How Reasonable are Reasonable Efforts?

Voices From the Field

Jane F. Gilgun

Gail Walters

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Submitted for publication

Running head: REASONABLE

key words: Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, reasonable efforts, concurrent planning, family

reunification

Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW, is professor, School of Social Work, University of

Minnesota, Twin Cites, 105 Peters Hall, St. Paul, MN 55108. Phone: 612/624-3643. e-mail:
jgilgun@tc.umn.ed. Gail Walters, MSSW, is field instructor, School of Social Work, University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities, 105 Peters hall, St. Paul, MN 55108. Phone: 612/624-4227. e-
mail:gwalters@che.umn.edu. This project was funded by the McKnight Foundation, St. Paul, MN,
Esther Wattenberg, Principal Investigator. The authors thank other members of the research team:
Esther Wattenberg, Meghan Kelly, Natalie Hopfield, and Anne Rieke. Without the focus group
participants and our helpful consultations with the Minnesota Ombudsperson Office; with Min Tah,
formerly of Family & Children's Services of Minneapolis; and with Gina Washington of the Minnesota
Department of Human Services we would not have a study at all. The conclusions, findings, and
opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the funding
agencies or those whom we consulted.
 reasonable
Page 2 of 2

ABSTRACT

Focus group research identified several areas that have to be addressed if reasonable efforts for

family reunification under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 can be considered

reasonable. For these focus group participants, reasonable efforts requires careful assessment of six

areas related to capacities for adequate parenting: 1) whether the family's basic needs are met 2)

how parents manage issues related to mental illness and chemical dependency, 3) whether parents

take immediate and decisive steps to ensure children's safety, 4) whether services provided are

culturally competent and adequate to the parents' needs, 5) whether parents respond adequately to

adequate services, and 6) parental capacity for caring for children who have special needs. From

these six areas of concern, we developed a rating scale intended to help practitioners make careful

assessments of the reasonableness of their efforts to bring about family reunification.

 reasonable
Page 3 of 3

How Reasonable are Reasonable Efforts Under Concurrent Planning?

Voices From the Field

From its inception, reasonable efforts have been a difficult policy to implement.

Developed during the era of President Jimmy Carter and put into effect during the Reagan

presidency, reasonable efforts have suffered from underfunding and little direction from the federal

government. What constitutes reasonable efforts has never been clear, and, despite the major

responsibility child protection services have for reasonable efforts, the courts make the final

determination about whether or not efforts have been reasonable.

The term itself is applied to at least three different situations, each of which has the goal of

permanent placements for children: reasonable efforts at maintaining children in their families of

origin, reasonable efforts at reuniting children in care with their families of origin, and reasonable

efforts toward other permanent placements, such as legal guardianship or adoption (Adoption &

Safe Families Act of 1997; CWLA, 2000). In this paper, we are concerned with reasonable efforts

toward family reunification.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) shortened the timeframe in which

social workers can demonstrate reasonable efforts to bring about family reunification. Until ASFA,

social workers had 18 months after children were placed to develop plans for permanency. Once

ASFA went into effect on August 1, 1998, social workers then had 12 months. The demonstration

of reasonable efforts is the foundation for decisions regarding which of the permanency options the

courts ultimately order.

Reasonable efforts were difficult enough when social workers had 18 months. What are the

implications for practice when the timeframe for demonstrating reasonable efforts is 12 months?

Are services adequate to help parents manage the conditions that led to the placement of their
 reasonable
Page 4 of 4

children? These are questions we posed to 271 service providers who participated in 41 focus

groups. Specifically, we were wanted their perspectives on effects of the shortened time frame, the

characteristics of parents who were not able to respond to reasonable efforts as well as

characteristics of parents who did respond, and the adequacy and availability of services.

Results showed that concerns for adequacy of services were paramount, with many

reservations expressed not only about the cultural competence of services, but also about service

availability and the adequacy of services to meet clients’ needs. In all, service providers identified

six areas they though must be addressed if efforts are to be considered reasonable. From the

information providers shared in focus groups, we developed a 6-item tool that will help practitioners

assess the reasonableness of reasonable efforts.

Background

For decades, policy makers and child welfare personnel have been concerned about the

number of children in foster care in the United States, hovering around a half million for the past

several years. More than 50% are African-American, a vast over-representation since African-

American children comprise 15% of U. S. child population (National Center on Permanency for

African American Children, 2000). Many children remain in care for long periods with no case

plan to ensure permanency. For example, up to 35,000 young people age out of foster care and

move to independent living each year (Cook, 1992, as cited in CWLA, 1999). Though many do

well, others lack education, job skills, and social support. This leads to homelessness, welfare

dependency, and minimum-wage jobs. Former foster children are over-represented among persons

living on the margins.

