Q&A
Decline in kinship placements and strategies to address it
1:22:28
ยท
164 sec
Council Member Stevens inquires about the decline in kinship placements and strategies to address this issue. Commissioner Dannhauser explains the current situation and ACS's efforts to support kinship care.
- The percentage of children placed with relatives has declined from 48.9% to 44.2%, partly due to an increase in teens entering care from outside New York City
- ACS is working to improve kinship placement rates, with current in-care kinship placement at about 44-45%
- The agency has implemented new protocols to support kinship foster parents, including additional social worker support
- ACS is focusing on providing resources and support to kinship caregivers to ensure successful placements
Althea Stevens
1:22:28
Yeah.
1:22:28
I I we had a whole hearing on in September, and so, you know, I I understand the commitment.
1:22:33
And I'm I feel like you guys also have been working really hard around that.
1:22:36
And so definitely wanna make sure that we are highlighting the the changes and the issues that we are doing, but also wanna make sure we're holding everybody to those standards.
1:22:45
Right?
1:22:45
I think, again, sometimes it gets really hard what we might want and how is that trickling out and playing in other places.
1:22:52
Absolutely.
1:22:54
So according to the FY '20 '20 '5 PMMR, the percentage of children placed with relative has declined from forty eight point nine to forty four two percent due to the part in the increase of number of teens entering care, many from outside New York City with limited local family resources.
1:23:12
Why does ACS believe, they are seeing this rise in teenage entering from outside of city, and what steps is the agency taking to find placement for those groups?
Jess Dannhauser
1:23:22
Yeah.
1:23:24
So we are, first of all, that number on the kin is initial placement into care.
Lynette Lometred
1:23:30
Mhmm.
Jess Dannhauser
1:23:31
We continue to see strong results because the agencies continue to work on this even after a child's place.
1:23:37
They're talking to the child, they're searching for kin, and so we are we've gone from the low thirties to about forty four percent in care, forty five percent in care that are placed with close relatives or friends.
1:23:53
We did see an uptick.
1:23:55
Some of this has to do with the destitute child child children that we mentioned Yeah.
1:23:59
Earlier with council member Brewer.
1:24:02
That's from two sources, some that are new to the country or to the city.
1:24:06
There's also been some work that you know we've been doing with the runaway and homeless youth Yes.
1:24:10
Shelters.
1:24:10
And so we are trying to be responsive to young people who are coming in.
1:24:16
And so I think those two sources there's also you know, we talked earlier about cares and the questions around youth.
1:24:25
We wanna make sure everyone's connected to preventive services when appropriate.
1:24:29
We are finding placements for young people coming in in this situation.
1:24:35
Last year on any given day, we averaged about 74 young people at the Children's Center.
1:24:40
Today, we're at 64, and we're seeing kids move, get more placements right now.
1:24:45
We have a lower level of longer stayers than we typically do.
1:24:49
So the team is working really hard with providers you know, to make sure that the whole panoply of placement options is being used.
1:25:00
And I'm I'm proud that we have been able to continue to reduce the use of residential care even with this increase.
1:25:06
It's not a huge increase, but it's an important one that affected the kin numbers.
1:25:11
In