Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services: Permanency Partners Program Evaluation

This exploratory study is the first to investigate the outcomes for youths soon to emancipate from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) between the ages of 12 and 18 receiving Permanency Partner's Program (P3) services in the child-welfare system in Los Angeles County. The P3 program was developed to locate meaningful connections from the youth's past and present in order to achieve lifelong permanence. This a Qualitative Data study where the authors reviewed consisted of 30 case notes and summaries that the P3 workers entered in the child-welfare case management system. The aim of this secondary data analysis was to determine the outcome of the services as well as the barriers that workers might encounter when providing those services to the youth. The following six significant themes were noted during the case note reviews: (1) adult siblings and family members were open to establishing a relationship with the youth, (2) many families were located as potential placement but due to limited house space and criminal history the youth were prevented from being placed in their care, (3) P3 workers faced interagency challenges when providing services, (4) Refusal to participate in services by both the youth or respective caregiver, (5) P3 workers faced challenges in linking the youth to agency based services, and (6) P3 went beyond case goals to assist the youth. The authors reviewing the data identified that the data did not provide insight as to the quality of relationships between the youth and supportive adult of those connections made, it only identified that they were connected; which could be a predictor to successful emancipation from the child-welfare system. Further, it was identified that improvements need to be made in the concurrent planning process such as improving interagency communication, thorough family history record keeping, and fostering formal connections in efforts to provide optimal results in making those lifelong connections. Future studies will enable us to further refine our understanding of the positive outcomes and unintended consequences of P3 services and what policies can be put in place to aid the successfully transition of emancipation of the youth from the child welfare system.