Chosen Affirming Family Finding
About Chosen Affirming Family Finding
Chosen Affirming Family Finding (CAFF) is a culturally adapted intervention inspired by Family Finding approaches. CAFF works with young people to:
- Locate and engage as many family members, chosen family members, and important individuals to join a young person’s child and family team as possible;
- Connect, reconnect, develop and heal relationships with family members;
- Process and plan for disclosing (or not disclosing) SOGIE with others;
- Support families to further develop their understanding of the young person’s diverse SOGIE and access additional resources;
- Empower them and their “network” to lead permanency planning efforts.
Chosen Affirming Family Finding:
- Is manualized
- Provides training for new clinicians
- Requires fidelity adherence
- Requires data collection
- Provides expert coaching to new implementers
Program Data
This short data dashboard gives a snapshot of the preliminary findings of CAFF that should help agencies and providers determine whether CAFF would meet their needs and goals. For questions on the data and information represented in this dashboard, please contact the National SOGIE Center at sogiecenter@gmail.com.
Testimonials
“I’m doing better now that I’m back with my family.” – Youth
“I feel very powerful.” – Youth (in response to creating their permanency plan)
“I feel like a weight has been lifted now that I’m with my family. I can finally be myself.” – Youth
“We almost gave up looking for him. Then you called.” – Brother of CAFF youth
“I have people.” – Youth
“You [Family Development Specialist] really cared about my relationship to my child and made it possible for me to see my child.” – Parent of CAFF youth (who hadn’t seen their child in years)
Who is the Program for?
Chosen Affirming Family Finding is designed to work with LGBTQ+ young people involved with the child welfare system who need or want to expand their family network, including chosen family. CAFF is designed to help the young person identify people in their lives who can provide support now and throughout their life. CAFF then works with those people to help them understand the young person’s LGBTQ+ identity and the best ways to affirm and support them with their identity and transition into adulthood.
How do I bring CAFF to my organization?
To implement Chosen Affirming Family Finding in your practice or within your organization, please email Kinnect at info@kinnectohio.org. For more information on programs for LGBTQ+ youth and families, please email the SOGIE Center at sogiecenter@gmail.com.
New Training on Adapting Family Finding & Engagement Practices for LGBTQ+ Young People
This, free, 45 minute self-paced e-learning will provide information on supporting LGBTQ+ young people through the family finding and engagement process. Young LGBTQ+ people face many unique stressors that could impact their mental wellness, life outcomes, and permanent connections to others. For example, disclosing their LGBTQ+ identity to family or new connections. Likewise, the adults in the young person’s life may need additional support to help understand and support the young person’s SOGIE.
This training will provide information on those unique circumstances and how to support the young person and their network in building lifelong supportive connections.
This e-learning is brought to you by the National SOGIE Center and from the National Quality Improvement Center on Tailored Services, Placement Stability, and Permanency for LGBTQ2S Children and Youth in Foster Care. This training was developed based on the Chosen Affirming Family Finding Model, developed by Kinnect.