Overview
Understanding caregiver preferences is an important part of making successful placements. Youth Preferences allow workers to see what services a caregiver is open to providing (adoption, foster care, and/or respite care), their openness to sibling groups, and their comfort level with specific youth characteristics or behaviors. This information helps guide conversations with families and supports better matching decisions.
How to Access Caregiver Youth Preferences
- Log in to Binti and open the Caregivers Menu.
- Select the Placement Options Dashboard.
- Locate the caregiver(s) you want to review.
- From the Actions dropdown menu, select Edit Placement Information.
- This page displays the caregiver’s placement information and youth preferences.
What Workers Can Do Here
- View caregiver preferences: See what services caregivers are willing to provide, their sibling group openness, and their preferences around characteristics and behaviors.
- Update caregiver preferences: If information changes during a conversation with the caregiver, you can edit and save updates directly in this page.
- Guide conversations: Use the preferences as a starting point for deeper discussions with caregivers about their strengths, capacity, and comfort levels.
Resolving Conflicts Between Worker and Family Preferences
Agency workers’ placement information always overrides family-entered preferences.
If a caregiver updates their Youth Preferences and those updates conflict with information entered by the worker:
- Workers will see a Resolve Conflicts option in two places:
- The Placement Options Dashboard
- The View Matching Families page
Clicking Resolve Conflicts allows the worker to:
- Review the family’s selections
- Approve the updates and apply them to the caregiver’s record, or
- Discuss the conflicting preferences further with the family before making a change
This ensures that final placement decisions are based on both the caregiver’s input and the agency’s professional judgment.
Tips for Workers
- Verify during check-ins: Preferences may shift over time. Confirm during renewals or when new placements are being considered.
- Encourage honesty: Remind caregivers that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers. Accurate preferences lead to better matches for both youth and families.
- Document changes: Always update preferences in Binti when new information is provided so the most current data is available for placement decisions.