Agency Essential Reading for Child Welfare

Agency Essential Reading for Child Welfare Agencies

Children thrive in families, and families thrive in community. The CarePortal platform mobilizes a network of caring people to help connect vulnerable families back to their local community.

Guiding Principles for Partnership

Circles of Care | CarePortal is guided by a model that we call ‘Circles of Care’ where the child is always at the center of our efforts. We believe every child belongs in a healthy, loving family, and that families should be supported by their local church and caring members of the community. For this reason, we focus on building up the capacity of local churches so they may provide local, proactive, and effective care for children and families in crisis. We also establish on-ramps for businesses, community groups, and people who care to be involved in this work (included in the outer Community circle).

Collaboration is critical | No single organization can do this work alone. It takes cross-sector collaboration to achieve real, sustainable, and system-wide change.

CarePortal serves any child in crisis | Jesus cast the widest net of love, tearing down cultural biases and promoting radical, personal generosity and concern for those in need. With that example, CarePortal brings together diverse constituents - government agencies, churches, businesses, schools, and other ministries - to support children and families in crisis regardless of their race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, political leanings, etc. If we find any of our partners are discriminating against the children and families they are meant to unconditionally serve, they will be removed from the network.

We are ecumenically minded | CarePortal is a ministry platform of its parent organization, The Global Orphan Project, and seeks to promote unity in and among the Church by building a network across denominational, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. While we are open to and encourage the support of other faith-based organizations, The Global Orphan Project exists to help Bible-believing Christian churches care for vulnerable children and families in their own communities. CarePortal was developed as a ministry tool to help accomplish the mission of meeting needs, making connections, and establishing meaningful relationships within and beyond the community of Christ-following believers.

Child-Centered Requesting Partners using CarePortal must:

1. Serve children and/or families in crisis
2. Highly value community engagement using one or more of the Tiers described below (The Grid)
3. Desire to collaborate with local ministry partners that facilitate CarePortal (Implementing Partners)

The Grid

Tier 1 Requests represent physical items or services that local churches could provide to a family. These requests would not require a background check by your agency but may require the family needing assistance to sign a release of information. (Churches may require background checks for their own responders.) Tier 2 Requests represent more relational needs of a family, provided by a church responder that first needs to complete an approval process by your agency. Tier 3 Requests address familial needs of a child or family and require responders to complete further training and licensing.

Value of Partnership

Requesting agency workers identify needs of local children and families, then go to CarePortal.org or the CarePortal app to submit a request for help. Each request is thoroughly vetted and approved before it is immediately sent to local churches.

One of the following purpose statements must be assigned to each request.

• Help Make a Foster Care Placement
• Help Make a Kinship Placement
• Help Make an Adoptive Placement
• Help Preserve a Foster Care Placement
• Help Preserve a Kinship Placement
• Help Preserve an Adoptive Placement
• Help Prevent a Child from Entering Foster Care
• Help Reunify a Bio Family
• Help Strengthen a Bio Family
• Stabilize Housing Insecurity
• Help Improve a Child’s School Attendance
• Help Remove an Educational Barrier for a Child
• Help Improve a Child’s Safety/Wellbeing
• Help Support a Youth Aging Out
• Help Improve a Child’s Well-Being
• Help Reintegrate a Survivor of Human Trafficking
• Support an Expecting Mom and Her Unborn Baby
• Prayer Request

With CarePortal, your agency will be able to select one of the following Requesting Options to efficiently identify and approve requests in the way that best fits with your operational protocols:

