Priorities
Birth - Foster Family Connections
Strengthened communication and relationship between caregivers (foster parents / relatives) and birth parents is key to the child/youth’s time in out of home placement. Research upholds reunification efforts and re-entry into out of home placement rates are improved by the lasting connections developed with the child and family.
Read more about our priorities here:
1. Building the relationship between the birth parent and foster parent/kinship caregiver
2. Supporting the relationship between the birth parent and caregiver
3. Maintaining a strong relationship while working with the system and planning for reunification
4. Maintaining a strong relationship after the child has left the child welfare system
Youth Voice
Join our Youth Voice Action Work Group! Your voice and experience matters. Here is Mya’s reason why she is invovled in QPI-MN: “I joined this group because I care about the youth and I want them to be as successful as possible. I don’t want to just talk about making a change I want to actually do it and get it done with the help of other youth like me and not like me”.
Kinship
Staying connected to family is critical to healthy child development and a sense of belonging. QPI-MN is creating steps to assure kinship placements are more actively supported.
Policy & Systems Change
Ensuring advocacy efforts focus on improving outcomes for children/youth and families involved in foster care.
Racial Equity
African and Native American families are overrepresented in the child welfare system within Minnesota, from initial assessment to permanency determinations. QPI-MN upholds the belief that leadership from our African and Native American youth and families is the key for change.
Racial equity is about applying justice and a little bit of common sense to a system that’s been out of balance. When a system is out of balance, people of color feel the impacts most acutely, but, to be clear, an imbalanced system makes all of us pay. - Glenn Harris, President, Center for Social Inclusion