Running Head: REPORT ON PLACEMENT SETTING

Report on Placement Setting

Tori Rolston
SW 4443
Professor Grant
Wayne State University

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Agency Description
The agency that will be discussed throughout this paper is Hands Across The Water
(HATW) located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. HATW is a licensed, non-profit, child-placing agency
offering a variety of services to numerous families in the surrounding areas. This agency started
as an adoption support agency, providing education and information to facilitate the preadoptions and post-adoption process. Over time, the agency expanded, becoming a fully licensed
child placing agency. HATWs mission statement reads as follows: Hands Across The Water is
dedicated to building and supporting families, committed to the belief that every child deserves a
home and loving family. The agencys mission statement can be found in many locations
throughout the office, thus ensuring that employees remember the true mission of their work.
In order to uphold this mission statement, the agency provides a variety of services which
support the agencys belief that children should come first; all children have the right to a family;
birth parents have the right to explore parenting options; families are found for children, not vice
versa, and cross-cultural adoptions are a wonderful way to build a family. These various services
include pregnancy options counseling, family support services, foster care services, and both
international and domestic adoption services. Given the variety of services offered, the agency
has many different purposes although they all stem from the general mission of building and
supporting families.
Client Populations
This agency serves a variety of client populations due to the large assortment of services
provided. HATW offers services to a variety of parents, children, and families. Through the many
services offered the agency aims to serve pregnant women; foster children; adoptive children;
and various parents including foster parents, adoptive parents, and birth parents. The agency
works with birth parents whose children are in foster carehelping them to receive the
necessary services needed to reunify the family while ensuring they are still able to spend time

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with their children while working towards reunification. This agency also works with potential
adoptive parents, helping them to connect with a child who is looking for an adoptive family.
Along with parents, HATW works with children helping them find adoptive families, helping
them stay connected with birth parents during time spent in foster care, providing them with
opportunities to talk with therapists regarding potential changes and hardships they may be
facing, and providing the children with opportunities to meet with others their age who may be
facing similar circumstances. All of these clients come from various cultural and ethnic
backgrounds. The agency serves a diverse population of individuals with the hopes of creating a
stable family for all individuals, as the agency belief is that all children have the right to family.
Along with this, the agency carries the belief that all adults should be considered as potential
parents. HATW does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation,
gender identity, or origin. Because of this the agency has a developed a diverse client population.
My Role
My role as a social work intern at Hands Across The Water is mainly to serve and assist
workers however I can. At this time, I work most closely with workers from the agencys foster
care department. Working with foster care workers, I assist with supervision of parental visits
between birth parents and the children who are currently residing in foster care. Along with this I
am able to shadow workers in their various roles in order to gain more exposure to work within
this field and the role of a foster care worker. This shadowing and observation often involves
attending court hearings with the workers, sitting in on family team meetings, attending training
sessions, and engaging in home visits and placement transfers with the workers. Much of my
work involves observation and is more of a learning experience; however, I am involved in direct
work with clients during my time supervising visits. In addition to this involvement with foster
care workers I am also responsible, as an intern, for planning and leading a training for foster

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parents through the agency. Overall, my role within this agency consists largely of being an
added help to the workers, assisting them however I can while also observing procedures so that
I can better understand the work involved with a foster care position.
Agency Procedures
Clients enter the agency through a variety of ways given the broad array of services
offered. Commonly, clients enter the agency through case referral from DHS, CPS, another
agency, and/or another worker. More specifically, for foster care services clients are typically
referred to our agency by DHS and CPS. In some scenarios, the clients will be transferred to our
agency, but in most cases referral comes from DHS and/or CPS. After receiving a referral, the
agency and a worker assess what the childs needs are and determine what homes are available
that would be able to meet these needs. Once a home is found the agency works with the foster
parents to ensure they have all the resources they will need to care for the child and the child is
then placed into the home.
In relation to adoption services, the intake process is a bit different. The way that
potential adoptive parents enter the agency is a bit different in that they typically call to inquire
about adoption rather than receiving a referral to the agency. Depending on the type of adoption
the individuals are interested in, there are different steps that may need to be taken. In all
situations an individual or couple would need to first talk with a worker from Hands Across The
Water and have a home study conducted before continuing with the adoption process. Depending
on the type of adoption, the individual may have to complete additional applications. If looking
to adopt internationally, there are more requirements depending on the country from which the
individual or couple hope to adopt. The intake process for children also varies depending on the
type of adoption and the child. International children often reside in an orphanage in their home
country and information regarding the child is sent to our agency from the orphanage or foster
home. In addition to this, children may be looking for adoption from foster care, in which case

