18.5 Homestead

Georgia State Seal

Georgia Division of Family and Children Services
Child Welfare Policy Manual

Chapter:

(18) Support Services to Preserve or Reunify Families

Policy Title:

Homestead

Policy Number:

18.5

Previous Policy Number(s):

2107, 2107.26-2107.32

Effective Date:

March 2020

Manual Transmittal:

2020-03

Codes/References

Title IV-E of the Social Security Act §§ 431 (a) (1) and (2)
Public Law 96-272 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980

Requirements

The Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) will:

  1. Explore community-based services, Medicaid covered services, Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF), services offered through partner agencies such as Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD), Department of Community Health (DCH), Department of Public Health (DPH), and other resources at no cost to the family before using Homestead contracted services.

  2. Determine eligibility for Homestead services based on the following criteria:

    1. The family has an open Family Preservation or Permanency case.

    2. The children are at risk of unnecessary foster care placement or are ready for reunification.

  3. Offer Homestead Services to eligible families in accordance with criteria outlined in the COSTAR manual.

    Refer to the COSTAR manual for fee schedules, contract requirements, funding limitations, and applicable waivers.

  4. Refer the family to approved contracted providers and monitor services in accordance with policy 19.17 Case Management: Service Provision.

  5. Complete a Service Authorization and obtain approval prior to initiating Homestead Services.

  6. Monitor service provision to ensure the family is receiving services based on their identified needs.

  7. Document provision of services in Georgia SHINES within 72 hours of receipt of progress reports/summaries from the provider. Document the services provided and the resulting behavioral changes in the case plan.

  8. Monitor Homestead services and expenditures in accordance with the COSTAR manual.

  9. Ensure providers and staff respect families’ rights to confidentiality and protected health information through adherence to the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other confidentiality laws in accordance with policy 2.5 Information Management: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and 2.6 Information Management: Confidentiality/Safeguarding Information.

Procedures

Social Services Case Manager

  1. Determine the family’s eligibility for Homestead services.

  2. Complete a Service Authorization in Georgia SHINES and obtain approval to initiate Homestead services in accordance with the Georgia SHINES Job Aid: Comprehensive Job Aid for Service Authorization in Forms and Tools. Document the provider’s acceptance of the referral in Georgia SHINES.

    Emailed referrals must be encrypted. To encrypt the email, type DHSEncrypt in the Subject line.

  3. Monitor service provision in accordance with policy 19.17 Case Management: Service Provision.

  4. Document provision of Homestead services in Georgia SHINES:

    1. Include the services provided to the family, their level of participation and any behavioral changes resulting from the services in the Log of Contacts within 72 hours of occurrence.

    2. Review and upload provider reports/summaries into External Documentation within 72 hours of receipt.

    3. Update the Case Plan in accordance with policies 8.3 Family Preservation Services: Case Planning and 10.23 Foster Care: Case Plan, as applicable.

Social Services Supervisor

  1. Assist the SSCM in determining if Homestead services are appropriate.

  2. Review and approve the Service Authorization.

  3. Ensure timely completion and submission of the referral to the provider.

  4. Review Georgia SHINES to ensure services are being provided and the SSCM is providing appropriate follow up.

  5. Assist the SSCM in monitoring services.

Practice Guidance

The goal of Homestead services is to stabilize and help families in need of intensive therapeutic intervention to ensure a safe and healthy environment for the family. Homestead services provide intensive, crisis-oriented, in-home counseling in order to stabilize the family and ensure a safe and healthy environment for the children. This program attempts to meet the immediate crisis-oriented needs of families while also beginning to address the root causes of family dysfunction with therapeutic intervention strategies. The Homestead Program provides a comprehensive assessment, family support, counseling and crisis intervention to manage the risk factors contributing to child abuse and neglect. A family must have an open Family Preservation, Permanency or Adoption Child Welfare case to receive Homestead services.

The Homestead Program is the most intensive of the family preservation services provided to families where children are at risk of imminent placement or at high risk of maltreatment. It is an intensive, short-term (180 days), assessment and intervention service provided to eligible families to prevent unnecessary placement of children out of the home or provide for their immediate reunification from foster care. Not all out-of-home placements can be avoided. If a child is being seriously or deliberately maltreated, an out-of-home placement is required to assure safety. However, in many cases, Homestead services are successful in managing the risk factors in the home, thereby preventing unnecessary foster care placement of the children.

Homestead services are best matched to families in crisis and who require therapeutic or clinically oriented intervention. Homestead services have been successful with a variety of families with significant problems. Several common factors with these families include a desire and motivation to change and the emotional and intellectual capacities to benefit from counseling. Homestead Services can and should be used for cases that have been evaluated and found to be high-risk cases. Additionally, Homestead services can be used for children at imminent risk of placement or when a child is being reunified to his/her family. Homestead Services can be part of the reunification plan. Homestead services are provided in the family’s home rather than through office visits to emphasize a systems approach and to ensure access to services. Immediate availability of the Homestead therapist and their services are an important part of the Homestead program. Homestead therapists are expected to possess the necessary skills to conduct thorough assessments and provide therapeutic intervention with families and their children. Homestead services shall not be used to keep children in unsafe environments.

Homestead Program Tenets

  1. Family and Systems Based: The Homestead program is family centered and systems-based in its orientation. Family centered practice is a growing and changing field of social work practice. A systems approach entails taking a different perspective of a family, their children and the family’s strengths and needs. A systems approach requires refocusing from "internal" causation of individual problems to multiple and interrelated strengths and needs within and between family members, the community and the environment in which they live. Family focused services target the entire family system and the environment rather than individual family members.

