When a child’s permanency plan calls for a change to permanent managing conservatorship by a relative or fictive kin, with intent to pursue permanency care assistance, the caseworker must document in the child’s plan of service:

  •  the change to the child’s permanency plan; and

  •  any information related to the requirements for the federal case plan.

The federal requirements include:

  •  a description of the steps CPS has taken to determine that it is not appropriate for the child to be returned home or adopted;

  •  the ways in which the child meets the eligibility requirements for permanency care assistance; specifically CPS’s determinations that:

  •  the child was removed from his or her home as a result of a judicial determination that continuation in the home would be contrary to the welfare of the child;

  •  the child was eligible for foster care maintenance payments for at least six consecutive months in the home of a verified kinship caregiver who is the prospective permanent managing conservator;

  •  being returned home is not an appropriate permanency option for the child;

  •  the child demonstrates a strong attachment to the prospective permanent managing conservator and the prospective permanent managing conservator has a strong commitment to caring permanently for the child; and

  •  the youth has been consulted about the prospective managing conservator’s interest in becoming conservator and about the agreement to receive permanency care assistance, if the youth is at least 14 years old;

  •  the efforts CPS made with the child’s prospective managing conservator to discuss adoption as a more permanent alternative to permanent managing conservatorship and, if applicable, the reasons why the prospective conservator chose not to pursue adoption;

  •  the reasons that placing the child permanently with a prospective permanent managing conservator and providing permanency care assistance are in the child’s best interests;

  •  the reasons for placing siblings separately, when applicable; and

  •  the efforts CPS made to discuss permanency care assistance with the child’s birth parents, or the reasons why such efforts were not made.

42 U.S.C. §675(1)(F)External Link

DFPS Rules, 40 TAC Chapter 700, Subchapter J, Division 2External Link