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they are already receiving services from the agency and thus the agency has sufficient
information on the child to begin the process of helping them find a family. There is also an
infant adoption program in which case the child becomes a client of the agency prior to their
birth. In this situation, a birth mother comes to the agency and expresses a desire to place her
child with an adoptive family upon his or her birth.
As can be seen through the information presented, this agency offers a wide variety of
services and due to this, there are many different population groups which represent the agencys
client base. Intake policies, eligibility, and the way in which clients enter and access the system
can be very different depending upon the type of service being provided and the client population
requesting the services.
Client Progression
Given the nature of this agencys work, client progression is a bit different than other
agencies offering counseling services. The client progression within this agency is largely
composed of completing paperwork, talking with birth parents, meeting with agency workers,
completing necessary trainings, and becoming licensed and/or approved.
In regards to foster care, parents progress by completing the necessary services in an
attempt to reunify the family. When a child and family enter the agency, workers assess the needs
of family members. The worker then refers parents to services that will assist them with getting
their children back into their care, a process referred to as reunification. The parents enter into an
agency treatment plan, which outlines the services that they are expected to engage in and the
progress they are expected to make.
In regards to adoption, individuals progress by fulfilling the necessary requirements in
order to become an adoptive parent. More specifically, this involves meeting with agency
workers, allowing them to come to the home to complete a home study, filling out the
biographical information and application needed for approval, and also working with the agency
to determine which child would most benefit from adoption by this family. The progression of a

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client through the adoption process is composed largely of documentation and state approval
rather than necessity of counseling and parenting services.
Client Termination
As with intake and progression, client termination varies depending on the agency
program with which the client is connected. In general, client services are typically terminated
when a client has completed their treatment plan and/or the process in which the client is
engaging has been completed and the client no longer needs the services of the agency.
When clients are partaking in work with the agencys adoption department they are
receiving services to help build a family by providing a home for a child in need. As discussed
above, this involves meeting necessary requirements in order to become an adoptive parent.
Termination of services for these clients occurs when these requirements have been met, the
child has been placed with the family, and the family has been together for six months postadoption. HATW ensures that the family has assistance transitioning and thus works closely with
the family for six months post-placement to help them transition and become a strong and stable
family. After this six months, the clients services with the agency are typically terminated;
however, the agency remains available to each family should they have any additional questions
to desire more support after the six months and the termination of services.
Termination of foster care services is a bit more complex than that of adoption. Birth
parents whose children are placed into foster care have requirements that they are expected to
fulfill before services with HATW can be terminated. As discussed above, when the agency
receives a foster care case they assess the needs of the family and create a treatment plan which
outlines the services that the parent needs to complete. A birth parent is eligible to terminate
services with the agency when all requirements are completed and the agency and courts have
decided that based upon this progress, the child/ren can be reunified with the parents. In addition
to this, services may also end if parental rights are terminated by the courts. Once a parent has

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completed the necessary services and the family is reunified, there is no longer a need for the
parent to work with the foster care department at this agency. If the parental rights are
terminated, the parent will no longer need services of the foster care department; however, they
may be referred to another department of the agency for additional counseling services. At this
point; however, the client would not have to continue with agency services and could choose to
terminate all services with this agency.
As with intake and progression, it is evident how diverse the process of termination can
be depending upon the services being received by the client. In some scenarios, completion of
paperwork and a six month follow-up process can result in termination of services; however, in
other scenarios, the termination process may be more complex.
Commitment to Community
Hands Across The Water has a strong commitment to its community, as well as various
surrounding communities. HATW works closely with various communities in the Washtenaw,
Monroe, Jackson, and Macomb areas. In order to better serve clients in these surrounding areas,
the agency has opened two satellite offices in the Monroe and Mt. Clemens area in addition to
the main office in Ann Arbor. HATW serves potential adoptive parents, birth parents, and at-risk
children from these various areas. In addition to this, the agency recruits foster parents from
these many areas as well. Hands Across The Water also works with various countries through its
international adoption services. By providing services to these various communities, this agency
is ensuring that individuals in a range of areas are able to reunify families, create new and larger
families, and receive placement into a loving and stable family. Through this work in various
areas, the agency is remaining committed to a variety of populations and working to uphold its
mission statement by building and supporting families not only locally, but globally as well.