesting that their identity be revealed to registrants "matching" information concerning an adult adoptee. All information provided to the registry is confidential and revealed only in the event that an appropriate match is made and the parties have been notified of the match. A $25 fee in U.S. funds and a certified copy of the applicant's birth certificate must be submitted with each consent application.

Application forms are available at the address listed below or at the County Registrars of Vital Records. Locally, county registrars are located in the county recorder's office, either in the county courthouse or county administration office building.

Adult adoptees, birth parents and relatives can receive more detailed information about the process by contacting Stephanie Clark at 515-377-0313 or stephanie.clark4@hhs.iowa.gov .

If you do not know the county where the child's adoption was finalized, you may complete an "Application for Revelation of County of Adoption".

Adoption Affidavit

We know kids do best in families, specifically their families. Kinship care with Iowa HHS helps kids stay with their families and those they have important connections with when they are in need of an out-of-home placement.

Visit the Kinship Care webpage to learn more.