In the face of such unfair conditions for so many children, the sense behind reasonable

efforts is obvious. Children need families of their own. ASFA stipulates that family reunification is

the plan of choice. Alternative placements are to be undertaken only when efforts at reunification

fail. When reunification fails, ASFA stipulates that transfer of legal custody optimally to another
 reasonable
Page 5 of 5

family member is the next preferable option. Termination of parental rights and adoption placement

is the third option. If parents terminate voluntarily, then this is their right. Involuntary termination

of parental rights is a radical cutting of fundamental human ties. Ethically and morally it can be

undertaken only when there is no hope of family reunification or transfer of legal guardianship to

family members.

A primary test of the viability of reunification is whether parents respond to the services

they are offered. Details of the services provided and indicators of successful use of services are

part of the case plan. Parents seeking reunification with their children typically require an array of

services. Parental chemical dependency and poverty are among the most prevalent issues in child

welfare today (CWLA, 1999). The prevalence of parental substance abuse among children in care

may be as high as 80% (Barth, 1994), while more conservative estimates place the figure at more

than 50% (Dore, Doris, & Wright, 1995; Finnegan, 1992). Poverty is linked with child placement

in complex ways, such the inability to provide children with adequate food, clothing, shelter, and

medical care. Other issues common among parents whose children are in placement include clinical

depression, poor problem-solving skills, a history of receiving defective parenting, and abusive

partner relationships (Dore et al, 1995).

Partner violence in conjunction with violence against children are common. Research shows

that up to 70% of the men who beat their female partners also abuse their children (CWLA, 1999).

Families who experience dual violence are less likely to be offered services attended to be

ameliorative, and they are more likely to be referred to county attorneys for court action. As

Beeman, Hagemeister, & Edleson (1999) noted, however, rarely do social workers recognize both

mothers and their children are in need of protection from perpetrators, who frequently are unrelated

biologically to the children and have issues with substance abuse and dependency

Children who come into care often have a range of unmet mental health issues.
 reasonable
Page 6 of 6

Consequently, they can be challenging to parent (Dore, 1999). When parents already are eking out

an existence and have difficult personal and social issues, they may not have the resources

necessary to parent such children effectively. As the number of risks mount and the resources for

coping with risks dwindle, the likelihood of coming to the attention of child protection systems

increases. Some of these issues may be intractable in the timeframe ASFA allows. The best that

child protective services can do is to offer the most adequate services possible and to support

parents to respond positively to these services.

In summary, families who seek the return of their children from foster care typically have

serious issues with which to contend. Complying with case plans falls disproportionately on mothers

whose own safety may be threatened by men who also abuse the children. Reasonable efforts requires

the provision of adequate services to these families.

Method

Two hundred and seventy-one professionals participated in 41 focus groups held primarily

in metropolitan areas (76%) in an upper midwestern state while the remainder of the focus groups

took place in rural areas. Focus group participants were professionals who provide services to

parents who have children in care. About half of the participants worked in public child welfare

agencies. The rest were service providers in private agencies such as mental health centers, family

service agencies, and chemical dependency treatment programs. Attorneys, judges, teachers, and

guardians ad litem also participated in focus groups. Two-thirds were of European descent, and

nearly three-quarters were women.

The purpose of the focus groups was to answer several questions related to the feasibility of

implementation of ASFA. The questions were

1. Have you ever encountered parents where it appears unlikely that they could take care of their

children?

2. What do you think is a reasonable time frame to allow parents to get their acts together?
 reasonable
Page 7 of 7

4. What alerts you to move to termination when a parent is chemically dependent?

5. In your experience, have you been able to secure adequate services for the families with whom

you work? If not, what services were you not able to access?

6. Have you encountered parents for whom it appeared unlikely that they could take care of their

children and were surprised by a turn-around?

These questions provided a semi-structured format for the focus groups that provided direction and

focus, but also allowed facilitators to follow threads of conversations when these conversations

strayed from directly answering the questions.

Each focus group was co-lead by two researchers, typically a faculty member and a graduate

student from a large midwestern university. A total of six different researchers, three faculty

members and three students, conducted the focus groups. They took extensive notes during the

focus group. Immediately afterward, each individually expanded upon the notes and then together

discussed the content of the focus group. Then they wrote up a final set of notes. These fieldnotes

are the data for the present study.

