On September 30, 2011, a second cluster of grant projects was funded by the Children’s Bureau:  Family Connection Grants: Using Family Group Decision-making to Build Protective Factors for Children and Families

Seven discretionary grant projects were funded for a 36-month project period, with awards ranging up to $550,000 per year.  Projects will test the effectiveness of Family Group Decision-making (FGDM) as a family-centered service approach that helps prevent children and youth from entering or re-entering foster care, thereby reducing the time that these children and families are involved with the child welfare system. 

Projects will use FGDM meetings to engage families in building capacity to meet their children's needs by strengthening protective factors and reducing risk factors for child maltreatment.  Grant projects will develop knowledge which will help identify where in the service delivery system, with which populations and in which manner the promising practice of FGDM works best.  They will serve as demonstration sites that other States/locales seeking to implement family connection services for this population can look to for guidance, insight, and possible replication. 

Family Connection FGDM Grantees

• American Humane Association, Englewood, CO
• Homes for Black Children, Detroit, MI
• Kids Central, Inc., Ocala, FL
• The Children's Home Society of New Jersey, Trenton, NJ
• The Village Family Service Center, Fargo, ND
• Ute Indian Tribe, Fort Duchesne, UT
• YMCA of San Diego County, San Diego, CA
  

On September 30, 2009, awards under the new Family Connection Grants Program were announced by the Children’s Bureau; Administration on Children, Youth and Families; Administration for Children and Families; U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.  A cluster of 24 discretionary grants was funded for a 36-month project period, with awards ranging up to $1m per year.  Funding for these competitive grants was authorized by the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-351).  

The purpose of these demonstration grant projects is to help children who are in or are at-risk of entering into foster care reconnect with family members.  Projects were funded to initiate or expand programs in one, or any combination of, the following areas:

• Kinship navigator programs;
• Programs utilizing intensive family-finding efforts to locate biological family and reestablish relationships;
• Programs utilizing family group decision-making meetings;
• Residential family treatment programs.  

As demonstration projects, grantees are developing these programs as identifiable sites that other States/locales seeking to implement family connection services for this population can look to for guidance, insight, and possible replication.

Click here for a list of project abstracts and contact information.

Click here for Year 2 Cross-Site Report documents