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A new report claims that “non-white race” adolescents showed higher resilience in the foster care system as they approached the age of emancipation. Many foster youth face challenges transitioning into independent adults. These challenges are related to difficult experiences in childhood and lack of adequate resources, resulting in dysfunctional behaviors and outcomes. The study attempts to explore the success stories among these high-risk youth–those who circumvent the challenges and...

About 9,000 foster children in Los Angeles County — or 52 percent of all county foster youth — live with relatives, DCFS Director Philip Browning told the Board of Supervisors.

Nestled in the shadow of Mt. Tom in Easthampton, MA, the Treehouse Community was founded to support families that take in foster children in the hopes of stopping the bounce through the system. Among the townhomes that house families who are fostering children, live senior residents. The result is a multi-generational community where one generation helps another. The seniors are vital to the support system that enables parents to succeed and the children to thrive. Now approaching its tenth...

T heir stories begin with heartbreak. A family unable or unwilling to care for them. Parents dead, addicted to drugs, absent. About 400,000 children in the U.S. live in foster care, according to federal officials. Entry into the foster care system is meant to keep them safe, but the reality is often fraught with its own dangers and disappointments. Times photojournalist Robert Gauthier interviewed more than a dozen young men and women from the Los Angeles area who were on the verge of being...

These days, I follow so many related organizations that I am never sure when I come onto ACEs Connection, if I am simply reposting something I discovered from ACEs connection in the first place! That's just a way of saying- this is an...

This report builds on the previous report in this series, Foundations for Understanding Self-Regulation from an Applied Developmental Perspective, which describes a theoretical framework that is utilized in the present review of empirical...

California Department of Social Services and Department of Health Services Care   ( The California Department of Health Care Services and Department of Social Services released  this guide  to best practices for the treatment of mental...

In recent years, there has been a surge  of research into early brain development. Neuroimaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), provide increased insight about how the brain develops and how early experiences affect that...

Why We Should Assess for ACEs in kids in the child welfare system.  I don't know exactly how old this brief from the Administration on Children and Families from HHS is but the graphs say it all.  However I will add a few points:   1....

Many children in foster or kinship care have a history of exposure to trauma. Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents (RPC) is a PowerPoint-based training curriculum designed to be taught by a mental health...

  For many young people, especially homeless youth who are supporting themselves, a scholarship can make the difference between going to college and making do without a degree. But because many of these young people have GEDs rather...

Research has found a significant link between childhood abuse and neglect and crime in adulthood. But a recent University of Washington study finds that link all but disappears when accounting for other life factors.   “We find that...