Grantee Projects Child and Family Tennessee
Youth Options for Permanency and Empowerment Now (OPEN) (May 2008)
Youth OPEN is a program of Child & Family Tennessee (CFT), a nonprofit agency that has provided services to youth and families since 1929. CFT has been a leader in developing a continuum of services for youth, ranging from intensive in-home case management to therapeutic foster care services to residential group facilities. Youth OPEN is an important part of this continuum of care.
Covering a 16 county area in East Tennessee, Youth OPEN targets older teenagers who have been in the custody of the state and who need permanent connections with caring adults. Youth Advocates work closely with teens ages 12 and older to try to find permanency either through reunification with a birth parent, placement with a relative, adoption, or subsidized guardianships. Staff also help link youth who are aging out of the system with caring adult connections. Advocacy is a major component of the program with program staff working with youth on effective ways to self-advocate and to promote their needs and feelings about permanency options.
Program Components:
- Training youth to advocate in the community about the needs of permanency for youth in foster care.
- Youth Speak Out Teams go to community events, foster parent trainings, and social service professional trainings so youth can tell their stories to provide a “face” to the issue of teens in foster care.
- Youth ACT UP is an acting troupe that performs skits at community functions to help recruit potential foster and adoptive parents for teens.
- Having a Youth Leader who connects with the youth one-on-one. The Youth Leader is a former foster child who aged out of the system who relates to the youth as someone who has been “in their shoes.”
- Providing staff and peer support to teens in foster care.
- Weekly support groups that give older teens a forum to discuss their feelings about permanency.
- Bi-monthly Youth Empowerment Parties where youth learn about issues that affect their permanency such as communication, advocacy, and grief/loss.
- Co-location of staff offices in 2 Department of Children’s Services (DCS) locations so staff and DCS caseworkers work as a team to promote permanency for youth.
- On-going evaluation to track changes in youth attitudes and stability in placements over time.
| To date, the project has achieved the following outcomes: | |
| 9 | youth adopted |
| 3 | pending adoptions |
| 4 | youth in permanent guardianships |
| 19 | youth returned to birth parents |
| 2 | youth placed with relatives |
| 39 | youth connected to a positive adult who can provide on-going support |
For more information, please contact:
Anna Rogers, MA
Youth OPEN Project Manager
Child & Family Tennessee
Phone: 865.981.5087
Fax: 865.981.5394