Harlem Children's Zone preventive foster care programs are comprehensive, neighborhood-based, and intensive. Through a contract with the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS), we provide support and services to families to help them transform their lives and communities into safe and healthy places where children can learn and grow. However, the Harlem Children's Zone recognizes that some children do need foster care. Therefore, our preventive foster care model calls for a seamless community of care that steps up from preventive services to family rehabilitation services to foster care services, and steps down in the reverse order.

While preventive service sites serve different neighborhoods with different programs, they share a core philosophy around outreach, case planning, creating a seamless continuum of care, developing provider networks and accessing infrastructure.

Outreach, Engagement and Assessment

Harlem Children's Zone sites connect with children and families in need of services through several avenues. We receive the majority of our referrals from ACS. In addition, we receive a number of referrals from schools, followed by hospitals and local police precincts. Finally, since our programs operate in schools and out of store fronts, families know where to find us and often drop-in to learn about our services.

The Harlem Children's Zone prides itself on its ability to engage families. When a preventive service program receives a referral, we make every effort to meet quickly with the family. Once an intake has been completed and a case planner is assigned, our first task is to visit the family in their home and complete an assessment of the entire family. We expect that our families will be more comfortable and cooperative in their home environment. When the Harlem Children Zone engages a family for intensive preventive services, we first complete an initial assessment to insure that the children are not at imminent risk and that the family is appropriate for preventive services. Each family is informed that they can reach Harlem Children's Zone staff in an emergency twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

As part of our initial assessment we assess parenting issues, family history and family strengths. We believe intensive preventive services are most effectively delivered when we build on the strengths of the family. To do a full assessment of the children we analyze home relationships, school performance, behavior and outside community relationships by reaching out to as many people as possible to get the most complete picture of the family. This includes teachers, family members, health providers, community based organizations, and where appropriate, community residents.

Case planners make a real effort to engage all parents living in the household in family plans and goals including those that are not the biological parents of the child. Non-biological parents can often feel excluded or unsure of why our caseworkers are there. Starting from the initial interview, we aim to get both adults to meet with us, so that they realize that this is a service for the entire family. We also try to engage non-custodial parents. We place particular emphasis on reaching out to parents who are not part of the home because the parents are separated or a parent is incarcerated. If it is appropriate to contact the incarcerated parent, we reach out to that parent and try to set up a visit to explain our services and involve them in helping set the plans for the family. Finally, our experience indicates that it is usually fathers who do not live with their children. Therefore, to encourage their involvement, we offer special men's groups that involve activities and discussions that cater to men.