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More information Katie A. v. Bonta: case summary, news updates, court documents and more resources on this case

Katie A. Practice Principles

These principles were developed by the Advisory Panel in Katie A. v. Bonta to guide implementation of the settlement agreement.

I. General Principles

• Children should live with their families. Exceptions should be made only when it is not possible through the provision of services (including intensive home-based services), to protect a child living with his/her family from harm or to protect a child from harm upon reunification with his/her family.

• The most natural and effective way of helping children to achieve safety, permanency and well-being is usually by strengthening the capacity and skills of their own families.

• The system’s efforts to assist children to achieve permanency should be conducted with the urgency appropriate to a child’s sense of time.

• The response to children and families shall not discriminate based on race, sex, religion ethnicity, national origin or sexual preference.

• Children should have freedom from excessive medication, unnecessary seclusion and restraint.

II Principles Relating to Resource Allocation and Service Design

• Neighborhood and community resources and institutions should be treated as key partners in serving children and families, both in planning for individual families and as a partner in system design and operations.

• Children and their families should have access to a comprehensive array of services, including intensive home-based services, designed to enable children to live with their families or to achieve timely permanency.

• Services should be flexible and adapted to child and family needs. Children and families should not be expected to adapt to ineffective services.

• To enable children to live safely with their families, vigorous early intervention services should be offered families-at-risk before the level of risk rises to a level necessitating involuntary intervention.

• The system should be sensitive to cultural differences and the special needs of minority ethnic and racial groups. Services should be provided in a manner that respects these differences and attends to these special needs. These differences and special needs should not be used as an excuse for failing to provide services.

III. Principles Related to Assessment, Planning and Intervention

• Services to children and their families should be planned and delivered through an individualized service plan crafted by the child and family team. Children, their parents, the family’s informal support network, caregivers and foster parents should be full participants in this team. Involvement should include regular participation in family team meetings as a point for engagement, assessment, planning intervention and assessment of progress.

• Children, parents and foster parents should be accurately and timely informed, in language understandable to them of their rights, the goal for the child/family and individualized service plans.

• Children and their families should receive individualized services based on their unique strengths and needs. Children and parents should be encouraged and assisted to articulate their own strengths and needs, the goals they are seeking for themselves and what services they think are required to meet these goals.

• The assessment process should address the underlying conditions creating the challenges experienced by the child and family, not just the symptoms of functioning. The system’s assessment should be developed with the suggestions and contributions of the full family team.

• The mix of services provided should be responsive to the strengths and needs of the child and his/her family. Conceptualizing the needs based plan should not be constrained by the availability of services. Where needed services are unavailable, appropriate services should be created.

• The system should ensure that the services identified in individualized service plans are timely, accessible and responsive to children and families and delivered in a coordinated and therapeutic manner that integrates the efforts of the contributors.

• The system should carefully monitor implementation of the individualized service plan and the progress being made toward the goal and objectives of the plan.

• The goal and the objectives of the individualized service plan should be updated as needed. Services identified in the plan should be modified as needed to meet the goal and objectives of the plan (for example, by adding new services or providing services in a different way).

IV. Principles Relating to the System’s Response to Alleged Child Abuse or Neglect

• The system should respond promptly to reports of abuse and neglect.

• The response to reports of abuse and neglect and requests for assistance should be met with an offer of help.

• Where children are found to be unsafe, immediate safety (protection) plans should be implemented.

V. Principles Relating to Children Who Must be Placed in Foster Care

• When children cannot live safely with their families, the first considerations for placement should be with kinship connections capable of offering and demonstrating the resource of a safe, stable and appropriate home.

• Siblings should be placed together. The system should develop a policy identifying circumstances in which exceptions to this principle may be permitted.

• Children should be placed in their own communities, where they can maintain relationships with family and friends and continue to attend the same school they were in prior to placement.

• Placements should be made in the least restrictive, most normalized setting responsive to the child’s needs.

• The system should avoid temporary, interim placements. Children should be placed in settings that could reasonably be expected to deliver long term care if necessary. To this end, the use of congregate shelter placements should be avoided in favor of family based settings. The system should not place children younger that six in congregate settings unless it is necessary to maintain connections with siblings placed in the same setting. When shelter is used, the placement should be short term.

• Children should receive prompt and appropriate attention to their health care needs.

• The system should vigorously seek to assure that children, when in foster care or custody, are integrated to the maximum extent feasible into normalized school settings and activities and achieve success in school.

• The matter of visiting, both between children in care and their parents and among siblings should be addressed in the child’s individualized service plan. The frequency and circumstances of visiting should depend on age and need. Visiting should be viewed as an essential ingredient of family reunification services. Hence, when the goal is for the child to return home or live with a family member, visiting should be actively encouraged. Visiting plans that require agency oversight or participation should take into account the work, education and obligations on the part of the parents. After hours and weekend visits should be options to permit parents to meet necessary obligations. Visiting may be arranged by the child, the child’s parents or family, or the foster parents, as well as by staff and the staff of residential facilities, in accordance with the individualized service plan.

• Supervision of visiting should be required only when there is a danger that the parent or family member with whom the child is visiting will harm the child unless the visit is supervised.

• The system should forbid summary discharges of children from placement. The system should develop a policy that describes steps that should be taken prior to a child’s discharge from a placement. The system should be based on the philosophy that the disruption of a placement is a failure of the system, not a failure of the child.

VI. Principles Related to Transitions from Care to Reunification or Independence

• Families whose children are reunified should receive ongoing supports that will enable them to safely sustain their children in their homes.

• Youth in custody who are expected to remain in care until adulthood should receive a full array of preparatory supports for independent living, addressing educational, emotional, relationship and vocational development.

• The system should promote smooth transitions for children to adult service. Planning for youth in custody who will reach adulthood without permanence should connect them with caring adults, both relatives and other resources, whom they can turn to for help after system supports are no longer available.

VII. Principles Related to Effective Collaboration with Other Service Systems

• Communication and interaction with the court should reflect timeliness, preparation, knowledge, respect and accuracy

• The system should take an active role in seeking to ensure that local education agencies (i) recognize children’s educational rights and (ii) provide children with educational services in accord with those rights.