Federal and state laws outline four permanency goals. To provide additional specificity and clarity, CPS subdivides the acceptable permanency options into nine subsets. These subset goals are the ones shown in IMPACT.
42 U.S.C. §675(5)(C)
Texas Family Code §263.3026
The categories are as follows:
Federal Law/Texas Family Code
| CPS (as found in Child Plan of Service in IMPACT)
|
|---|---|
| Family Reunification | Family Reunification |
| Adoption | Alternative Family: Relative/Kinship Adoption Alternative Family: Unrelated Adoption |
| Permanent Managing Conservatorship to a Relative or Suitable Individual | Alternative Family: Relative/Kinship Conservatorship Alternative Family: Unrelated Conservatorship |
Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement (APPLA)
| APPLA Family: Foster Family DFPS Conservatorship APPLA Family: Other Family DFPS Conservatorship APPLA Independent Living APPLA Community Care |
The caseworker must consider permanency goals in the following order of priority:
1. Family Reunification
2. Alt. Family: Relative/Kinship Adoption
3. Alt. Family: Relative/Kinship Conservatorship
4. Alt. Family: Unrelated Adoption
5. Alt. Family: Unrelated Conservatorship
6. APPLA Family: Foster Family DFPS Conservatorship
7. APPLA Family: Other Family DFPS Conservatorship
8. APPLA: Independent Living
9. APPLA: Community Care
While this is the general order of priority, there are other factors that the caseworker must consider in assessing the goals, including a preference for existing relationships in the child’s life. Permanent placement with relatives or fictive kin takes priority over placement with persons who were not known to the child before coming into CPS conservatorship. See the Services to Kinship Caregivers Resource Guide, under Definitions.
After considering the factors that affect a child’s permanency planning goals, the caseworker selects the most appropriate goal not yet ruled out as the child’s primary permanency goal, and selects the next appropriate goal as the child’s concurrent goal. The concurrent goal may be the same as the primary goal but with a different subset of individuals.
Example:
The primary goal may be Alt. Family: Relative/Kinship Adoption and the concurrent goal may be Alt. Family: Unrelated Adoption. For children and youth in CPS permanent managing conservatorship, there may be times when only one goal is appropriate, such as Alt family: Relative/Kinship Adoption but with the subsets (the primary and concurrent plans) consisting of two different relatives.
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