Family Assessment Program
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the first step in the process?After receipt of the referral paperwork, it is vital that you review the paperwork sent to you in the referral e-mail from Covenant Kids region inbox. Telephone numbers for the family can be found on various documents included in the referral paperwork. Contact the family, advise them of the
assessment process, the amount of time the assessment may take, and schedule an appointment with them. Please explain to the family that the assessment will take anywhere from 2-5 hours, depending on how many household members there are, their family history, etc. Each household member needs to be interviewed individually, and you will be asking them questions regarding their history, childhood history, relationship history, etc. Please schedule an appointment with the family ensuring you allow yourself enough time.
You can visit the website: www.covenantkids/org/fap-tools, Password is Rangers, for all required documents, processes, etc.
How do I request surveys?
For surveys and Kinship manuals, please e-mail the CK region inbox and make a request. These will be sent to you as soon as possible. They can also be found on the Covenant Kids FAP tools webpage, and you can print them off if you run out before you receive new ones.
How do I get paid? Do you have direct deposit?
The Writer Processes explains payment protocol. Writers will be paid the 20th of the month following
the submittal of a completed/approved assessment. For example, if you turn in a draft to your
supervisor on the 15th of September and the final draft is submitted to CPS on the 17th of September, a
check will be mailed to you the 20th of October. If you turn in a draft to your supervisor on the 30th of
September and the final draft is submitted to CPS on the 2nd of October, then a check will be mailed to
you on the 20th of November.
At this time, direct deposit is not available for our subcontractors. What do I do when I can’t reach my supervisor?
If you are unable to reach your supervisor, try to send them an e-mail and please give them time to respond to your telephone call or e-mail. If it is an emergency during business hours, you can contact the Family Assessment Manager, Jen Gideon, at 817-516-9100 ext. 130 or [email protected].. For emergencies after business hours, you can call/text/email your supervisor or the manager; however, you must allow a reasonable amount of time for response. Please try to review documents prior to attending a home visit, especially visits scheduled on the weekends and outside of business hours, so you are able to formulate questions during the week when supervisory staff are most accessible.
How many referrals can I have?
After successfully completing your first assessment, you and your supervisor will work to develop a plan for the appropriate number of assessments that may be assigned to you at one time. The most skilled and experienced writers usually max at 2-3 assessments to be submitted within one week.
How do I get referrals/more work?
We do not know how many referrals we will receive in a day/week, nor do we know the area from which the referrals will originate. Referrals are assigned based on geographic location, volume/frequency agreed upon between writer and supervisor, and amount of referrals received. You can e-mail the Covenant Kids region inbox to request more work.
What documents are in the referral and where is the Affidavit of Removal?
You should find several important documents in the referral. The 6581 – Request of Kinship Home Assessment or Services will have the family’s identifying information, the contact details, and the caseworker’s information. The 2700 – Routing and Approval form will have the caseworker’s name at the top, the supervisor’s name at the top, a contact telephone number, and the type of assessment (Kinship, Kinship ICPC, Foster/Adoption, Adoption Readiness Report, etc.).
Your referral paperwork will also have many other documents. Specific to the Kinship referral
paperwork, you should be provided with criminal history and DFPS history checks on the caregivers and any other household members 14 years or older, unless they are the children in consideration for placement. During your contact with family, if they tell you there is another adult household member that you do not have this information on, you will need to obtain their name and date of birth. You will then communicate this information to the CPS Caseworker so that they can conduct a background check and provide the results to you.
You should also have an Affidavit of Removal, or a document that explains the reasons the child was removed. If you do not have this paperwork, please e-mail the CPS caseworker and ask them for a summary or information regarding the reason for the children’s removal from their parents. Am I supposed to do an interview with the family?
Yes, you will schedule an interview with the family that will occur in the family’s home.
It is imperative that all full and part-time household members are present during the home visit. When making initial contact with the family, please advise them that everyone who lives in the home full time and part time (children that visit weekends through custody arrangements, boyfriends/girlfriends that stay a couple of nights a week, etc.) MUST be present. Each of these people will also have to have an INDIVIDUAL interview, and married couples will be interview together, as well.
How long will this take?
A Kinship assessment will take anywhere from two to five hours, depending on the size of the family, the interviews needed, and the history involved. Please advise the family that the assessment will take several hours and plan accordingly.
Writing up the assessment will take several hours, depending on the amount of information attained, easy and/or difficulty in completing reference calls, and your writing and typing skills.
How will this impact my full or part time job? Can I meet with clients on evenings and weekends?
