{"report_id":332,"form_id":"22","user_id":81,"organization_id":13,"question_id":"322","question_type":"Free_Text","text_answer":"The decision to place a child in a shelter care home versus a relative home was influenced by the fact that an extensive relative search was completed, and many licensing barriers occurred for many of the relatives identified as placement resources.  It is common in relative placement cases that the time it can take and the bureaucratic system for a relative to become licensed created by both local agency and DHS standards can influence placing children in an already licensed shelter care home versus one of a relative. Additionally, normative practice for this local agency is to place children in shelter care until a relative can be identified as a placement option.  This placing process further impacted the subject child being placed in shelter care versus a relative.  While a few relatives may have been viable options, when the critical incident occurred, the Judge ordered that the subject child be placed immediately into shelter care.  Further impacting this decision was that a relative was set to take the subject child but then decided at the last minute that they could not take the child.   \r\nAn additional influence into the subject child being placed in shelter care versus a relative care home was the difficulty in communicating with the state of Massachusetts.  The subject child's mother also had an open case and other children in placement in Massachusetts.  Staff noted significant barriers in obtaining any information at all from their CPS system\/staff related to the subject child's mother, siblings, their placements, and any other potential relative placement options for the subject child.  \r\nFurthermore, when this case came into the agency, it was assigned an initial kinship worker whom had been working to secure a relative placement for the subject child.  This initial kinship work went out on leave and the case at the time of the critical incident was transferred to another kinship worker.  This created challenges in communication around potential relative options that had been and were explored for the subject child further impacting the ability to identify and place with a viable relative option.  Furthermore, both kinship workers had made multiple attempts with relatives and all of the relatives contacted took a substantial amount of time to respond to both kinship workers.","created_by":81,"updated_by":81,"updated_at":"5\/26\/2021 1:23:59 pm","created_at":"5\/26\/2021 1:23:59 pm","id":33788}