From 2003 to 2008, co-founders Michelle Chalmers and Jen Braun led the federally funded demonstration project that showed permanent families can be found for teenagers labeled “hard-to-place” in Minnesota’s child welfare system. Targeting this population, the Homecoming Project focused on selecting youth who had typically been in placement for five years and had experienced 10 or more placements.
In addition to seeking adoptive families, the project also focused on strengthening participating youth’s connections to caring adults and the larger community. These services were grounded in a youth development philosophy that placed the youth at the center of additional recruitment activities and gave youth agency in their placement, without replacing existing recruitment methods.
The groundbreaking outcomes spoke for themselves. The project secured permanency for 51% of youth served and positively changed perceptions of adoption workers and other key stakeholders throughout the state. Youth who participated in the Homecoming Project also showed greater improvements in critical areas of youth development and were significantly less likely to have been ordered into long-term foster care by the courts, to sign an affidavit saying they did not want to be adopted, or to age out of care.
Wilder Research: Finding permanent families for teens under state guardianship. The final report for The Homecoming Project.