Many of our contract writers have full or part time jobs and make appointments around their schedules. You can schedule in the evenings and on the weekends if it is convenient for the family, but make sure you start at an appropriate time so that you are able to conduct the full assessment (i.e. do not make plans to go to the home at 8:30pm for a 2-5 hour interview).
What do I need to take with me when I go to the home? What does the family need to sign? Where are the surveys supposed to be mailed to? Do they need to fill out the surveys while I am there? Do I use the kinship questionnaire to help interview or is that for the family to fill out?
For each Kinship and/or FAD Assessment that you complete, you will need to provide the family with a satisfaction survey and an addressed/stamped envelope. Please use the Covenant Kids address on the envelope: Covenant Kids, P.O. Box 173038, Arlington, Texas 76003. Leave the survey with the family, and they will mail it in.
The surveys can be printed from the Covenant Kids website or you may request some from the Covenant Kids region inbox.
For each Kinship Assessment that is NOT indicated as an ICPC Assessment, you will provide the family with a copy of the Kinship Manual. This may be provided to the family in paper form, or if they have reliable access, it may be sent electronically. The manuals can be printed (or downloaded for emailing) from the Covenant Kids website or you may request some from the Covenant Kids region inbox. The family should sign a release of information and should fill out a Kinship Questionnaire. They may have received these from their CPS caseworkers and already filled them out. It is always good to take an extra copy with you when you go. Both of these documents, if not provided to you in the referral documents, should be obtained during the in-home interview. The Kinship Questionnaire will help with completing the assessment, but you should always make sure that you confirm the information that has been provided, specifically in the financial section of the questionnaire.
Make sure you take an extra copy of the questionnaire and release to the home visit. There are times that the family has not been provided this by their CPS caseworker. You can also ask them if they have received this when you are scheduling the home assessment, and if they have not, you can e-mail, mail, or fax the documents to them so they are able to complete them prior to the visit.
What is the difference between a referral acceptance and a referral acknowledgement? What do you mean by a re-scheduled referral?
Upon receipt of a referral, a telephone number or some form of contact information should be provided within the referral. If the telephone number is not a working number, and there is no other telephone numbers or e-mail address within the referral documentation, please notify the Covenant Kids referral inbox by replying all to your referral e-mail. This referral will be sent back to CPS as an incomplete referral.
If you are able to reach the family but they are unable to schedule and say they will call you back, if the telephone rings and rings but you are not able to leave a message, or if you leave a voicemail and they do not return your call, then you will be asked to contact the CPS caseworker to ask if they can help you in reaching the family. If the family is not reached within the initial two business days of Covenant Kids receiving the referral, this referral will be acknowledged by Covenant Kids referral staff. At this point, you need to discuss with your supervisor the next steps. In most cases, these referrals will be followed up by the supervisor and/or you will be asked to reach out to CPS again to see if they can be reached. If you are able to schedule an appointment upon your first attempts to reach the family, then this referral will be accepted on the second business day.
If you are able to reach the family, but they indicate that any of the household members will not be available for seven consecutive days during the time frames of the assessment period, then please notify the Covenant Kids region inbox and your supervisor immediately by replying all to the referral e-mail. These referrals will be sent back to CPS for a re-schedule. If CPS confirms the re-schedule, they will be re-referred when all household members can be available.
What do I need to turn in to my supervisor? For a Kinship Assessment, you need to submit:
the assessment, completed in the template provided by Covenant Kids in Microsoft Word the risk assessment, completed in the document provided by Covenant Kids in Microsoft Word the signed release of information as a PDF document
For a Foster and/or Adoptive Screening, please submit:
the assessment, completed in the template provided by Covenant Kids in Microsoft Word the signed agreement to give information as a PDF document
What questions am I supposed to ask?
Please use the Kinship Home Assessment interview tool and the Kinship Home Assessment Instruction Guide to formulate your questions. The interview tool is helpful, and will cover almost everything you need for the assessment, but you are not restricted to these tools and they are not intended to be exhaustive. While you are at the home conducting the assessment, it is highly likely that the caregiver will share something that raises additional questions for you. Please be curious and ask questions, as necessary, until your understanding is complete. You may often need to ask for further clarification, why something occurred, how the family has been impacted, and how this may affect the children to be placed.
If I don’t get all my questions asked, can I make a second visit?
It is best to attempt to get all questions answered in the initial interview. However, if you miss a few items or need further clarification, you can call the family to get final information. It is important that you contact the family for any further questions that may have been missed and are included in the information guide. If you make a list while writing the assessment, you can call the family to get these questions answered before submitting the assessment to your supervisor.
I see this says something about court related services, what does that mean? Does it happen often? Will I be required to attend?
