Permanency Unit
Children are sometimes placed in foster care because of concerns for their safety. Providing care with a servant spirit, the COBYS Permanency Unit works with families to address these concerns and ensure safe, permanent homes for these at-risk children.
Working Toward Family Reunification
In order to thrive, children need permanent, stable family relationships. Hundreds of Lancaster County children are removed from their homes each year due to concerns for their well-being. These decisions, and all decisions throughout the process, are dictated by the local courts.
The COBYS Permanency Unit is a specialized program whose goal, when possible, is to reunify children in foster care with their biological family. Its mission is to ensure these children’s safety, secure permanency for them, and to strengthen families.
Based in Lancaster, the COBYS Permanency Unit is the only program of its kind in Pennsylvania. We are contracted by the Lancaster County Children & Youth Social Service Agency to serve children and families in the county’s foster care system. The Permanency Unit performs the functions and duties of county caseworkers, but with the COBYS Difference.
How Does the Permanency Unit Work?
COBYS helps children and members of their biological families resolve the issues that led to their separation, so that they can be safely reunited. Commonly addressed issues include:
- Drug and alcohol abuse
- Insufficient parenting skills
- Anger
- Unemployment
- Mental illness
- Domestic violence
- Substandard housing or homelessness
By working intensively with individual family members, the program promotes a stronger and more stable family unit, shortens the duration of foster care placement, and helps families understand their needs and how to draw on community resources to meet those needs.
Children are nurtured through placement with supportive foster families, frequent caseworker visits, therapy, and educational assistance, as needed. In cases where reunification would jeopardize a child’s safety, adoptive homes or other appropriate permanent placements are sought.
