Family Unity Meetings: Decision Making and Placement Outcomes
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Loring Jones Dsw; Daniel Finnegan
- Source
- Journal of Family Social Work. 7:23-43
- Subject
- Sociology and Political Science
media_common.quotation_subject
Sample (statistics)
Development
Logistic regression
Case review
Neglect
Nursing
Agency (sociology)
Empirical evidence
Psychology
Welfare
Family reunification
media_common
- Language
- ISSN
- 1540-4072
1052-2158
The sample consisted of all families (747) who were invited to receive a Family Unity Meeting from a Public Child Welfare Agency in a large urban county. Data was derived from the review of agency case files. The design was a retrospective case review with an embedded prospective study. This study describes factors that distinguish between CPS clients who accept an invitation to participate in a Family Unity Meeting (FUM) and those clients who decline to participate. The meeting process is described, and logistic regression is used to identify variables that predicted successful outcomes FUM meetings. Families with reunification as a goal were the most likely cases to agree to participate followed by Voluntary and Permanency Planning cases. Cases with severe neglect were the least likely group to participate in a meeting process. Approximately nine people attended an average meeting. Maternal relatives were more likely to attend than paternal relatives. Empirical evidence was found to support the...