CHARTING A COURSE - MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF PERMANENCY PLANNING FOR CHILDREN WITH INCARCERATED MOTHERS

Case workers involved in permanency planning for children whose mother s are incarcerated must assess the family's strengths, the mother's ca pacity to assume parental responsibilities, and the integrity of the p arent-child relationship; and address concerns regarding the short- an d long-term effects of the children's socioemotional dislocation and t he merits of their retaining a relationship with their mothers. At the same time, correctional policies and practices delineate the nature a nd extent of contacts with the mother and the mother's access to rehab ilitative programs. Agency guidelines, practice tools, and advocacy in itiatives must be developed to help practitioners meet these challenge s. An initial review of the Adoption and Safe Families Act suggests th e need for close monitoring of the impact of its mandates to shorten t he time for moving children toward permanency and its weakening of the expectation for ''reasonable efforts'' to be made to reunify families .