We need your legislative action. Currently, this program has been cut from both the Senate and House budgets. This Program can make a positive impact on children in care.
The University of Washington School of Social Work conducted a study with a grant from the Stuart Foundation. The study focused on four main objectives and included a control group and a study group of 97 parents and 157 children. These parents and children received Parent Mentoring services. The study found that 85% of the children in the mentoring group were reunified compared to 44% of the comparison group. Additionally, the children in the mentoring group stayed in foster care 244 fewer days than the comparison group. The study indicated that there is a high satisfaction on the part of both mentors and parents.
“Evaluation Conclusions The Parent Mentoring Program has proven to be a promising child welfare program. Parents who participated in the PMP were more likely to reunify with their children than comparison group parents. Furthermore, children in the PMP group spent fewer days in foster care. These are important findings because they go to the heart of the goal of child welfare intervention – to reunify parents and children whenever safely possible.”
“An additional benefit of the program is its grounding in every day child welfare practice. Most evidence-based models have been developed outside of child welfare and imported with uneven success. The fact that this program was developed by line public child welfare social workers increases the likelihood that it will be taken up and implemented within the system, creating systemic change.”
This study supports the positive impact of the Parent Mentoring Program. Currently, the Parent Mentoring Program has been dropped from both House and Senate Budgets. We need to demonstrate are our disappointment in a positive way. Please write these key legislators and ask them to not put the brakes on the foster care momentum they have created over the last few years. PMP is a foster parent program that hires veteran foster parents to support the transition home and
HOUSE
[email protected] cc: [email protected]
[email protected] cc: [email protected]
SENATE
[email protected] cc: [email protected]