Children’s Home Society of New Jersey Kinship Navigator Model

The Children’s Home Society of New Jersey (CHSofNJ) Kinship Navigator Model is designed to support kinship caregivers – relatives caring for children when their biological parents are unable to provide appropriate care. The program’s long-term goals for children include safety, permanency and stability, and healthy development. For kinship caregivers, the long-term goals of the program are to empower caregivers to advocate for themselves and their children and to increase their use of protective factors.

This program supports kinship caregivers and children by pairing them with an Ombudsman. This Ombudsman serves as a professional advocate and is responsible for assessing family needs, developing family plans based on the family’s needs, offering follow-up visits, providing hands-on linkages to resources, and offering encouragement. Ombudsmen typically work with kinship caregivers for four to six month windows, through home or office visits. The CHSofNJ Kinship Navigator Model also offers group support sessions to kinship caregivers, which focus on topics such as parenting skills.

Ombudsmen and their supervisors are expected to have a Bachelor’s degree or higher and experience in topics related to child development, trauma, conflict resolution, separation and loss counseling, substance abuse, and group facilitation. Ombudsmen receive regular in-service training that covers topics such as trust building and strengths-based approaches for working with families. Supervisors are expected to monitor Ombudsmen and meet individually with them to provide additional training and feedback. 

The Children's Home Society of New Jersey Kinship Navigator Model does not currently meet criteria to receive a rating because no studies of the program achieved a rating of moderate or high on design and execution.

Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed: Jun 2019

Sources

The program or service description, target population, and program or service delivery and implementation information was informed by the following sources: the program or service developer’s website, the program or service manual, and the studies reviewed.

Program/Service Description Updated: Week of August 24, 2020

This information does not necessarily represent the views of the program or service developers. For more information on how this program or service was reviewed, visit the download the Handbook of Standards and Procedures, Version 1.0