The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) launched βA Home for Every Child,β a national initiative aimed at right-sizing the ratio of foster homes to the number of kids in the foster care system. This national effort is aimed at improving outcomes for children in foster care. A Home for Every Child is focused on the goal of achieving a foster home-to-child ratio greater than 1:1 in every state.
Every child deserves a safe home which is why Iowa enthusiastically embraces the AH4EC initiative. It is the right area of focus to ensure all children have a home for them, not children waiting for homes. Iowa actively works towards ensuring each child has a safe home through prevention, preservation and reunification efforts.
Thrive Iowa creates a network of family navigators to help individuals find immediate support from community organizations, then support them over time helping them develop an individualized plan for self-sufficiency and long-term independence.
Central Consult Unit (CCU)
The Central Consult Unit works with child protection workers to support child protective services cases where children are assessed as safe and ongoing child protection involvement is not needed. A key focus of this work is identifying families who may benefit from prevention-focused, community-based supports and helping connect them to trusted local partners.
The Early Childhood and Family Services (ECFS) system provides families across Iowa access to coordinated prevention, early intervention, and community-based supports that strengthen family well-being, promote healthy child development, and reduce the likelihood of abuse or neglect.
MOMS promotes healthy pregnancies and childbirth through nonprofit organizations who provide nonmedical pregnancy support services to women and their families.
Sobriety, Treatment and Recovery Teams (START)
START is an evidence-based practice model that supports families with children aged 0β5, at least one parent diagnosed with a substance use disorder (SUD) and are involved with child protective services (CPS) or at risk of child maltreatment. The START model has been proven effective due to specific fidelity standards that require rapid access to services, including intensive case management as well as treatment for substance use and mental health disorders.
Family Preservation Services (FPS)
Family Preservation Services (FPS) uses short-term, intensive, home-based crisis interventions to offer families in crisis the supports and skills to remain safely together when possible.
Child Safety Conferences (CSC)
Child Safety Conference (CSC) is a rapid-response, structured, early-intervention meeting to safely prevent foster care. The protection of the child(ren) is the focus of the meeting while engaging the parent(s) to collaboratively develop a safety plan that keeps the child(ren)βs safely out of foster care. The conference is facilitated by a neutral party that is not employed by HHS with the goal of improving trust and engagement. A subsequent conference occurs 10-days later to evaluate the safety planβs effectiveness and make adjustments as needed.
Motivational Interviewing
An evidence-based approach to empower individuals to enact change. This is a way to help parents use their self-selected action steps to work towards their desired outcome.
Structured to meet the needs of kinship caregivers while supporting placement stability, reunification, and child safety. Service delivery is targeted toward increasing placement in kinship care, reducing placement in stranger foster care, supporting placement stability and reducing re-abuse.
Mentorship process pairing parents with lived experience and families currently navigating the removal of a child. Parent partners can offer hope, realistic advice, and advocacy for families.
Therapeutic Foster Care is a higher level of foster care that wraps services around children with serious behavioral or emotional needs to promote stability and normalcy.
Subsidized Guardianship allows a caregiver to provide legal and emotional permanency for the youth without terminating parental rights. This is used when it has been determined that reunification and adoption are not fitting or acceptable.
