Permanency, a safe and loving forever family, provides the foundation for a child’s healthy development. It offers safety and protection, stability and continuity of care, a sense of identity, a validation of personal importance and a legally secure environment. There are three “faces” of permanency — prevention, family preservation or reunification, and adoption, permanent legal custodianship or independent living.
Prevention:
- The ideal goal for each child is to live safely and permanently within his or her birth family. This ideal is often compromised by stressors in the home, including poverty, the impact of substance abuse, physical illness, mental illness or other significant challenges. The Erie County Office of Children and Youth invests heavily in prevention services to support families who are at risk for or are experiencing conditions that could lead to the abuse or neglect of children.
Family preservation or reunification:
- If a family does become involved with the Office of Children and Youth, we make every effort to keep the family together through intensive in-home and community-based services. If the child is removed because his or her safety cannot be assured otherwise, the family continues to receive intensive, individually tailored services to facilitate a reunification.
- When children are placed in out-of-home foster care, every attempt is made to keep siblings together and to provide kinship care — that is, to place children with appropriate and willing relatives or close friends with whom they have bonded.
Adoption, permanent legal custodianship or independent living:
- When reunification is not possible and parental rights are terminated by the court, caseworkers actively participate in identifying the best living arrangement for dependent children.
- Adoption is considered the second most desirable permanency goal, after safe reunification.
- Permanent legal custodianship is pursued when adoption is not possible.
- Young men and women 16 years of age and older who are aging out of the child welfare system without achieving permanency with an adoptive parent or legal custodian are assisted in their transition to independence by independent living caseworkers. Services include personal assessments, job and career counseling, life-skills building and assistance in applying for post-secondary education and financial aid.