Until recently, “family preservation” had a very specific meaning. It usually was preceded by “intensive” and it referred to programs that rigorously followed the rules set down by the first intensive family preservation program, Homebuilders in Washington State.
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Family preservation workers combine traditional counseling and parent education with a strong emphasis on providing “hard” services to ameliorate the worst aspects of poverty. Faced with a family living in a dirty home, a Homebuilders worker will not lecture the parents or demand that they spend weeks in therapy to deal with the deep psychological problems of which the dirty home is supposedly just a symptom. The Homebuilders worker will roll up her or his sleeves and help with the cleaning.
In Alabama, a lawsuit prompted the state to reform its child welfare system over several years, including a strong emphasis on family preservation. In those counties already operating under the new system, the foster care population has dropped by 30 percent in two years.
And that’s what happened in Illinois. The state’s Department of Children and Family Services broke almost every rule established by Homebuilders. According to an evaluation of its Family First program by the Chapin Hall Center for Children:
DCFS was in turmoil. The agency ran through four directors in four years, and never figured out what it wanted its “family preservation” program to accomplish.
