Program Overview | Southern Arizona | Yavapai County, Arizona | New Mexico

In-Home Programs for Youth

Parent Reunification Enhancement Program

Nearly 700 children ages birth to five were removed from their homes by Child Protective Services in 2005 for allegations of abuse or neglect. Recognizing a need to respond to the behavioral health services of these very young children, Intermountain Centers for Human Development has designed an innovative program to serve children and families with these complex issues.

The Program works with biological, adoptive and foster parents with the primary goal to provide permanency for children, while monitoring each infant/child to assure that they are reaching age appropriate developmental milestones, and that infant mental health issues are addressed.

Purpose of Parent Reunification Enhancement Program

The purpose of Intermountain’s Parent Reunification Enhancement Program is to engage biological parents in their CPS case plan, provide services to their children to ensure appropriate development, and to reunify them safely to their homes. Best practice with regard to reunification indicates that families that unify quickly with supports are most successful in the long term in achieving permanency for their children.

The program adheres to the Twelve Principles of the Arizona Vision for Children with working with the Child Family Team (CFT) involved. All Parent Reunification Enhancement team members are certified as Facilitators in the Child and Family Team process. The Program Office is located in a house in mid-Tucson where families can participate in parenting classes and supervised visits, complete assessments for their children in a safe, homelike environment. Crucial life skills are modeled in a home-like setting and, therefore, can be generalized to the family homes when the children return.

Services are implemented according to the needs identified and documented in a child’s service plan. Services are individualized and modified as skills are developed and mastered, as well as when circumstances change for the family. The length of any intervention is determined by the child’s Child and Family Team. Services are available throughout the reunification process, which may take up to a year, and up to three months after reunification is achieved.

Child Assessments

In keeping with recommendations outlined by the Infant Toddler Mental Health Coalition of Arizona, the assigned worker will meet with the child at least once a week for the first four weeks in order to observe the child, help assess needs and to gather information from the biological parents, foster placement and CPS worker on the child’s adjustment.

Ongoing assessments are used to monitor the child’s developmental milestones, social-emotional milestones, and resiliency and protective factors using the following assessment tools:

If a delay is identified, a member of the Parent Reunification Enhancement Program team will provide targeted interventions to mitigate the delay, and the child’s caretaker and parents will be taught these techniques for the specific area of development. Another assessment will be administered following that implementation. If the child has not improved in the specific area of development, a referral will be made to the Arizona Early Intervention Program (AzEIP) for intervention and a more intense assessment.

Intermountain has a long history of innovative community based services that facilitate family reunification. The Parent Reunification Enhancement Program significantly impacts families’ abilities to meet behavioral health challenges and facilitate permanency options for children.

Referral Information

Referrals for the Parent Reunification Enhancement Program are made through the family’s Child and Family Team, and are available for any child aged birth to five years enrolled in a behavioral health network.

Contact and Referral Information

Intermountain Centers for Human Development
Parent Reunification Enhancement Programs
P. O. Box 17749
Tucson, AZ 87531-7749
Tel: (520) 721-1887, 309
Fax: (520) 7511-2140
Email: melissam@ichd.net

Success Story

A little over a year ago, Shawna was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and caught in a downward spiral due to depression and excessive drinking. Her 8 month old daughter, Brennan, was removed from her home by Child Protective Services. Because of the same issues, her two older children, four and six years old, were placed with her ex-husband.

Facing the loss of her children and the obstacles to getting them back, Shawna became doubtful that she would be able to satisfy the directives from CPS to restore her custody. When she visited Brennan at Casa de los Ninos, she was fearful that the separation was leading to a loss of the bond between the two of them. Expressing her fears to her caseworker led to a visit from the Blake Foundation therapists who began work immediately to re-establish bonds between Shawna and Brennan. The Blake Foundation referred Shawna to Intermountain’s Child and Family Team, and Becky was assigned to Shawna as her Parent Support Partner. Shawna had been abused by her husband and had never had a woman friend that she trusted. All that changed when she met Becky. Becky became an advocate for her and her family and helped Shawna untangle what seemed to be a complicated procedure for getting her daughter back, facilitated her communications with her caseworker, encouraged her to fight for the return of her children, helped her strengthen and re-build her value system, put services in place for Shawna that would help her overcome her problems, and became a true friend.

Through her association with Becky and the Intermountain Child and Family Team members, Shawna realized that having children is a privilege and it was her responsibility to provide for them and raise them in a positive, nurturing home. She noticed that her family started treating her differently because of her dedication to restoring her immediate family. On April 24, Brennan was returned to Shawna because of the outstanding job that Shawna has done in establishing a safe and healthy environment for her children. Her two older children will return to her at the end of the summer, in time for the start of school. Becky still talks to Shawna every day and has signed her up to participate in a Women’s Depression Series through the University of Arizona’s Department of Psychiatry. Shawna says that if it weren’t for Intermountain’s CFT, she wouldn’t have her children. “When my backbone was starting to break, Intermountain became my backbone.”