What is concurrent planning?
Concurrent planning is an innovative foster care case management tool to pursue the primary goal of family reunification, while at the same time developing an alternative permanency plan for the child. This alternate plan will often include adoption as the major alternative to family reunification. If family reunification efforts fail, then the alternate plan will already be in place and well on its way to completion. Concurrent planning is intended to reduce the total period of time a child will remain in foster care before being permanently placed with a family.
To ensure that children are not in temporary foster care longer than necessary, child welfare workers are required to make a “concurrent” plan for children. This speeds up the permanency process when a child cannot be returned home safely. Concurrent planning is a two-track process that involves: • reasonable efforts to reunify children with parents as well as • developing the most appropriate alternative for a legally permanent family. This means that foster children are placed with foster families who are willing to commit to a child and provide a stable home, while also supporting reunification with his or her birth family. The family is also approved for adoption in case efforts to return the child to his or her birth family are unsuccessful. This is a child-focused approach to foster care which acknowledges the importance of returning children to their birth families in a timely and supportive manner and when appropriate. It reduces the number of moves that children make while the
