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Barriers to permanency planning: What the literature suggests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Kerry Brydon*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work, Monash University, PO Box 197, Caulfield East, Vic 3145, Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Early studies concerned with permanency planning identified that many children remained in care for prolonged periods of time, in the absence of clearly defined plans for their long-term future. The studies also highlighted concern that multiple placements have a deleterious impact on children. As a consequence, permanency planning frameworks were developed to address the problems of welfare drift, the essence of permanency planning being timely decision-making and concurrent planning. However, there appear to be some systemic issues impacting on the application of the permanency planning framework. There also remains a policy preference for family preservation, which adversely affects permanency planning. The need is to conceptualise permanency planning as existing along a continuum of planning options for children, co-existing with family preservation models.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

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