Please review both your contract and writer processes regarding court related services. There are times that CPS and/or attorneys for the parents may request your attendance at a court hearing. The contract requires writers to attend court when requested by DFPS, and often if this is requested, a subpoena is also included. By law, when subpoenaed, you are required to attend. You will be reimbursed for your time per your contract with Covenant Kids.
Requests to attend court do not happen often. KINSHIP
How do I read the criminal and FPS history?
The Criminal history will have the person’s name at the top, the date they were run, and then any history will be listed below. The history will have the date, the type of charge or arrest, and whether there was a conviction.
The FPS history will most often be in a landscape format. It will have the caregiver(s) name at the top, as well as any children over the age of fourteen in the home. If there is no history, the check will state, “No Investigation History Found”. If there is a history, the “case name” will be listed in the left hand side above the rows. This is usually the mother of the child. If the caregiver’s name is listed as a case name, then this would indicate a history. If they are not, but listed as a grandparent, subcare, etc., then this means they are related to someone that has had a DFPS case.
Review this before you attend the home study, and if you have any questions, please speak to your supervisor.
How to document a criminal or FPS history?
Please click on the imbedded document below for an example. Please contact your supervisor for an example.
If a caregiver doesn’t report a criminal history and their background check reflects arrests, how should I manage the discrepancy?
You will ask each individual if they have any criminal history to report. If they tell you they do not, explain to them the DFPS ran a criminal background check, and it appeared that there were some matches on the report provided. Give them another chance to explain at this point. If they still are certain that they do not have a criminal history, advise them of the charges/arrests, and ask them if they are aware of these. There are times that they still refute any charges, believe that it was someone else, etc. Please make sure you document this within the home study.
Who needs to be present and interviewed during the home study? What if everyone is not home when they go to the home?
Everyone must be present for the home study who lives in the home. This includes full time and part time household members. A part time household member is a child that visits weekends or weekly for
visitation (divorce, etc.), or a boyfriend or girlfriend who stays in the home sometimes (a couple of nights a week, etc.). They much be present for the interview and they much be individually interviewed. ALL children must also be individually interviewed.
If, when you arrive, all household members are not present, inquire to find out if the person will be home within the time frame of the assessment (2 hours). If they do not know, or will not be there, then please advise the family that you will not be able to complete/conduct the assessment. Call/text/e-mail your supervisor and explain to them that there were household members not present and you were not able to complete the study. Your supervisor will get back with you the next business day to make a plan as well as to make a plan to contact CPS.
How do I interview a 3 year old? What do I do if the child (of any age) won’t meet with me individually? When attempting to interview children, especially younger children, it is often best to build rapport with their parents initially. If they see their parents become comfortable, this might help them to be more comfortable as they speak with you. Also, try to engage them with their parents, to gauge their comfort level, ability to speak/language development, etc. Try to see if they will go to their room, or play area, where they likely feel the most comfortable, and ask the children questions about their toys, if they like their brothers and sisters, their parents, etc. If the response is good, then try asking what happens when they get in to trouble or do something wrong. Ask if they like it that their cousins, etc. are living with them, or might come live there, or something along those lines.
If you don’t get a good response, then please describe your interactions, your attempts, and your observations of the children with their parents, siblings, and any other household members. How do I fill in the risk assessment?
The risk assessment has an instruction guide on the webpage.
The risk assessment should be completed on the current members of the household for which you are conducting the assessment. If the children in consideration are already placed, then they need to be included in your risk assessment. However, their placement there should not necessarily mean that there is significant risk, since they have been removed the abusive/neglectful environment and are, presumably, in a safer situation. This would be identified as “very little” or “somewhat” and then explained within the narrative sections of the risk assessment.
What do I do when a family/potential caregiver refuses to answer certain specific questions? Some interviews can be very tricky. We recommend that you remind struggling/nervous/closed interviewees that the questions you are asking are pertinent to the completion of the home study and part of the requirement by CPS. You are in need of their open and honest answers in order for the family to be fully considered for placement. If they ask you why CPS requires this information, you can explain to them that all aspects of a family are taken in to consideration when determining if a
placement is safe for a vulnerable, abused or neglected child.
If the caregiver continues to refuse to answer, try to continue with the interview, and revisit toward the conclusion. You will need to document the behavior surrounding their refusal to answer the question, why they refused, and that they would not provide the information.
If one of the adult children is also the parent of the child in consideration for placement, do I have to call them for an adult child reference?
