IMPACTS OF COVID-19
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to dramatic shifts in child welfare practice. As stay-at-home orders were implemented, essential child welfare workers had to modify their work procedures, as did service providers offering in-home services and courts that oversee dependency cases. While necessary to ensure the safety of agencies’ employees and their clients, these protocols have had unintended consequences that will be felt for the next several years. This is especially true for family stabilization efforts and children entering placement. In addition, the pandemic reinforced that placement in family settings, ideally with kin, is important for child and adolescent health and development. Young people placed in group care during the pandemic are most at risk for contracting COVID-19 and lack access to many of the protective factors and social supports that are vital to surviving this public health crisis. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges presented by the pandemic is related to restrictions on in-person contact with children. While social distancing is critically important to limit the spread of the virus, reduced contact with vulnerable children and families impacts the ability of caseworkers, attorneys and court personnel to fully assess the child’s well-being. Virtual court proceedings have presented unique challenges for adequate participation from nonverbal youth and young infants. Also, foster youth who are participating in court proceedings from a placement location may be reluctant to openly share their concerns about that placement if they have no private location from which to testify. Court personnel are unable to adequately assess a youth’s well-being if that youth is not able to access technology or unable to use technology based on age or ability. The Pennsylvania Rules of Juvenile Court Procedure require a child to appear in person at least every six months, with an exception to be granted only upon a finding of good cause. xviii As the pandemic drags on, many youth already have gone more than six months without in-person court proceedings. In addition to virtual court proceedings that do not allow for in-person court assessments, caseworkers also have been granted a reprieve from obligations of mandatory in-person contact
with children who are under court supervision. The federal government released a directive in April 2020 that not less than 50% of total monthly caseworker visits should occur in the residence of child. But during the major disaster period, the agency may include monthly caseworker visits that occur by video conferencing as “in the child’s residence.” xix Many residential facilities and foster care agencies have restricted visitor access to children due to infection concerns. Residential facilities have even restricted some staff to remote work, leaving less in direct contact with children. Another consequence of the pandemic has been the hindering of the county agencies’ ability to inspect, review and approve prospective kinship placements, as well as the provision of services for family preservation. With COVID-19 restrictions in place, many home inspections were halted due to government offices being closed. If case workers are not allowed in prospective foster homes for inspection, there will be fewer approved foster and/or kinship homes becoming available in the future. Additionally, fingerprinting backlogs due to office closures have been an obstacle for prospective foster families and kinship caregivers to receive approval. Furthermore, child welfare agencies will need to provide a variety of resources to caregivers so that they can effectively support young people in their care during COVID-19 and beyond. Adequate support to kinship
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Kinship Care in Pennsylvania: Creating an Equitable System for Families – January 2021
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