In 2010, the US Children’s Bureau awarded six kinship navigator grants to assist formal and informal kinship caregivers to learn about, find, and use existing programs and services to meet their own needs and the needs of the children they are raising. These grant programs also are designed to promote effective partnerships between public agencies and private, community, and faith-based agencies to better serve the needs of kinship caregiver families.

• Aspiranet, Inc., South San Francisco, CA (serving Los Angeles County): Encore Parenting: Navigating Generations  
  This project has several innovative components: the recruitment and training Encore Navigators, based on the Encore model of recruiting retired professionals for community-based service with a social purpose; a multi-level project evaluation and dissemination plan, the creation of a social work intern unit dedicated to the project and collaboration and consultation with the Los Angeles County Kinship Advisory and Advocacy Network to create localized kinship councils to promote collaboration, awareness  of resources, advocacy, and empowerment.

• Edgewood Center for Children and Families, San Francisco, CA:  Kinship Support Network Navigator Program
  This project is implementing a kinship navigator program for California kinship families that is staffed and directed by kin caregivers and that will be sustained and serve as a national model.  The formative process and outcomes will be evaluated and documented.  The dissemination of  Policy and Procedure Manual and other information will support the program’s replication in California and nationally. 

• Minnesota Kinship Caregivers Association, St. Paul, MN:  Kinship Navigator Project
  This project is designed to enhance the stability and well being of children at risk of formal non-relatives placement by supporting kinship care and (when possible) family reunification.  Key services include information and referral, support groups, one-to-one navigator services and training caregivers and professionals.  New relative caregivers are paired with experienced caregiver mentors who can provide suggestions for resources and offer personal support and encouragement.

• Public Children Services Association of Ohio, Columbus, OH : Enhanced Kinship Navigator Project
  This project is demonstrating the effectiveness of kinship navigator programs in high-need areas of Ohio. Project components include: increase staffing, improved information about and accesses to needed services and supports for kinship families (particularly legal assistance, support groups, respite care, financial assistance and short-term child care), and strong system-level collaborative planning via advisory groups to guide the project and create effective interagency partnerships that will strengthen and sustain the service delivery system supporting families.

• The Children's Home Society of New Jersey, Trenton, NJ:  Kinship Cares
  This project focuses on New Jersey kin raising relatives’ children and is designed to expand the Children’s Home Society’s 7-year-old Navigator program with 6 new ombudsmen who will offer 2 test counties more intensive services and support/parent education groups while the control group receives regular kinship navigator program.  Kin support groups are created at existing Family Success Centers, agencies and churches, using the CWLA Kinship Pride curriculum.  The project is developing a comprehensive profile defining who is being services and their priority needs.  A rigorous evaluation will assess outcomes for the two groups (enhanced and regular kinship navigator program services).

• YMCA of San Diego County, San Diego, CA: The YMCA Kinship Navigator Program
  This project is designed to enhance services to kinship families, increasing placement stability and preventing children’s entry or reentry to foster care.  Kinship navigators connect families to support services, support the development of collaborative kinship network in each region, and connect kinship efforts countywide. The project is being rigorously evaluated to examine how the project key outcomes: access to and use of services, placement permanency and re-entry into the foster care system.

In 2010, the US Children’s Bureau awarded four intensive family finding grants to support states in developing and strengthening their efforts to  locate, engage and connect family with children and youth in foster care.

• Children's Service Society of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI: Family Finding Program for Wisconsin Youth in Out-of-Home Care  
  This project is designed to establish meaningful and permanent connections for 300 youth in Wisconsin out of home care with relatives/kin who can provide emotional and legal permanency, expand the use of family finding for youth in care in Wisconsin, and demonstrate the effectiveness of family finding as an approach to achieve child safety, permanency and well-being.  Child Trends is conducting a rigorous evaluation of the effectives of the model on child permanency/stability outcomes and family involvement in case planning.

• Four Oaks Family and Children's Services, Cedar Rapids, IA: Families for Iowa’s Children
  This project uses search technologies and family-centered practices to reconnect children entering foster care with family members and natural supports during and after their time in foster care.  Staff search for and engage relatives and natural supports as potential placement resources and permanency resources in the event that reunification is ruled out and/or to provide support to the child while he or she is in care and following care. The project contains strong court collaboration at all stages of the planning and is being implemented with diverse populations, including a tribal settlement.  The University of Iowa is conducting the evaluation.

• International Social Service United States of American Branch, Baltimore, MD:  Expanding Options for Permanency: International Family Findings for US Children in the New Jersey Foster Care System
  This project is developing a standard protocol for identifying children who may have potential family placement resources overseas, refer these children to ISS-USA, undertake intensive family finding efforts, evaluate potential family for their ability to provide a safe and permanent home and provide post-placement follow up for those cases that result in a permanent placement. The project is identifying any barriers to preventing US citizen children in US foster care from being placed with family outside the country.  It also is developing a training curriculum for social service and legal providers and an evaluative tool for determining the effectiveness of this training.

