What is Concurrent Planning?
The law requires that the social worker and the court help the foster child’s biological family to safely get their children back. It is in a child’s best interest to return to their parents, if possible.
While the social worker is trying to work with the biological parents to get their children back, the social worker - at the same time - is trying to find a permanent family for the foster children just in case the biological parents can’t reunify with their children.
At the beginning of a foster care case, there is no way to predict for sure whether children will return to their biological parents or whether they will need and stay with forever family permanently, or whether you would consider being this child's forever family.
Our promise to every child is that they will leave
the foster care system with a permanent family.
We realize that when a foster chid is first placed with you there is no way to predict what will happen, or whether you would consider being this child's forever family.
But we hope that even if you couldn’t be a permanent family for the child, that you would be interested in helping us find a loving and long term home for the child, either through guardianship or adoption.
It is helpful for children to have the adults in their lives working collaboratively together. As a foster parent, you will most likely have some contact with the children’s biological parents. Many of our foster parents have formed bonds with their foster children’s biological parents. These bonds may come from mutual respect and love of the children, from the foster parent becoming an unofficial mentor or a source of emotional support to the biological parents, even if the child returns home.