We used the method of data analysis described in Strauss and Corbin (1998) that involves

group analysis of data, open coding, and the search for multiple dimensions of emerging codes.

We challenged our ideas in order to develop an analysis that was as complete and accurate as

possible. We also assembled several informal focus groups with service providers to discuss our

emerging findings.

Results

Focus group participants were clear that reasonable efforts rest upon fair and comprehensive

assessments and the availability of appropriate services. Concerns about cultural competence were

paramount. Culturally incompetent practice and inappropriate services hindered efforts toward

family reunification and rendered them unreasonable. Thus, we concluded in our analysis that six
 reasonable
Page 8 of 8

categories related to assessment and services help determine whether efforts are reasonable: family's

basic human needs, conditions related to parenting capacity, parental responses to initial

investigation, adequacy of services provided, parental responses to services, and child status

These six categories are the basis of the rating scale that we call Assessing Reasonable

Efforts for Family Reunification. It is attached as Figure 1. Each item of the instrument can be

scored as either a strength or a risk. Thus, the instrument focuses social workers' attention on client

deficits and resources. There's also space on the tool for brief narratives.

Family’s Basic Human Needs

Participants emphatically made the point that parents will not respond well to services if

parents are not able to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, housing, medical care, and personal

safety. In addition, they repeatedly pointed out that poverty often is the reason for parental inability

to meet basic needs. The following excerpts from focus group material support these general

statements.

• It’s hard to make self-actualizing and parenting skills priorities when basic needs haven’t been

met.

• It is important to deal with the issues of parenting, but that is difficult to do when the basic

needs, such as roots and stability, are not being met.

Some participants recognized that children come into care because of their parents' poverty.

With adequate resources, they argued, many of these parents could meet the basic needs of their

children and ensure their health and safety. As participants from a family service center said,

• This [ASFA] feels like another type of reform that involves punishment and sanctions.

• I’m scared that kids are going to get pulled out because of poverty.

• Due to socioeconomic status, the parents are unable to meet the basic needs of the children.

Participants were concerned about the effects of changes in welfare programs on parents'

capacities:
 reasonable
Page 9 of 9

Maslow's hierarchy dictates that we should not expect parents to do a good job until their

basic food and shelter, etc., needs are met. Under current welfare reform, these things are

no longer guarantees.

Some participants were concerned that child protection workers may wrongly decide that

families are not meeting children's basic needs when they are. Cultural differences often interfere

with sound judgment. One participant stated forthrightly that child protection is not interested in

honoring cultural diversity and that child protection workers are not culturally competent. She gave

the following example.

An African-American mother, originally from the south and now living in ...[a small,

almost all white midwestern city], was involved with child protection. Her children

were removed but were reunited. The worker had done a site visit and observed the

mother feeding the child pot liquor [the liquid from greens and high in nutrients] and

cornbread. The child protection report said the mother was not adequately feeding the

child.

The irony of this situation is that many parents from the south and elsewhere, of both European and

African origins, routinely feed their children pot liquor and cornbread--and eat it themselves well

into hearty old age.

Housing. Participants cited housing as a basic human need. For poor families, affordable

housing is hard to find. When they have housing, it sometimes is government-subsidized which

limits the number of people who can live in the dwelling. As one participant pointed out, this can

lead to isolation of poor families from natural supports:

I don’t know, though, Indians have always been poor, but this hasn’t always meant bad
 reasonable
Page 10 of 10

parenting. It’s more the breakdown of natural supports, kinship networks that offered

emotional support, and the pooling of resources. This has been lost due to housing codes

which don’t allow large extended families to live together anymore. Now they will kick you

out of your apartment if an aunt comes to stay for more than a few days.

On the other hand, when families crowd into a dwelling, focus group participants pointed out that

sometimes members of extended families are dysfunctional:

Housing is a real problem. How can you parent when you have to live in a dysfunctional

system [living with extended relatives or friends]?

Even when parents have met the conditions of case plans, lack of adequate housing may

prevent them from getting their children back. Many focus group participants cited issues such as

the following:

• Housing is a problem—can’t get kids back until you have good housing but can’t qualify for

many bedrooms until your kids are with you.

• You won’t get your kids back without housing. But it’s a Catch 22 because families lose their

AFDC when their kids are taken. There’s already such a low vacancy rate [in affordable

housing].

