The program components of Project TEENS 2 HOMES  individually serve unique purposes and in their totality create a model with the intensity to make a substantial impact on achieving permanency for youth 12 years and older and/or members of sibling groups. The project integrates best practice approaches such as elements from informal and formal social support networks, person-centered planning, and positive youth development, mentoring to generate successful outcomes. As a child-centered model, Project TEENS 2 HOMES gives the youth a central and meaningful role in all program activities. 

Peer Groups
The TEENS 2 HOMES  Peer groups offer the opportunity for youth waiting in the foster care system to begin to address in a supportive environment, emotions and issues that may be barriers to permanency for them - especially the fear of losing contact with their birth/kinship families. The peer group format offers a setting in which the youth can learn, ventilate feelings, and share understanding with others like themselves. The groups will follow a positive youth development approach with a goal of helping the youth gain self-esteem and motivation. Our intention is to inform these youth about permanency options and empower them to meet challenges, follow a positive developmental pathway, and become advocates for themselves and for permanency.

Camp TEENS 2 HOMES
Camp TEENS 2 HOMES  will be an intensified version of the TEENS 2 HOMES  Peer Groups with two-week sessions (10 days from 9:30 a.m.– 4:30 p.m.) accommodating the addition of an arts component and recreational activities. Like the TEENS 2 HOMES Peer Groups, the camp’s goal will be to address in a supportive environment emotions and issues that may be barriers to permanency for youth in the public welfare system - especially the fear of losing contact with their birth/kinship families. The camp too will follow a positive youth development approach with a goal of helping the youth gain confidence and motivation to engage in their own life plan.  The camp will provide a base for learning, ventilating feelings, and sharing understanding with peers like themselves.

Youth Leadership Council
The TEENS 2 HOMES Youth Leadership Council continues a progression from TEENS 2 HOMES Peer Groups and Camp TEENS 2 HOMES. The three activities are intended to empower the youthful participants resulting in their becoming advocates for themselves and for permanency. Those who emerge as leaders in the peer groups and/or at camp or are particularly motivated will be encouraged to become part of the TEENS 2 HOMES Youth Leadership Council. Project TEENS 2 HOMES considers these youth to be the best spokespeople to communicate their feelings, wants, and needs to professionals, birth/kinship family members, adoptive and prospective permanency parents, and community leaders. With the knowledge and personal strength gained from the TEENS 2 HOMES  Peer Groups, Camp TEENS 2 HOMES / VIP, and the assistance of Project TEENS 2 HOMES  staff, the Youth Leadership Council will develop a panel presentation to reach out to prospective permanency parents and provide insight and understanding to other youth, adoption and legal professionals and permanency parents. The goal will be to provide youth with a voice to articulate how they feel, what they want, and what they need.
   
Mentors
The TEENS 2 HOMES Mentoring Match Program combines the traditional role of a mentor with an expanded commitment based on the mentored youths being youth in the public child welfare system. Beyond being a special relationship, role model and confidant, the TEENS 2 HOMES mentor will also be asked to act as an advocate for permanency for the youth. All the components of the TEENS 2 HOMES  Mentoring Match Program are designed to meet the Standards of Practice of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, of which Bellefaire’s Big Brother Big Sister (BBBS) Program is a charter member. For youth who have suffered many losses of important people in their lives and are emancipated from the foster care system without family to call their own, the mentor potentially could become their only life-long connection and source of needed guidance and assistance.

Community Chorus
While the main goal of the TEENS 2 HOMES  Community Chorus is to connect youth to adults to promote a range of permanency options, it is a vehicle that will foster many other wonderful benefits. The TEENS 2 HOMES  Community Chorus is designed to bring together youth from the child welfare system, case workers, adoption triad members, TEENS 2 HOMES  mentors, and interested members of the community to enjoy making music together while creating and performing a choral program to educate the community at large about the importance of permanency for all children. No musical experience is necessary, just a willingness to sing.

