Approximately every six weeks, each Benchmarks Center for Quality Integration team member is responsible for a blog post on our PACEs Connection page. Each month, one blog is a Partner Spotlight which highlights the incredible work happening across the state of North Carolina. For the month of May, Benchmarks Consultant, Sharron Roberts authored our partner spotlight blog where she shared about her “full-circle moment” below.
My search to highlight a partner in our Pathways to Permanency project led me back to the child welfare data that Benchmarks collected and analyzed at the end of last year. I was searching for a data point that could be used to highlight the hard work of the local county departments of social services (DSS). I found myself focusing on the data regarding placement moves and noticed that my hometown community was doing a really great job keeping children in foster care with minimal placement moves. I instantly knew exactly who I wanted to connect with to gain additional insight into what practices may be in place to support foster parents and youth in care. Racquel Hughes is the current Child Protective Services supervisor at Caswell County Department of Social Services. She participated in the focus groups for the Pathways to Permanency Project and now serves as a representative on the Appropriate and Supportive Homes Workgroup focused on suitable placements. As soon as I saw her name on Zoom, during one of the focus groups, I remembered who she was but I was not certain if she remembered me. Each meeting she would attend I continued to wonder if she remembered my name or face. When this blog provided me the opportunity to connect with her, I jumped right on it!
I reached out to Racquel and scheduled a phone call to follow up and gather supporting qualitative data for the blog. I asked her if she remembered me, to which she replied kindly, “No, but if you refresh my memory I probably will.” I then took a deep breath and shared with her that when I was a young girl she had been the worker responsible for overseeing my own family’s involvement with DSS and provided her details to help jog her memory. Racquel gasped and began to remember. In that moment, I felt as though my life had come full circle. Not only was I proud of myself for my own resiliency, but I also realized just how my inspiration and passion for this work is driven by my experiences and the kindness of people along the way, like Racquel.
This blog was initially about highlighting the practices of Caswell County DSS to help keep youth in foster care in as few placements as possible. Therefore, I would be remiss not to share that information as well. Racquel disclosed a few things she believes to be significant contributing factors in their standout statistics. Because Caswell County is a small rural community, their foster care workers wear many hats. One social worker is usually responsible for the case, fulfilling both the role of the case worker and the licensing worker. “I believe it is to our complete advantage that we are able to engage with families more than once per month. Because we are a smaller county, our workers have more contact with kinship and foster care providers. This gives them more guidance and support to help avoid disruptions.” Additionally, she shares that many of their kinship placement providers go on to become licensed foster parents, often caring for youth outside of their families who need placement. To support the kinship licensure process, Caswell County DSS offers two options to accommodate family’s schedules for the TIPS-MAPP classes. The cohort may choose to have classes over 10 weeks or double up sessions for a 5-week training course. During the training classes, youth from their LINKS program are paid to provide childcare in the same building as the training class to help alleviate the childcare burden. This also provides valuable experience for the older youth.
We love to hear all the ways local Departments of Social Services in North Carolina support youth and families with child welfare involvement! It is the efforts of social workers like Racquel Hughes that make it possible for families to thrive and for some like Sharron to experience their “full-circle” moment!
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