Yes, all adult children need to be contacted. Please attempt to call all of them, including the biological parent. If the caregivers do not have contact details for this person, please note this in the study. If the adult child cannot be reached, please note this. If they become agitated or angry with you, you do not need to continue the reference interview; however, this is not common. Simply document your
attempts and describe the call. If CPS does not want you to make contact with a specific person, this will be noted within the referral packet.
What am I looking for in the home tour?
Please review the Kinship Assessment example that was provided to you. In the home tour, check all the bedrooms and describe each one.
Where does everyone sleep, are the linens clean, is there somewhere to store the children’s belongings, etc.?
What does the home look like (messy, clean, decorated, food in the cabinets, etc.)? What about the outside (swimming pool, swing set, trampoline, trash, metal, old
cars/toilets/bathtubs, fenced, etc.)?
You also want to check for smoke detectors, where medications and cleaning supplies/chemicals are kept, firearms/weapons, etc. Remember to review the Kinship Caregiver Instruction Guide to double check this and cover everything.
What does fictive kin mean?
A fictive kin or other designated caregiver:
• has a longstanding and significant relationship with a child in DFPS conservatorship, or with the child’s family; and
• is approved by DFPS to provide substitute care for the child, but is not verified, licensed, or
certified to operate a foster home, a foster group home, a foster home operated by a child-placing agency, or a foster group home operated by a child-placing agency; or
• is subsequently ordered by the court to be the permanent managing conservator of the child after having provided the care described in Texas Family Code §264.751External Link(1B, 3B).
Examples include a godparent or someone considered to be an aunt or uncle, even though the person is not related to the child.
What is a frequent visitor? Who would be considered a frequent visitor? What should you send CPS to get background information regarding frequent visitors?
A frequent visitor is defined in the Kinship Caregiver Instruction Guide as: “Individuals who are frequently present at the residence: More than two non-continuous visits at your home in a 30-day period; one continuous stay per year at your home and the duration of the stay exceeds seven days; or more than two continuous stays per year at your home and the duration of each stay exceeds 48 hours.”
This means anyone that visits the home more than one time a month, or someone that stays longer than a week per year, or two times a year for a long weekend.
When a frequent visitor has been identified, please obtain their name, maiden name if married, and their date of birth, and e-mail this information to the CPS caseworker, copying in your Covenant Kids supervisor, the Covenant Kids region inbox, and the CPS caseworker’s supervisor (listed at the top of the Routing and Approval Form 2700).
Who do I call for references? What questions do I ask them? Who is considered a relative and who is considered a non-relative?
References should be identified by the caregivers. They should identify two relative references (mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin, sister in law, brother in law, grandparent, etc.) and three
non-relative references (friend, church friend, employment, etc.). Questions for references are provided on the Covenant Kids FAP tools webpage.
For FADs: What is a FAD?
FAD is an abbreviation for Foster Adoption Home Screening. We conduct three different types of these assessments: Foster Home Screenings, Adoption Home Screenings and Foster/Adoptive Home
Screenings. This is an assessment to verify a family to foster and/or adopt a child or children. There are minimum standards that are required in a FAD that may not be required in a Kinship assessment. What is the difference between a FAD and a Kinship?
Foster Care and Adoption differ greatly from Kinship Care. Kinship Care is an initiative of the state and federal government to reunify children to their family. CPS develops internal protocol for safety and protection and the Kinship Assessment is the tool by which to obtain much of the needed information for that assessment.
Foster Care and Adoption, on the other hand, are defined and regulated by law and
criteria/expectations are defined in the Minimum Standards for Child Placing Agencies. FAD studies require detailed information necessary to meet the legal guidelines for verification. Additionally, CPS staff utilize the home screening to better understand the family and the types of children that should be placed into the home.
What information is required in the criminal history section of a FAD?
In the criminal history section of the FAD, CPS has asked that you reiterate/summarize what the referral paperwork states.
What do they mean by issues with fertility?
Issues with fertility relates to their ability to conceive biological children. If they were/are unable to conceive, how this affected them, how will it affect their ability to raise children not born to them, etc.
If they were/are able to conceive, but have since had a tubal ligation or vasectomy, what is the reason they have chosen to add more children into their family (via foster care/adoption) at this time? What made them decide to have this procedure and then move forward with parenting children not born to them?
What do they mean when they are requesting previous child placement experience?
The Minimum Standards require that families divulge any previous foster care and/or adoption experience. You will need to inquire as to whether the family has ever applied, been verified and/or denied by any other child-placing (foster care/adoption) agency. If the family has ever applied, been verified and/or denied, you will need to fully describe the experience, including the timeframe, number of children in placement, what the family enjoyed, what the family learned, and their reasons for no longer partnering with that agency.
