The Family Focused Treatment Association (FFTA) and its North Carolina Chapter are pleased to announce the selection of the public and private partners that will participate in the FFTA Kinship TFC Pilot Project. The Duke Endowment awarded FFTA with a three-year grant to help develop an approach for partnering public and private agencies to deliver a kinship therapeutic foster care model. The goal is to help children and youth remain in their family network with kin who will receive the hands-on support they need to meet the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of those in their care.
FFTA is excited to share the partnerships that have been established in North Carolina to start this important initiative. FFTA has selected the following agencies that will deliver Kinship TFC through this demonstration project: Methodist Home for Children and Wake County Human Services; Children’s Hope Alliance and Cabarrus County DHS; and Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina and New Hanover County DSS. These agencies were selected based on a set of criteria that includes: capacity to commit to a three year pilot project; readiness to implement kinship TFC; existing public/private partnerships, and in the case of private agencies, an established therapeutic foster care program and relevant experience working with kinship caregivers.
FFTA is also pleased to announce its selection of Child Trends to design and conduct the evaluation of the project. Child Trends has extensive experience conducting evaluations in North Carolina and across the U.S. and is one of the nation’s leading research organizations focused exclusively on improving the lives of vulnerable children and youth.
In addition, Child Focus and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) School of Social Work’s Family and Children’s Resource Program has been selected to help enhance the competencies of the pilot partners through the development of a learning community. By combining Child Focus’ national kinship and policy expertise with UNC-CH’s child welfare training and technical assistance experience, they will be well-equipped to develop and deliver high quality staff training, coaching and technical assistance to the pilot agencies.
FFTA will maintain its Kinship TFC Advisory Group, which meets monthly and provides expertise and input into the pilot’s development and implementation. We are grateful to the providers, public sector partners, kinship caregivers and consultants for contributing their time and knowledge to this initiative.
FFTA is committed to sharing its learnings from this pilot with all FFTA members, counties, and other stakeholders across North Carolina and beyond. Updates will be provided as they become available. Questions about the project can be directed to the FFTA Project Manager, Erica Burgess, at eburgess@ffta.org.