When ready, the TEENS 2 HOMES  Community Chorus will perform in a wide range of venues, but especially will seek to be invited to neighborhoods, churches and events whose geo-demographics are similar to those of current successful adoptive families. People who know the youth, especially people who are or potentially could be affiliated with a Circle of Support, will be invited to attend.  Thus, the TEENS 2 HOMES  Community Chorus becomes a strength-based, child-specific recruitment tool connecting youth to adults to promote a range of permanency options. As an alternative to artificial one-time events or photo listings, the TEENS 2 HOMES  Community Chorus provides a setting in which people can appreciate the youth functioning in a normalized situation as regular kids.  The TEENS 2 HOMES  Chorus Program will feature specific youth participants and include information about becoming a mentor, or a permanency home through adoption, guardianship or kinship will accompany each performance.

Circles of Support
Circles of Support is an evidence-based, child-specific approach that is being used more and more to increase permanency for children in the public child welfare system. It is built on the theory that people who already know a child are more likely to be interested in providing permanency than a stranger. The AdoptOhio Evaluation Report for the Period Ending March 31, 2003  , which reports that foster to adopt placements represent about half of all adoptive placements in Ohio, corroborate this premise. Circles of Support was selected as a primary program component for Project TEENS 2 HOMES  for its potential to capitalize on this known resource to connect youth to adults to promote a range of permanency options, especially for youth over age 12 and/or sibling groups. Project TEENS 2 HOMES  proposes that integrating elements from informal social support networks with the formal support structure that characterizes Circles of Support practice and empowering youth to be advocates for themselves will generate even greater success.

Parent Training
Bellefaire JCB has a strong training component.  All prospective foster/adoptive (including kinship) parents are required to attend this program that covers a wide range of topics (rules and regulations, child growth and development, communication skills, separation, bonding and attachment issues, limit setting, positive discipline, behavior management, and anger management).  However, a module that specifically focuses on the issues related to open adoption and openness in permanency options is not presently in place.  The TEENS 2 HOMES  team will develop a unit to be added to this training curriculum.  Currently there is no unit specifically dedicated to the complex issues of open adoption and openness in the variety of permanency options that include adoption, kinship and guardianship.  The TEENS 2 HOMES  team, in conjunction with Bellefaire JCB’s training staff and consultants will develop a curriculum for a three hour class to provide information about openness. The class will give prospective parents and mentors a base of education and understanding.
   
An innovative approach of TEENS 2 HOMES  is the preparation of birth and kinship families. By involving birth/kinship family members of youth who are in the custody of cooperating public child welfare agencies we will help the family members play a vital role in establishing open relationships.  This approach will help the youth create healthy attachments in their permanency homes. Group parent training enables the connection among participants to become a productive force. 

Child Welfare Training
In order to increase clinical knowledge and competency in the project region related to openness and permanency for adolescent youth, Bellefaire JCB will provide special training for staff at all professional levels at both public and private agencies. We will develop a training program with the assistance of our consultants including a curriculum and print materials on all aspects of adolescent youth permanency and openness.

The one day training curriculum will include: advantages of various permanency options including adoption, guardianship and kinship; benefits of open adoption; discussion  about APPLA and it’s long term impact on youth; awareness of personal value systems and the impact of these values on permanency; locating and engaging relatives as permanency resources, requirements, assessing relatives’ potential as permanent caregivers; overcoming barriers to permanency; supporting facilitators of permanency; techniques, communication tools such as genograms and eco-grams and a presentation from the TEENS 2 HOMES  Youth Leadership panel.

Response Team
The Response Team is a partnership of legal and social service professionals coordinated by TEENS 2 HOMES  Project staff to review APPLA decisions made by the court. TEENS 2 HOMES  recognizes that if improvement in permanency outcomes for adolescent and teen youth is to be achieved collaboration with Juvenile Court and other legal stakeholders is strategically important.

Legal Professional Training
Bellefaire JCB recognizes that collaboration with legal stakeholders will be vitally important if improvements in permanency outcomes for youth are to be made. In year three, TEENS 2 HOMES will develop a comprehensive training symposium titled Permanency Paths for Youth  for legal professionals including a program on all aspects of adolescent youth permanency and openness.  Presenters will include representatives from: juvenile court, the prosecutor’s office, a child welfare administrator, attorney for CCDCFS, Guardian Ad Litem, youth and a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of child welfare and the law.