In 2007, Michigan will finalize the implementation of the Family to Family Initiative in its remaining 18 counties. The Family to Family Initiative is part of Michigan's child welfare reform effort to improve the outcomes for children and families by placing an emphasis on safety, stability, permanence and well-being.

The core strategies that form the basis of Family to Family are:

• Finding and maintaining foster and kinship families who can support children and families in their own neighborhoods.
• Establishing relationships with a wide range of community organizations in neighborhoods where referral rates to the child welfare system are high.
• Involving youth, birth families and community members in all placement decisions.
• Collecting and using hard data about child and family outcomes to find out where we are making progress and to show where we need to change.

Michigan began its commitment to the Family to Family principles in 2001 and selected two of its urban counties, Wayne and Macomb to lead the effort. Since that time Wayne, Macomb and Region 2 in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan have done a tremendous amount of work with their communities, families and youth to establish themselves as models for the rest of the state. In addition, Wayne and Macomb have been selected as anchor sites by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as 2 of 15 premier Family to Family sites in the United States.