Medical care. Government red tape was another element that could threaten reasonable

efforts. Medical care is a case in point. A participant said:

Parents sometimes don’t know about the medical needs of their children who may have

medical problems. As a result there are medical crises stemming from a lack of

knowledge and lack of access to resources.

In fact, the state in which this parent lives, 65,000 children--10% of the child population--is

uninsured (Kaiser Commission, 1999). About 45,000 children navigate childhood without visits to

the doctor and regular vaccinations. Furthermore, 65% of the state's uninsured families had applied
 reasonable
Page 11 of 11

for medical assistance, but found the 22-page application too daunting (Uninsured kids,

2000). Although a streamlined application went into affect in February 2000, such bureaucratic

vissitudes are all too common. Thus, the service providers in the present study were concerned

about issues that potentially could affect about 10% of the state's population and already had

affected many families.

Safety. Mothers' abilities to protect children from violent partners and dangerous

environments were other major concerns for focus group participants. For some having a man in

the home took precedence over protecting the children from the man's violence. These mothers

often had multiple issues that interfered with their judgment about their children's safety. A focus

group participant gave an example.

A family is raised by a single mom. The father is only in and out. She has a processing

problem, a cognitive delay. She has an extensive history of every possible type of abuse

and has mental health issues that impede her parenting but aren’t extreme enough to get

her hospitalized. The four kids live in chaos with no limits or boundaries. The father had

sexually abused the kids so there was a tension because she wanted a man around but had

to deny the sexual abuse to do this. She was extremely neglectful and bordered on

abusing the kids.

Another participant gave an example of a woman who otherwise was a good parent but who

provided a dangerous environment for her children

Some women do a wonderful job of taking care of their kids but someone else is living in

the house. She gets busted in a drug raid so the kids all get taken away.

Many participants pointed out that mothers may need help getting away from violent

partners. They didn't always get that help. A participant from a rural county said:

We need more shelter options for families and parents because they are often full or else the
 reasonable
Page 12 of 12

client has to drive for hours to get there, stay a few days, and then drive hours to get home.

Participants in metro regions cited a similar lack of options.

Conditions Related to Parenting Capacity

Consistently across focus groups, participants stated that parents who were less likely to be

reunited with their children had serious and persistent issues with managing their chemical

abuse/dependency, mental illnesses, and developmental disabilities. Some of these parents had all

three conditions. If parents demonstrated capacities for managing these conditions, then

participants said they were more likely to be reunified with their children. These excerpts

demonstrate the results of successful management of potentially incapacitating parental conditions.

• If we can assess the mental health needs and get treatment for the parents, it’s great. One mom

was 16 and developmentally delayed. Now that she’s on an anti-depressant, she’s a fantastic

mom.

• Another mom appeared to be low-functioning, but had a history of sexual abuse. She became

pregnant by her father. She wasn’t retarded and became assertive after a full year of therapy.

She decided, 'They will never have these babies.'

When parents showed a continued incapacity for adequate parenting despite services, they

often permanently lost custody of their children. In the following case, relatives adopted the

children.

One family the mom and dad both have mental health issues. There are several professionals

involved teaching them about child development. The family has been given every chance

because that’s our mission. It became apparent that it was unlikely [for these parents to make

it as parents] but we continued to provide services. The mom is not putting on clothes or

going outside the baby; she has obsessive compulsive disorder. The dad has schizophrenia.

The couple wanted to parent. The mom is more in touch with how her mental illness impacts
 reasonable
Page 13 of 13

her parenting but the dad thought that the interference was unfair. Other family members

adopted the child.

Thus, focus group participants recognized that some families are unable to parent adequately

despite services, while others use services to become adequate.

Parental Responses to Initial Investigation

Focus group participants viewed parental responses to the initial investigation of allegations

of child maltreatment to be indicators of whether parents would respond to reasonable efforts.

While the development of trust is crucial to success with the case plan, many participants

recognized that trust-building between clients and child protection workers takes time. Given

parents' histories with child protection, which sometimes spans generations, participants noted that

some parents, especially parents of color, resent "getting yet another white woman [meaning a

social worker or other service provider] pushed in her face." Trust issues, then, could affect parents'

responses to initial investigations.

Whether parents take responsibility for the parts they played in the abuse is an important

indicator. Service providers often see this quality as part of a general willingness to parent. Many

believed that parents who really want to parent respond cooperatively to child protection workers.