• Option 1: Worker > Supervisor AND Agency Rep
  • Worker submits a request (online or via mobile app)
  • “Supervisor email address” required to be completed in Request Form
  • Review email sent to supervisor email AND Agency Rep
  • Supervisor OR Agency Rep can click the link to edit, approve, or decline request
  • Request sent to churches and confirmation email sent to Worker, Supervisor, and Agency Rep
  • Responses sent to Worker
• Option 2: Worker > Agency Rep
  • Worker submits a request (online or via mobile app)
  • Review email sent to the Agency Rep for that agency and county
  • Agency Rep clicks the link to edit, approve, or decline request
  • Request is sent to churches and confirmation email sent to Worker and Agency Rep
  • Responses sent to Worker
• Option 3: Agency Rep
  • Request information collected from worker by Agency Rep
  • Agency Rep submits a request with login access
  • Request is sent to churches and confirmation email is sent to Agency Rep
  • Responses sent to Agency Rep

Targets for Success (in each county)

• 75-85% of Agency requests met by churches and community partners
• Stronger connection to the community for families, churches, and agency workers
• Economic Impact of requests significantly exceeds annual agency investment

Requesting Agencies Commit To:

• “Protect the Trust”, which is established by where requests come from and how they are vetted.
  • All Agency Workers selected to access and submit requests into CarePortal must be Authorized in the following ways:
    • Qualified, through education and/or experience, to discern needs and serve children and families in crisis with first-hand knowledge of the stated needs (never entering a request on another’s behalf);
    • Approved by the leadership of the Requesting Agency to include verification of all qualifications for the safe and trustworthy connection to children and families;
    • Trained in all required Requesting Agency Training and ready to accept accountability to ensure that each request is promptly closed once it has been met as defined by the training received from the Requesting Agency and local network leaders
  • All requests entered by Agency Workers and/ Reps must be Appropriate, as defined by:
    • Specific to the wellbeing or case plan goals for the children and families involved, and will not contain a petition for ongoing financial support;
    • Accurate by including a description without confidential information, and individually-added needs with realistically assigned values;
    • Conflict-free, meaning the need is not related to a need of the Agency Worker entering the request, a member of their family, and they have no personal financial interest in the request
• Designate appropriate staff (Agency Admin + Representative) to oversee use and training of workers, and collaborate with local CarePortal network leaders
• Provide any publicly available data that may assist in educating and recruiting churches
• Establish a policy for communication by workers to clients regarding confidentiality before releasing  family information to the church member willing to help (if applicable)
• Make appropriate requests through CarePortal at the frequency agreed upon in each county
• Monitor and engage responses in a timely manner 
• Collaborate with local Implementing Partner by attending Active Community gatherings and training events as needed/requested
• Follow the payment schedule agreed to with the local Area Director
• Specific to Tiers 2 & 3:
  • Implement background checks and other processes/training necessary to clear volunteers to help once they’ve responded
  • Participate in training church volunteers similar to training other agency volunteers

CarePortal Commits To

As a platform, CarePortal is used by various implementing partners that provide local support to agencies, churches, and community partners. Through this partnership, CarePortal provides: 

• Access
  • CarePortal website, mobile app, and other technology in support of the platform
  • Unlimited user access to submit an agreed upon number of requests
  • Connection of agency partners to churches and their members, on a volunteer basis, to serve children and families in need of assistance
• Training
  • Support to the Requesting Agency by providing live platform training to staff
  • Online resources and in-person experiential training opportunities
  • Convening of local Active Community gathering for agency staff participation
• Support
  • Systematic reporting and metrics to track impact and cost avoidance
  • Opportunities for Requesting Agency leadership to collaborate and communicate with local and state CarePortal leadership
  • Technical support team

Financial Agreement

This document describes the agreement between CarePortal and its Requesting Agency Partners for the non-exclusive use of the CarePortal platform. Formal evaluation will take place each year by Agency Leadership, the CarePortal Area Director and Implementing Partner leadership to jointly assess progress. If any party feels this is no longer an effective approach, the agreement can end with 30 days written notice by either CarePortal or the Requesting Agency. Any fees paid by the Agency Partner beyond the end date will be refunded to the Agency.

Cost | Cost varies based on Agency type because of expected use, support requirements, and value.

Click here to get started and a CarePortal representative will contact you to discuss details.