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Family Team Conferencing Information

About Family Team Conferencing

ACS recognizes the importance of collaborating with families and young people to identify and address their needs, while building on their strengths. Family Team Conferences (FTC) are important opportunities to bring together family members, young people, extended family, caseworkers, parent advocates, and support figures to develop plans to keep children safe, support well-being, and achieve permanency.

In 2016, ACS integrated Family Team Conferencing across the child welfare continuum—child safety, preventive, and foster care with the goals of ensuring the shared lens of safety, permanency, well-being, stability, and equity are consistency aligned. This integration:

  • Created a single protocol instead of multiple conference protocol
  • Streamlined conferences with ACS supporting providers in facilitating up to 10 types of conferences
  • Instituted a Management Review Process when consensus cannot be reached

Download the Policy

Residential Care & Permanency Planning

Within the ACS Division of Family Permanency Services (FPS), Residential Care & Permanency Planning supports reunifications, transitioning youth, and encourages movement within the child welfare continuum.

Do you have a youth on your caseload that is slated to be trial discharged? Contact the Residential Care & Permanency Planning Unit for additional support.

What Does Residential Care & Permanency Planning Do?

Provide Technical Assistance by:

  • Supporting efforts to link youth/family to the most conducive aftercare plan, including appropriate school setting,
  • Providing referrals to Evidence-based Preventive Services,
  • Conducting case specific consultation,
  • Providing resources/linkages to internal supportive ACS units,
  • Participating in family team conferences and case specific conferences.

Residential and Preventive Provider Collaboration by:

  • Maintaining ongoing dialogue in support of eligibility, treatment goals, and to prevent interruption of treatment.
  • Providing clarity regarding the role and responsibility of each stakeholder
  • Collaborating with Family Service Unit/Division of Child Protection, when required.

Download the one-pager with IPAS-CW's contact information.

Requesting DOE Busing

Foster care agency staff must plan for educational stability immediately upon the foster care placement of a school-aged child.

Arranging and funding transportation to and from the child's school of origin is an essential first step in this process.

In order to enhance school stability under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has introduced a new protocol for providing busing to students in foster care. Under this arrangement, DOE will check existing special education or homeless student routes in order to add students in foster care to available routes.

Obtaining DOE Busing

  1. As always, agencies should first contact the school's pupil accounting secretary immediately after a student enters foster care or moves to a new foster home to ensure that the school updates the student's address in ATS.
  2. If a student requires new general education busing, the agency staff member must submit the newly revised DOE emergency evaluation form in conjunction with the foster care placement letter. Download the evaluation form and complete.
    • Please note: there is now a box in Section 2 of the form for you to check: “Pupil is currently in foster care or awaiting foster care placement.”
    • When it is complete, submit a copy of the form to the school AND email a copy to the NYC DOE Office of Pupil Transportation:OPTEmergencyTransportationRequests@schools.nyc.govwith “Foster Care Transportation” as the subject line, and copy The ACS Office of Educational Support & Policy at Education.unit@acs.nyc.gov.
  3. If the student requires a re-route to existing special education transportation, the emergency evaluation form is NOT necessary. Schools just need to update the address and make the request for transportation as they normally do.

Youth Driver Education Program

Learning to drive is an important rite of passage for many youth and also positions them for various employment opportunities. The ACS Driver's Education program will provide youth with access to a licensed driving school in the Bronx and Brooklyn/Queens free of charge to the youth and his/her foster care agency.

Youth will receive up to 12 45-minute driving lessons, the required in-class five hour pre-licensing course, and use of a vehicle on the day of the road test. If a young person does not pass the first road test, the driving school will provide additional instruction prior to their second attempt.

Eligibility Criteria:

  • Currently in foster care
  • Possess a NYS Learners Permit
  • Case Planner must assess youth as appropriate to drive and submit the referral form to the ACS Office of Employment and Workforce Development Initiatives

Download information about the referral process and the referral form.