"Reasonable efforts": toward implementation in permanency planning

The "reasonable efforts" criterion for provision of services to the families of children in foster care and to the families of children at risk of entering foster care is designed to provide for external, and presumably more objective, monitoring by a court of the quantity and quality of these services. A standard of "reasonable effort" applicable to all cases in the two populations of concern is both impractical and probably unethical. Legally there must be a case-by-case determination of "reasonable efforts" that will weigh the unique elements of each case. It is hoped that the working guideline proposed here will provide a basis in child welfare practice for minimizing potentially great variations in court decisions. The guideline begins with a list of problems, verified via an adversarial review, as to why the child(ren) entered foster care or is at risk of doing so, followed by the establishment of the relevance of proffered services to those problems, followed by documentation of a sustained effort to facilitate the use of those services.