One isolated 22-year- old parent admitted to beating her toddler who had 35 broken bones. Her

admission--a taking of responsibility--was the beginning of a successful case plan. Through her

actions, she showed that she wanted to parent her child. She did everything asked of her and more

in order to be reunited with her child. Pivotal was successful treatment for issues related to her own

experiences of childhood maltreatment, especially sexual abuse. Denial on the part of the parent,

said a focus group participant, is a bad sign, although if trust can gradually be built, some parents

take appropriate responsibility and successfully respond to the stipulations of case plans.
 reasonable
Page 14 of 14

Another example of parents taking appropriate responsibility is when they state something

to the effect, "I made a mistake. I thought he was trustworthy. He wasn't." Actions, however,

speak as loud as words, and service providers also wanted parents to take clear steps to protect

children from further abuse by either immediately expelling perpetrators from the family home or

leaving the home themselves.

Some participants noted that expelling perpetrators could put the women and children in

jeopardy. They need protection from the perpetrators that includes safe places for themselves and

children. Such sentiments provoked additional comments about the need for safe housing for

parents and young children, as discussed earlier. Thus, the experiences of focus group members

dovetails with the point Beeman et al (1999) made about safety issues for mothers and children in

domestic violence cases.

Evidence that parents wanted to parent was a big issue for focus group participants. In the

early phases of the investigation, this included taking appropriate responsibility for the maltreatment

of their children, taking immediate steps to protect the children, being present at court hearings, and

providing child protection workers with information they needed to make recommendations to the

court.

Adequacy of Services

As is evident from the above discussion, focus group participants expressed grave

reservations about the adequacy of the services that are required in case plans. Availability,

accessibility, cultural appropriateness, coordination, and quality were major issues. Efforts that are

supposed to be reasonable may be unreasonable under these conditions.

Treatment programs funded by HMOs were widely criticized as too short to do any good.

Programs that did not take into account child care and transportation issues widely were viewed as

contributing to non-compliance with case plans, which in turn led to out-of-home care. They also

thought parents must be held accountable when they do not respond to adequate services.
 reasonable
Page 15 of 15

The shortened timeline that ASFA requires also contributed to concern about complying

with the case plan. A participant spoke for many when she said

It takes one year just to get their heads clear. Then they need to change their patterns,

learn how their mental illness affects them, learn what to do other than use when they are

stressed and lonely.

Coordination of services frequently created problems in ensuring that efforts toward family

reunification were reasonable. Speaking of judges, attorneys, public defenders, child advocates, and

guardians, a participant said

The differing perspectives of each of these branches often times lead to poor results.

The rarity of services that are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically appropriate were

worries for focus group participants:

• We need parenting programs that are culturally specific. Somali, Asian, Hispanic, and

American Indians are underserved in this area.

• Sexual abuse services for African American adult survivors are needed.

• There is only one outpatient chemical dependency treatment program for Southeast

Asians. There are no halfway houses, inpatient treatment or sober housing facilities.

Many treatment facilities won't take clients if they don't speak English.

Intensity and adequacy of services were major concerns:

• The intensity of services needs to be there but because of funding, everybody does the least

intensive, least restrictive, and least expensive forms of treatment first. If those fail then they

move up, but that wastes a lot of time.

• The quality of in-home services is variable, but we rely on these workers so much. If the

service fails, we blame the family, but is really the worker? They usually have only four-

year degrees and have little training.

 reasonable
Page 16 of 16

At issue for some participants was the training and fitness of the persons who make

judgments about parents' compliance with case plans and their knowledge of what services are

available. A participant from a rural county reported

One judge continues to order parents to be involved in anger management classes. Yet there

are no such classes anywhere in the entire county. There may be individual therapists who

provide this sort of therapy, but no actual classes.

Other participants had similar concerns:

There needs to be some sort of training provided regarding when to request different types

of evaluations, such as chemical dependency, psychiatric, or parenting evaluations. Right

now, they are often arbitrarily mandated, especially by certain judges.

Other focus group members worried about the qualifications of child protection workers:

• We need qualified people [to work in child protection services] who have done their own work

[on themselves].

• Child protection workers need to educate themselves about African-American culture and

history.

Many participants expressed concerns specifically about child protection's understanding of

domestic violence. One participant offered an example of

a woman who loses her child because she doesn't have adequate housing. But, every this

client gets a place, her man beats her up and wrecks the place, [thus creating another

housing crisis].

From the perspective of the participant, child protection workers should be addressing domestic

abuse along with parenting issues and housing.

