We have a small rural team of three consultants, Patricia Beelner, Emily Alons and Ella Jahn, covering a five-county area in Iowa. In the last two months, our team has been faced with additional cases, traveling for training and three Family Preservation Cases, on top of all our regular workload requirements.
Family Preservation Services (FPS) are intensive services utilized to prevent the removal of children from their natural family home. These services require daily contact, including weekends and holidays. Along with daily contact, each FPS case has a Child Safety Conference -- a meeting with the family and professionals involved -- to develop a detailed plan to address immediate safety concerns which could lead to removal if they aren’t addressed.
Our team has stepped up to support one another and ensure these intensive services are delivered. These three consultants have maintained a high level of communication among themselves to ensure families were met with daily, documentation was completed daily, resources were provided to families and skills were taught at each interaction.
Due to the high level of communication, adapting to schedule changes, daily travel and strong teamwork between these three consultants, each one of our FPS cases closed successfully, and none of the children were removed from their parents.
Great job, Patricia, Emily and Ella!