Family Search and Connect

At the urging of the family court and other community stake holders, Essex County CASA embarked on a new program this past spring to help find kinship connections for youth in foster care. The Family Search and Connect (FSC) initiative is modeled after similar programs successfully adopted in Orange County and Sacramento, California using specially trained CASA volunteers to conduct internet facilitated searches to identify and locate family members who DYFS may have overlooked in the opening stages of a child’s foster care tenure. Far too often, if a relative is not identified early in a case, it is presumed that there are NO relatives willing to provide physical care and assume legal responsibility.

FSC advocates use various approaches in the process of identifying and locating family, including "mining” the DYFS file and revisiting all leads to find family or kin using free and fee-based internet searches and making telephone contact to establish family connections. The search process makes it possible to find family members when NONE were known before. While finding family connections may not result in adoption, relationships with adults who agree to be a permanent ongoing part of the youths’ lives will buoy them as they enter the harrowing prospect of post-DYFS life on their own. The self-esteem that develops from youth gaining caring adult(s) in their lives, as durable connections to help them enter adulthood, is enormously valuable.

Family Search & Connect advocates receive Basic CASA Volunteer training as a precursor to more specialized FSC training, but their role does not include the regular advocacy work we do for a child. Each FSC case has, in addition, a regular CASA volunteer whose mission is to focus on the child’s best interests for permanency and to obtain needed services during the time they are in foster care.

If you are interested in more information about the FSC program contact Carol Costello at 973-648-3351 or ccostello@casaessex.org .