• Kids Central, Inc., Ocala, FL: Families for Florida’s Children
   This project is building on earlier efforts to implement family finding is a judicial district in Florida. It provides training on family finding to case management staff and offers the services of Family Finding Coaches and Search Specialists who provide intensive consultation to supervisors and case managers.  The evaluation will compare the outcomes for children assigned to case management units that receive intensive coaching and support and those children assigned to case management units that do not receives these services but who engage in family finding.

One grant specifically focuses on engaging families through family team conferencing.

• Partnership for Strong Families, Gainesville, FL: Family Engagement through Family Team Conferencing
  This project works with a variety of community and provider agencies to implement and evaluate two experimental models of Family Team Conferencing (FTC). The first model incorporates components of promising and evidence-informed family engagement practices and involves immediate engagement of families with  FTCs provided throughout the life of the case.  Non-case carrying facilitators are used. The second model includes components of the first model as well as specific time for families to develop a case plan on their own.  The evaluation includes a control group that receive a basic form of FTC that is currently being implemented in North Central Florida.

In addition, eight Family Connections Grants have been made to communities that are implementing multi-purpose projects:

• Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Yakima, dba CFCS R, Richland, WA: Family Connections Demonstration Project
  This project weaves together Kinship Navigator, Intensive Family Finding and Family Team Decision Making to serve 840 youth. Among the key features of the program are: a Tribal Navigator in ana areas when Native American youth are disproportionately represented in foster care; innovative family search technology; and increased capacity, quality and scope in family team decision making meetings.  Tri-West Group is conducting the evaluation.

• Lilliput Children's Services, Sacramento, CA: Kinnections Initiative
  This project, which utilizes the dual approach of intensive family finding and intensive kinship navigator services, target African American youth between the ages of 6 and 17 entering foster care in Sacramento County for the first time through the Children’s Receiving Home.  The focus is “upstream” when children first enter care and uses a thorough and comprehensive search for kin, comprehensive engagement services when kin are located, and an intensive kinship navigator program called Kinship Support Services Program Plus that offers intensive systems navigation, in-home case management and therapeutic support.

• Maine Department of Health & Human Services, Augusta, ME:  Maine Kinship Connections Project
  This project is implementing a model of enhanced kinship navigation services, kinship-care Family Team Meetings and family finding processes.  Enhanced kinship navigator services are provided by highly skilled navigators that support families with court/legal systems navigation, mental health education, a comprehensive model of family team meetings, and family finding activities.   The project provides consultation and professional training on these issues for child welfare staff and community agencies statewide.  The University of Maine Center on Aging is evaluating the project with particular focus on outcomes of the intensive navigator model compared to the usual services provided to kinship families.

• Maryland Depart Human Resources, Baltimore, MD : Making Place Matter through Family Kin Connections (Family Kin Connections)
  This project is developing new kinship navigator program for Maryland with the targeted population being kin caring for children who are not involved in the child welfare system; intensive family finding that includes computer-based searches and training on the Intensive Family Finding model with older youth in care being the primary target population; and the development of a training on family group decision that will provide a standard model of practices. 

• Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma Kinship Bridge
  This project utilizes family finding and kinship navigator services. It serves two children’s shelters  where a total of approximately 2,500 children are served each year. The approach includes an intensive family-finding approach during the first 24 hours a child is brought to one of the shelters. Kinship Navigators assist kinship caregivers in learning about, finding and using programs and services available to support the placement of a child/children with them.

• RI Foster Parents Association, East Providence, RI:  Rhode Island Partnership for Family Connections
  This project is expanding local models of intensive family finding and family group decision making and building a statewide kinship navigation system.  The planning and implementation team consists of nine agencies, including the public child welfare agency.  

• South Carolina Department of Social Services, Columbia, SC:  SC Connecting for Kids
  This project is implementing kinship navigator services in 6 counties and family finding in 11 counties  and is developing training for kin caregivers.   Family locator services are provided to increase the relative/fictive kin connections for older youth in danger of aging out of foster care without a supportive adult. The target population for the kinship navigator services is relative/kin caregivers of children diverted from foster care and whose parents are receiving in-home treatment services.  The University of Southern California Center for Child and Family Studies is evaluating the project to identify the most beneficial training for kin caregivers, the services most needed to prevent entry/reentry into foster care, whether the use of locators and navigators decrease entry/reentry, and whether the use of locators increase the number of kinship placements for youth in care.

• State of Hawaii Department of Human Services, Honolulu, HI:  Family Connections Hawaii
  This project is implementing family finding and Ohana Conferencing, the Polynesian model of Family Group Decision Making, for two new populations of children in tow heavily Hawaiian areas. The Placement Prevention Intervention seeks to prevent children birth to 17 from entering foster care and if removed, to place them with relatives.  Intensified family finding supports an Ohana Conference within 24 to 72 hours for children whom a social worker assesses as in need of placement but not yet laced and children placed in care as a result of imminent risk of harm.  The Permanency Intervention revisits options for children ages 4 to 14 in long term foster care without permanent connections.

Children’s Defense Fund.  (2009).  Questions and Answers About the Family Connections Grants.