(a) It is the intent of the Legislature to make available, within available funds, intensive services to children and families that are designed to prevent the unnecessary and imminent placement of children in foster care and to facilitate the reunification of children with their families. These services shall be known as family preservation services and are characterized by the following values, beliefs and goals:
(1) The welfare and safety of the child is always paramount and always the first concern;
(2) Children need their families and should be raised by their own families whenever possible;
(3) Interventions should focus on family strengths and be responsible to individual family needs; and
(4) Improvement of family functioning is essential in order to promote the child's health, safety and welfare and thereby allow the family to remain intact and allow children to remain at home.
(5) Intensive short term concentration of comprehensive support coordinated by professional social workers should stabilize and diffuse crisis and foster self-sufficiency.
(b) Subject to the availability of funds for such purposes, the Legislature intends for family preservation services to be made available to all eligible families through a phased-in process. Except as otherwise specified by statute, the Department of Human Services shall have the authority and discretion to implement and expand family preservation services according to a plan and time frame determined by the Department.
(c) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to create an entitlement to services nor to create judicial authority to order providing family preservation services to any person or family before the Department has determined that such services are available or suitable or that the child or family is eligible for such services.