Parents often did not have resources to participate in services, nor did social workers have

the time and resources to help them. As one participant said

 reasonable
Page 17 of 17

Transportation is such a problem. It slows down the process when clients can’t get to where

they need to be, or we spend a lot of our time transporting them to appointments.

The deficits that focus group participants identified in the provision of culturally appropriate

services are violations of federal law. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (e.g., Secs. 602, 604;

78 Stat. 252, 243; 42 U.Sc. 2000d-1, 2000d-3) explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of

race, color, or national origin in the participation in and access to any programs receiving federal

assistance through the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Attorneys representing

parents in court to contest efforts to terminate parental rights will have a strong defense if they can

show that reasonable efforts were not reasonable because services were inadequate.

Parental Responses to Services

Participants looked for signs that parents were changing the conditions that led to placement.

Hopeful signs included the engagement of natural supports such as such as extended family and

friends; more successful management of conditions that led to placement; showing insight into how

their behaviors affected their children and changing those behavior, and, generally fulfilling the

conditions of the case plan.

Trust in the social worker--with trust being a two-way street--can be key to positive parental

responses to reasonable efforts, as discussed earlier. One participant said turn-arounds in cases that

initially looked bleak can result under those conditions:

When a family member can share feelings, trust the worker and confide in her. The

personality of the worker is a factor.

Another focus group participant said

A child protection worker having developed a relationship with a person sometimes helps

the client turn the corner. The police function of child protection is present, but making the

connection with another human being is important.

 reasonable
Page 18 of 18

Providers who were pessimistic about parents meeting the condition of the case plan

sometimes were pleasantly surprised. Some turn-arounds happen when parents hit rock bottom and

mobilize their resources to fulfill the requirements of the case plan. As a participant said,

• I worked with a woman who was into substance abuse, as were her children. She bought drugs

for them at parties. She went thought treatment and changed. She was intelligent, had

supportive people around her, and it was the right time in her life. Despite a bad childhood, she

still had empathy for her children.

A father took heed of his own father's words: "Take care of your babies." He did. His wife was a

good parent when she was not incapacitated by drug use, and he became the primary parent,

fulfilling the terms of the case plan and enjoying his pivotal role in his family.

Supportive persons and motivation are key in parents' responses to the case plan, as this

example shows:

Another family of six kids was in foster care for five years. The mom was a heroin addict,

but she turned her life around. She's a different woman now. It's like night and day. I don't

know if she just grew up. She met this younger man, broke up with her abusive boyfriends,

and this younger man had a supportive family who were leery of her at first but came to be

helpful. Now the kids are clean. They go to school. I think it helped that none of them

have severe special needs.

Finally, understanding the seriousness of the situation can turn some parents around. A service

provider said

Sometimes it's an act of God. In the final hour there's a piece of the individual that says, 'If I

lose my kids, I lose my life.' They turn things around.

A history of family support and good mental health are factors in parents' ability to respond

positively to case plans. One service provider said of parents who successfully completed chemical

dependency treatment:
 reasonable
Page 19 of 19

Parents can totally transform, assuming there is no underlying mental illness, no

personality disorder, and that they grew up in a family with some support.

Parents, then, often engage past positive experiences which in turn helps them to cope with the

many threats they have to family reunification. A participant talked about a woman with many risks

but also many strengths. She went through hard times, lost custody of her children, but turned

things around:

I was pessimist on a case. She was heavy into illegal drugs, was prostituting, and had

five kids under the age of nine. She went to treatment, got the kids back, and she's

worker. She was in foster care as a child and was a runaway. Her dad was married

numerous times, but she is very bright and had some nurturing as a child. She lived with

the father of the children as a teen. He was chemically dependent. She was a good mom,

had good parenting skills, but she had gotten into crack cocaine. The threat of losing her

kids scared her into sobriety and the fact that she had some basic stuff to fall back on.

She was laid bare by the CD treatment and had some god workers who were not afraid to

confront her.

Participants provided examples of parental lack of insight and insensitive behaviors that

indicated that parents were not responding to the conditions of the case plan. One focus group

member cited a situation where the parents' behaviors to indicate a lack of empathy.

An example of this lack of empathy is when parents miss their weekly visitation even

though it’s at the same time every week and the kids are looking forward to it. The

parents miss for frivolous reasons and don’t get how upsetting this is to their kids.

