For 30 years, the Team Decision Making® (TDM™ ) approach has led to effective safety planning, placement stability, and permanency for children, youth, and families.
The TDM approach has been implemented in numerous states states and has remained strong for nearly 30 years. Numerous studies indicate positive family outcomes and significant system improvement, including safe reduction of entries, fewer reentries, earlier safe reunification with parents or relatives, reduced congregate care placements, and increased kinship care placements. Due to its “promising research evidence” and high relevance to child welfare work, the TDM model has been added to the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare. Since then, results of the first randomized controlled trial confirmed that TDM meetings are beneficial to families and workers.
The TDM model brings together the important people in a child’s life when:
- A potential safety threat suggests that a child may need to be separated from their parent(s);
- There is a potential move from one placement provider to another; or
- A child potentially returns home, or a permanency goal change is being considered.
Family, friends, spiritual leaders, service providers, community members, child welfare staff, and, whenever possible, the child or young person take part in an immediate, facilitated conversation to determine how best to ensure a child’s safety, stability, and permamency, whether at home or by temporarily separating children from caregivers or current placement providers.
The values underlying the TDM model align with child welfare best practices like the Structured Decision Making® (SDM) assessment model and safety-organized practice. For example:
- Partnerships with grassroots organizations bring communities to the table;
- The TDM model creates potential to bring more consistency to removal decisions and to create long-term safety nets for families within their own communities;
- The engagement of extended families, including paternal relatives, enhances the use of kinship care;
- Ensuring a place at the table for teens addresses the longstanding problem of foster youth feeling ignored in their own life decisions;
- The use of experienced child welfare staff as facilitators ensures a thorough, fair, and consistent process that is respectful and sensitive to families and other participants; and
- When practiced in combination with other family engagement-focused conferences used to create case plans, assess progress, or reduce level of care, the TDM approach provides a powerful foundation that sets the tone for a more positive parent-agency relationship and a more efficient process as the case proceeds.
Evident Change is pleased to offer implementation support for the TDM model, including listening sessions with staff, families, and community members; coaching; meeting observations and feedback; local- and state-level workgroups; leadership support; and training.
Learn more about the TDM model by contacting Heather Meitner, Director of Family and Community Engagement Strategies.
Nationwide Quarterly Peer Learning Spaces
We also invite all professionals using or interested in the TDM approach, as well as professionals using other family meeting models, to join our quarterly peer learning spaces.