    1. A systems approach seeks to assess and understand both the behavior and the context in which that behavior occurs, including individual, family and environmental factors. A systems perspective should not diminish a parent’s personal responsibility or leadership role in the family. It does view and try to assess a range of factors that correlate with the family’s presenting problems. This perspective is firmly rooted in the belief that a child is best cared for and reared by his/her own family in their own home, when safety and protection can be insured.

    2. If there is significant risk of maltreatment and the situation is not immediately correctable by providing Homestead services, then a temporary placement out of the home may be necessary. A child’s safety is the primary goal of all child welfare services including family preservation services.

  2. In-Home Service Provision: Homestead services are provided extensively in the family’s home rather than through office visits and in-home service provision is an important part of the Homestead program. It is a physical reinforcement of the family centered systems philosophy that connects the worker to the family.

  3. Short-Term: Homestead services are short-term services that extend to a maximum of 180 days for imminent risk of placement cases. Homestead services may be used up to six (6) months or 180 days for immediate reunification. While a family may present many needs, Homestead’s goal is highly specific in targeting those needs directly linked to preventing unnecessary foster care placements or effecting immediate reunification. The frequency of Homestead services may be adjusted to provide greater contact and support later in the service period. At the end of 180 days a family may have a number of ongoing or unfinished needs. The Homestead therapist must assist the family in connecting with a resource in the community who can address any long-term needs.

  4. Immediate Availability: Immediate availability of the Homestead therapist and their services are an important part of the Homestead program philosophy. This availability requires that therapists be easily accessible to their families and flexible in their work hours.

  5. Goal Specific: Homestead services are highly goal specific and focused. Homestead services are targeted to families with children at risk of imminent placement into foster care or ready for reunification from foster care. Intervention by the Homestead therapist should always be structured according to the goals identified through the initial assessment and should be consistent with the family’s case plan.

  6. Crisis Intervention: Family crisis is at the core of Homestead services. It is a combination of factors within the family’s life that create a level of crisis resulting in the imminent risk of placement of their children in foster care due to maltreatment, requiring immediate intervention. Parents and their children will also experience emotional and psychological stress as the result of reunification of the children from foster care; due to the effects that foster care disruption can create. Homestead services must be able to respond to family crisis as they arise and provide the family with strategies to manage future stress. See the COSTAR manual for timeframes related to crisis intervention.

  7. Low Caseloads: Low caseloads of the Homestead therapist are critical to the success of Homestead services from the perspective of allocating more time per family in resources.

  8. Therapeutic Intervention for Change: Homestead services are intended to be helpful, supportive therapeutic interventions to assist in family change. At times, child welfare activities are centered on investigation or supervision of a family or are focused on controlling a situation or behavior and imply the use of the court or police. The Homestead services are not investigation services nor are they required or mandated. Parental choice prevails and coercive use of Homestead services is inappropriate.

  9. Self-Sufficiency: Self-sufficiency, self-determination and independence for a family are uniform goals in the Homestead program. A Homestead therapist should steadfastly encourage a family’s independence, self-sufficiency. Children are the responsibility of their parents. The Homestead program helps parents to help themselves and their children. A healthy, self-sufficient and financially independent family teaches those important standards to their children. Achievement and accomplishment are primary ways we gain mastery and confidence. Self-esteem, self-worth and identity are intimately connected to self-sufficiency and work. Our sense of self, feelings of security, self-respect, ability to give, and competency are all enhanced through increased self-sufficiency.

  10. Empowering: Homestead services work to empower a family as it discovers and builds on its own strengths, skills, decision making, competency and independence. Homestead services seek to enhance and reinforce a family’s autonomy, parenting skills, decision-making skills and independence.

  11. Skills Building: Homestead services are designed to be family skill builders. Working with the entire family, Homestead services work to strengthen parenting, coping, family management and problem-solving skills.

  12. Community Based, Culturally Sensitive: Homestead services are community based, accessible to and responsive to the families and the community they serve. Homestead services work cooperatively and in unison with child welfare, law enforcement, courts, mental health, community groups and churches as a responsible member and link in the social services network. Homestead services work to honor and respect culturally different views, beliefs, attitudes, values and systems in which families rear their children.

  13. Trauma Informed: Just as many children in the child welfare system have experienced different kinds of trauma, many birth parents involved with child welfare services have their own histories of childhood and/or adult trauma. Untreated traumatic stress has serious consequences for children, adults, and families. Traumatic events in childhood and adolescence can continue to impact adult life, affecting an adult’s ability to regulate emotions, maintain physical and mental health, engage in relationships, parent effectively, and maintain family stability. Parents’ past or present experiences of trauma can affect their ability to keep their children safe, to work effectively with child welfare staff, and to respond to the requirements of the child welfare system (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network 2000).

Homestead includes but is not limited to the following services.

  1. Bonding/Attachment Assessment

    Should only be used if the child/family is non-eligible for Medicaid, Peach Care or Private Health Insurance.

  2. Transportation Services

    This service is used solely when transporting children or family members to appointments to complete Homestead services.

  3. Family Therapy Counseling

  4. Behavioral Aide Services

    Requires a supervision plan and universal application or Passport for visitation supervision.

  5. Crisis Intervention

  6. Kinship Assessment

Kinship Assessment

The kinship assessment is completed to determine the appropriateness of placement resources for children in foster care.

Forms and Tools

N/A