Stanford Youth Solutions promises to do everything in our power to help families stay together. In the event they cannot, we look to qualified members of this community to help young people in need. We are accredited by the California Alliance of Child and Family Services.

Stanford Youth Solutions works hard to create a perfect match of child and family and then do all we can to support our families. Most children in our care remain with the same family until they return to their birth families. When
children cannot return to their birth families, we provide assistance for their foster parents to assume guardianship or adoption. We provide foster parents the complete support they need to successfully care for youth.

The safety and health of children are the highest priority at Stanford Youth Solutions. We believe that healthy families provide the best kind of long term safety and security that children need to develop into self-sufficient adults. We are committed to training, planning, and supporting the families and young people we serve, regardless of past experiences or current obstacles.

Stanford Youth Solutions is committed to offering each young person a successful, permanent placement. Long-term foster care is the least desired outcome. Successful outcomes are:

• Reunification
• Guardianship by the resource family
• Adoption, or
• Emancipation with a lifetime commitment.
   

Commitment to Family Principles

• Every young person should have a case plan for permanence. Stanford Youth Solutions social workers partner with CPS social workers, youth, and biological family members to identify the permanent plan and to provide services in support of this plan.
• Older children and youth should be involved in their own permanency planning decisions. Stanford Youth Solutions staff works to empower youth to participate fully and creatively in the development of their permanent plan.
• Children have a better chance of permanency when they live in families rather than group care facilities. Stanford Youth Solutions provides Intensive Treatment Foster Care (ITFC), designed to stabilize children with challenging behaviors in a family based setting. Placement in ITFC homes can be used as a resource to prevent placement in a group care facility as well as to move children out of group care facilities.
• Effective recruitment techniques successfully find families for older foster children and youth, and these new families need support. Precertification training and ongoing trainings offer education specific to the care of older children. Additionally, monthly support groups offer a venue for resource families to share ideas and network with one another.
• Crisis intervention support services are available 24/7.

Family Centered Practice

Family-centered practice means that we work with the family as the primary focus of attention. The primary purpose of family-centered practice is to strengthen the family’s potential for carrying out their responsibilities by focusing on family strengths, not on problems or deficits. These strengths are also leveraged to address challenges and needs identified by the family.

We support and intervene, promoting the safety, well-being and permanent connections between family members, including children identified as needing specific care and attention. Caregivers and siblings receive services in accordance with the needs of the family and the wishes of a family-driven team. Unbiased information is shared with families on a continual basis in order to support their need and ability to make decisions with adequate information. True family/professional collaboration is sought, not just coordination, recognizing that the family should always be the constant in a child’s life.

Families are Full Partners

Families have voice and choice in the development and implementation of their child and family plan. Families are recognized as knowing themselves better than anyone and are encouraged to use their expert knowledge throughout decision and goal-making processes. We provide individualized, culturally-responsive, and relevant services for each family. In addition, we involve families in creating agency policies and programs.

Families Linked to Supports and Services

Family-centered interventions assist in mobilizing resources to maximize communication, shared planning, and collaboration among community and/or neighborhood systems that are directly involved with the family. Planning and services occur in communities where families live. Families are encouraged to engage in family-to-family support and networking.

Outcome Driven Services

Stanford Youth Solutions examines and evaluates program implementation and the family-centered outcomes achieved through to use of scientific research and analysis. We adopt new methods (and abandon others) in accordance with research findings and family-centered practice principles and values. The program is evaluated for its ability to achieve successful outcomes.

Individualized Services

Planning and services are individualized. The family plan includes the strengths, needs, options, strategies, and services of the young person as well as the family and other family members.

Child and Family Teams

Each family plan is developed by the child, the family and other members of the family with oversight and facilitation from a trained professional. We encourage this family team to come up with and “own” their plan together.

Needs-Driven

Services provided are inspired by the prioritized needs of the families served, across all life-domains, not the categories determined by others. Planning and services are comprehensive.

Committed

Planning, support and intervention occurs in an environment of unconditional acceptance. As family’s needs change, the plans, strategies, and services change. Families are not discharged until: 1) the desired outcome is achieved, 2) the family team seeks termination of services, or 3) regulation or funding necessitates termination of services.

Culturally Competent

Services are grounded in the family’s culture, values and norms. Staff members strive to become educated and sensitive to the unique culture of each family.