Thus, in successful cases, clients had strengths on which to build, and they found good fits

between the services and themselves. As a participant said, "Some families are good even though

they have problems." Unfortunately, some parents do not overcome conditions that led to the

placement of their children, and their children are not returned home.
 reasonable
Page 20 of 20

Child Status

Focus group participants made clear points about the importance of understanding parent-

child relationships. They emphasized secure parent-child attachments, and they looked for evidence

that continued contact with parents was in children's best interest. They could support termination

of parental rights (TPR) when parents were incapacitated and if there was hope that the children

could be adopted. If there was little hope of adoption, they did not support TPR. They did support

transfer of legal custody, preferring as does ASFA, that family members be given priority over non-

relatives.

Evidence of parent-child attachment was a factor in recommending family reunification or

finding an in-between plan. Focus group participants said the following:

• When the child's affect is positive around the parent, when the child seeks out interaction with

the parent, that is a good sign.

• Watching the interaction during reunions and separations is key.

• Warning signs are hesitation on the part of the child in going to a parent, no affect, shuts down,

stays away from the parent.

Sometimes parents simply cannot manage their children. A participant offered an example:

In one family there are two kids who are emotionally and behaviorally disturbed. The

other didn't follow through with her pieces, but the termination was stayed and the kids are

home. I have serous doubts about her ability to parent and take responsibility for

herself...Relative placement will probably happen.

Others pointed out

• Sometimes parents can raise 'good kids,' but can't handle 'bad' [difficult behavior] kids.

• One mother recently decided that she didn't have the ability or skills to be a parent to her kid

with behavioral needs that were too much for her.

 reasonable
Page 21 of 21

With support from social workers and others, then, some parents voluntarily terminate their rights to

children they find they cannot parent adequately.

Some focus group participants worked at agencies whose mandate was family preservation;

that is, their mission was to do all they could to support parents in their parenting roles. They

arrived at the decision that a parent is incapacitated very slowly. One participant said

When we say a parent can’t parent we mean it. We generally put on blinders and assume

parents can make it.

Thus, focus group participants generally agreed that some children will thrive only if they are not

reunited with their parents.

Many participants expressed concern about terminating rights when there is no alternative

permanency plan. Participants pointed to the large number of legal orphans in the custody of the

state:

• 600 kids have been TPR'd who are in the system without homes. Why?

• What is going to happen to all those kids whose parental rights are terminated?

Another believed that such TPRs do not represent children's best interest:

There aren’t enough foster care or adoptive homes. As a system, we don’t have children’s

best interest at heart.

Others believed that some tie to parents is better than cutting ties and then have the children

languish in out-of-home care:

If a child is bonded with a parent then what’s going to harm more: lingering in foster care a

little longer or completely losing their bond with their mother?

Wanting to parent, signs of mutual attachment, respect for the attachment relationship, capacities to

parent particular children all figured prominently in participants' views of how children's status

affects plans for family reunification.

 reasonable
Page 22 of 22

Discussion

The focus group research on which this present study is based identified six areas that have

to be addressed if reasonable efforts can be considered reasonable. They are 1) to ensure that

families' basic human needs are met, 2) to determine if parents can manage such conditions as their

mental illness and chemical dependency, 3) to determine if parents take immediate and decisive

steps to ensure children's safety, while also assessing if parents also are in need of protection, 4) to

ensure that services are adequate in a range of ways including culturally, linguisticaly, and

ethnically, 5) to determine how well parents are responding to services, assuming services are

adequate, and 6) determining if parents can manage their children when the children have mental

health, behavioral problems. or medical conditions beyond parents' capacities.

Obviously, efforts cannot be considered reasonable if services are not adequate and basic

human needs are not met. In such cases, making alternative permanency plans would be morally

wrong and out of compliance with the intent of ASFA and related policy. If parents respond to

services that are reasonable, then a case can be made to reunite parents and children. If parents do

not respond to services that are reasonable, then it is reasonable to pursue alternative permanency

plans.

The instrument that we developed from the findings of this project is intended to guide

social workers in determining how reasonable reasonable efforts have been. We agree with the

focus group participant who said, "This assessment tool that you’re working on can’t be the only

tool used to make this decision” [about reasonable efforts]. We also agree with participants who

stated that such decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis after a full course of individualized

and appropriate services.

 reasonable
Page 23 of 23

References

Beeman, S. K., Hagemeister, A. K., & Edleson, J. L. (1999). Case assessment and service

receipt in families experiencing both child maltreatment and woman battering. Manuscript under

review. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota School of Social Work. Manuscript

temporarily available on the internet at http://www.mincava.umn.edu/link

Child Welfare League of America (1999). Children '99: Countdown to the millennium fact

sheet. http:www.cwla.org/cwla/publicpolicy/1999nationalfactsheet.html.

