Blog Posts -- Child Welfare System/Reform

By Anonymous, Art by Eileen Jimenez, Rise, March 15, 2022 I am a single mom and it is only my son and I living together. That means that unless he is in school or at camp, wherever I go, he goes, too—even when I have to go to the hospital. I have numerous medical problems and when I end up in the hospital, it’s not always during school hours. There are lots of reasons why I would need to bring my son with me to the hospital, such as if I’m having seizures or sudden severe pain, and these...

This comprehensive child welfare resource from Child Trends provides state and national data on child maltreatment , foster care , kinship caregiving , and adoption from foster care. The data are essential to help policymakers understand how many children and youth came in contact with the child welfare system, and why. States can use this information to ensure their child welfare systems support the safety, stability, and well-being of all families in their state. Please click here to...

by Cynthia Gutierrez, Photo: istock, Prism, February 9, 2022 Child Protective Services often result in the policing, surveillance, and separations of Black, Indigenous, and families of color. We need alternative solutions. The 2020 uprisings against police brutality and state-sanctioned violence pushed more people to recognize how police forces disproportionately abuse and kill Black, Indigenous, and people of color . But policing by other branches of the state also extends to people’s...

by Keyna Franklin, Rise Magazine, February 15, 2022 Halimah Washington, Rise Community Coordinator, discusses the connection between child care and family policing, how child care supports family safety and well-being and why Rise identified access to child care as a policy priority . Q. Why is the campaign for child care important to you as a parent? A. Universal child care is important to me as a parent because I have children that need child care after school, sometimes before school, and...

This fact sheet from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers information for providers supporting transition age youth with trauma-informed guiding principles to inform their work. This fact sheet describes transition age youth and their unique experiences, and six trauma-informed guiding principles to better support youth in their journey and recovery. Please click here to download the fact sheet.

Each year in Connecticut, over 18,000 children come into contact with the child welfare system due to confirmed or suspected abuse or neglect. 1 Children in the child welfare system are more likely than other children to have mental health conditions 2 and to have experienced potentially traumatic events (e.g., physical or sexual abuse, family violence) 3 or other adversities. 4 The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed many families in the form of disruptions to routines of daily life, increased...

Children and families of color are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system. The Family First Prevention Services Act offers an opportunity to address these inequities with evidence-based programs and services, but includes few culturally specific ones in its Clearinghouse. Culturally specific programs and services consider the role of race and culture as integral to developing solutions to challenges families face. In this brief, Chapin Hall policy staff offer an overview...

In collaboration with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Child Focus, Child Trends has developed the STRENGTH principles to serve youth in the child welfare and justice systems in positive, developmentally appropriate ways. The principles help systems that serve children and young adults apply Positive Youth Development approaches, focus on equity and inclusion, and involve communities and families. More information is available here: Integrating Positive Youth Development and Racial Equity,...

The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) recently released several reports related to youth involved in systems of care: Breaking the Stigma and Changing the Narrative: Strategies for Supporting Expectant and Parenting Youth Involved in Systems of Care provides an overview and critique of research findings about expectant and parenting youth and the stigma associated with young parenthood. It also discusses four strategies to break the stigmatization of expectant and parenting youth,...

By Emma Peyton Williams, upEND Contributor, November 17, 2021 By including the family policing system in their book Prison by Any Other Name , Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law link the punitive nature of the prison system to “the current punitive model for social services.” The similarities that Schenwar and Law note, such as each system’s focus on coercing compliance as opposed to changing material realities and the disproportionate impact of each system on people of color, particularly Black...

By Catherine Porter and Vjosa Isai, The New York Times, Jan. 4, 2022 The government agreed to a landmark settlement to repair the system and compensate those families harmed by it. It potentially ends many years of litigation. The Canadian government announced Tuesday that it had reached what it called the largest settlement in Canada’s history, paying $31.5 billion to fix the nation’s discriminatory child welfare system and compensate the Indigenous people harmed by it. The agreement in...

By Jane Coaston, title image by Alex Merto, The New York Times, December 18, 2021 In 2006, 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel was murdered by his foster parents near Cincinnati. They left him in a second-floor closet in August wrapped in tape and a blanket in a playpen with no food or water while they went out of town to a family reunion, dog in tow. When they returned home, they took his body to an abandoned chimney, doused it in gasoline and burned it, throwing most of the remains into the Ohio...