Child Welfare League of America (2000). Summary of The Adoption And Safe Families

Act Of 1997 (P.L. 105-89). http://www.cwla.org/cwla/publicpolicy/pl105-89summary.html

Barth, R. P. (1994). Long-term in-home services. In D. J. Besharov (Ed.), When drug

addicts have children (pp. 175-194). Washington, D.C.: Child Welfare League of America.

Cook, R. (1992). A national evaluation of Title IV-E foster care and independent living

programs for youth. Phase 2 Final report. Rockville, MD: Westat.

Dore, M. M. (1999). Emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children in the child welfare

system: Points of preventive intervention. Children and Youth Services Review, 21, 7-29.

Dore, M. M., Doris, J. M. & Wright, P. (1995). Identifying substance abuse in maltreating

families: A child welfare challenge. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19, 531-543.

Finnegan, M. (1996). Societal outcomes & costs savings of drug and alcohol treatment in

the state of Oregon. Salem, OR: Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs, Oregon Department

of Human Resources and Governor's Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs.

Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (1999). State Health Facts.

http://www.kff.org.

Maslow, A.H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, N. J.: Van Nostrand.

National Center on Permanency for African American Children (1999).

http://www.checklab.com
 reasonable
Page 24 of 24

Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures

for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Uninsured kids: Reaching them isn't impossible after all. (2000). Minneapolis Star Tribune,

Opinion Section, January 17, A12.

 reasonable
Page 25 of 25

Figure 1
Assessing Reasonable Efforts for Family Reunification

Family's Basic Human Needs

Met Not Met
Food
3 2 1 3 2 1
Clothing
3 2 1 3 2 1
Housing
3 2 1 3 2 1
Medical Care
3 2 1 3 2 1
Child Safety
3 2 1 3 2 1
Safety of Parent(s)
3 2 1 3 2 1

Narrative:

Conditions Related to Parenting Capacity

Absent or Well-Managed Present/Not Well-Managed

Chemical Abuse/Dependency
3 2 1 3 2 1
Mental Illness
3 2 1 3 2 1
Developmental Disability
3 2 1 3 2 1

Narrative:
 reasonable
Page 26 of 26

Parental Responses to Initial Investigation

Yes No
took responsibility for own part in child's maltreatment
3 2 1 3 2 1
took steps to protect child from further maltreatment
3 2 1 3 2 1
provided investigators with pertinent information about the maltreatment
3 2 1 3 2 1
participated in evaluations and hearings relative to investigation
3 2 1 3 2 1
Narrative:

Services

Offered/Appropriate Not Offered/Inappropriate

service providers were firm and supportive but non-accusatory toward parents
3 2 1 3 2 1
parents participated in development of service plan
3 2 1 3 2 1
service providers gave full disclosure: parents understood consequences
of accepting/not accepting services
3 2 1 3 2 1
services adequate for the problems that interfered with parenting.
3 2 1 3 2 1
services culturally, ethnically, and linguistically appropriate.
3 2 1 3 2 1
parents had adequate resources to participate in services,
such as child care, medical insurance, and transportation to the services.
3 2 1 3 2 1
when parents did not fulfill conditions of case plan,
service providers explored with parents reasons for this
3 2 1 3 2 1
Narrative:
 reasonable
Page 27 of 27

Parental Responses to Services

Yes No
parents engage natural supports such as extended family, fictive kin, friends
3 2 1 3 2 1
parents fulfilled conditions of case plan
3 2 1 3 2 1
parents eliminate or manage adequately the conditions that led to placement
3 2 1 3 2 1
conditions that led to placement are still present,
but parents are making good progress in changing these conditions.
3 2 1 3 2 1
parents use realization of how their behaviors have affected their children
as motivation to fulfill conditions of case plan
3 2 1 3 2 1

Narrative:

Child Status
Yes No
evidence of parent-child attachment
3 2 1 3 2 1
evidence that long-term parent-child contact is in child's best interest
3 2 1 3 2 1
in case of parental incapacity, an alternative permanency plan exists for child
3 2 1 3 2 1
parental rights should not be terminated because child is at risk of becoming a legal orphan
3 2 1 3 2 1

Narrative: