Tagged With "Foster"
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Introducing Benchmarks’ Standardized Assessment Protocol
According to leading research, 99% of children entering the foster care system have experienced trauma in their lifetime, and few of those children receive the trauma-informed healthcare they need to recover and prosper. These children are more likely to not only suffer short-term from their trauma, but long term as well. Children who do not receive effective, holistic healthcare experience a lifetime of mental health disorders, substance misuse, and physical illnesses, including diabetes,...
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Research/speaker to share sides of foster youth independence and resiliency
For each year's Foster Care Awareness Month, we pick a theme or topic to bring awareness to and to discuss among students within UC Davis Guardian Scholars Program. This year the title is "The Diary of the Independent, Resilient Foster Youth". We are aiming to highlight how former foster youth build skills and gain sense of independence and resiliency while also feeling isolated and alone or feeling the pressure to "do it all" by themselves. We are looking for a speaker that can address this...
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COVID prolonged foster care stays for thousands (apnews.com)
SEATTLE (AP) — Leroy Pascubillo missed his daughter’s first step, her first word and countless other precious milestones. After being born addicted to heroin, she had been placed with a foster family, and he anxiously counted the days between their visits as he tried to regain custody. But because of the pandemic, the visits dwindled and went virtual, and all he could do was watch his daughter — too young to engage via computer — try to crawl through the screen. They are among thousands of...
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6 tips for foster parents preparing for reunification (adoptuskids.org)
The majority of children in foster care are reunified with their birth family, and foster parents must support that outcome. When it can be done safely, reunification is usually in a child’s best interest. But that knowledge does not make it any easier to say goodbye to a child you’ve loved and cared for. In this post, we offer six suggestions for smoothing the transition. [ Click here to continue reading this blog post. ]
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Study Finds Overrepresentation of LGBTQ+ Youth in Midwest Foster Care System
The study outlined here is one of the first of its kind to be conducted in a Midwestern state, where available data on LGBTQ+ youth is extremely limited. It follows similar studies in New York City and Los Angeles showing equally high representation of youth with diverse SOGIE in foster care. Together these studies provide evidence that in the middle of the country, as well as in large urban areas, a greater proportion of LGBTQ+ youth are represented in foster care than in the general...
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Helping children in foster care understand their history (AdoptUSKids blog)
We live in a country where everything is always “fine.” An acquaintance asks you how you are doing, and even if you’re having the worst day of your week, you’re probably going to say “fine.” We’re just not good at discussing difficult—and potentially hurtful—topics. So we avoid doing it. But if you’re a foster parent or adopting children from foster care—especially older children—you’ll probably need to talk with them about their past. Because the reality is that a lot of kids don’t know...
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6 Skills You Need to Master Before Becoming a Foster Parent (verywellfamily.com)
Thousands of kids out there are in need of a safe home. Sadly, there are not nearly enough foster families available for all these children. You can help by stepping up to become a foster parent. Opening your home and your heart to a child is exactly what these kids need. But before you decide to take in a foster child, be sure you're up for the challenges (and joys) ahead. To help you prepare, we've compiled a checklist of key considerations and skills needed to be a successful foster...
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Cultivating Resilience in New Foster Parents Through Mentoring
A recent article in Children and Youth Services Reviews discusses a study that explores the relationship between mentoring and resilience in new foster parents and how mentors can help new foster parents. Mentorship between experienced and inexperienced foster parents has shown to improve retention and increase the mentee's ability to manage the behavioral problems of children in their care. It also provides new foster parents with additional supportive contacts and encourages greater...
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‘How’s Our Girl?’: On Loving a Foster Child and Letting Go (NY Times)
Every time we choose to love other mortal beings, someday, we will have to give them back. “Cute baby,” strangers said when they saw her. “Your first?” they asked. And when we told them she was our foster daughter, that we might have to return her to her biological mother, I watched them step back. “I couldn’t do that,” they said. “I’ll pray for you,” they said. I didn’t know if I could do it, either. But I also knew it’s what we do every time we choose to love another mortal being. Someday,...
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Away From Home: An in-depth report on the experiences and perspectives of young people who have recently lived in institutional placements in foster care (Think of Us)
A new report from Think of Us examines the experiences of foster youth who are placed in congregate care placements, such as group homes or residential treatment centers. The report uses stories, art, and other first-person accounts from foster youth to understand their day-to-day lives in these living arrangements. The experiences of these youth offer ideas for improving congregate care placements, and for alternatives to these placements that better support the development and well-being...
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I Will Never Forget That I Could Have Lived With People Who Loved Me (nytimes.com)
By Sixto Cancel, The New York Times, September 16, 2021 When I was 15, an usher at my church offered to become my foster parent. Hers was one of the best foster homes I lived in. But she wanted a son. It was more than I was able to give. I had been in foster care since I was 11 months old because of my mother’s drug addiction and poverty. Adopted at age 9 by a racist and abusive woman, I was locked out of the house at age 13. For two years, I couch surfed with friends, then entered foster...
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An Unavoidable System: The Harms of Family Policing and Parents' Vision for Investing in Community Care
This new report shares the results of a participatory action research (PAR) project that Rise conducted in winter 2021 in partnership with TakeRoot Justice . Our research documents parents’ experiences with the family policing system and explores a collective vision to transform our society’s structures, policies and practices related to family and community support. Imaginative and sometimes painful community conversations with 48 people impacted by ACS provide the foundation of this...
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Keeping children you foster and adopt safe online (AdoptUSKids.org)
By AdoptUSKids, June 15, 2021 Long before COVID, children’s lives were increasingly spent online. Researchers estimate that 70 percent of us spend more than two hours a day on social media alone. If you’re a parent, you might be thinking: “Only two hours! My son is on his phone a lot more than that!” There are many well documented dangers created by children’s spending excessive amounts of time online. Children in foster care are often at a greater risk because they may have less impulse...
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Youth Empowerment Summit
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Introducing a New Course in Supporting Marginalized Students!
Did you know that societal inequities can impact a person's long-term health outcomes? Marginalization is the exclusion of a disadvantaged person or group to the fringe of society. It results in individuals being overlooked when laws, policies, and practices are established that protect the privileged class, and leads to adverse community environments--such as poverty, poor housing, and lack of mobility--that promote fertile ground for structural violence and harm, including racism and...
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Foster Youth Strategic Initiative 2020 Evaluation Report (Child Trends)
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s Foster Youth Strategic Initiative (the Initiative) aims to ensure that older youth in foster care in Los Angeles County (LA) and New York City (NYC) become self-sufficient and thriving adults. The Initiative equips transition-age foster youth (foster TAY or foster youth) ages 16 to 24 for career and college success. To help foster youth achieve positive educational and career outcomes, the Initiative’s grantees provide a continuum of supports to help all...
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What Foster Parents Need To Know About Adopting and Affirming a Queer Child (parents.com)
The key is and will continue to be for foster parents to listen, learn, and practice empathy for kids in the LGBTQ+ community. By Danielle Broadway, Parents, June 03, 2021 Every year, thousands of children in the foster care system struggle to find safe and stable homes with loving adult figures to help them thrive. Many of the children in the system have traumatic experiences that can range from physical and emotional abuse to being forced into criminal activity . They often need foster...
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Treatment foster care model shows promising results (streetroots.com)
An Oregon-developed model of foster care aims for reunification by Libby Dowsett , Street Roots, November 10, 2021 Sharon Annett’s eyes are now wide open to what’s really going on behind closed doors. “I didn’t understand there are people out there mistreating children so badly,” said Sharon Annett. “It’s just horrific the stories you hear about what these little kids have been through.” Sharon Annett is a treatment foster care parent, meaning she and her husband Jim Annett care for children...
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How ‘Shadow’ Foster Care Is Tearing Families Apart (nytimes.com)
By Lizzie Presser, The New York Times, December 1, 2021 When a staph infection killed Molly Cordell’s mother just before Halloween in 2015, Molly felt, almost immediately, as if she were being shoved out of her own life. At 15, she and her sister, Heaven, who was a year younger, had no idea where they would go. Their dad had been in and out of their lives for most of their childhood. His grief, as their mother lay dying, sent him spinning. It seemed to the girls that he was on too much meth,...
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Homeless and Foster Youth, Racial Inequity, and Policy Shifts for Systemic Change (sr.ithaka.org)
An issue brief from Ithaka S+R, Homeless and Foster Youth, Racial Inequity, and Policy Shifts for Systemic Change , highlights the racial disparities inherent in foster care and homelessness and the causes of homelessness and foster system involvement. It illustrates the challenges that youth experiencing foster care and homelessness face in earning a college degree and proposes policy changes for states to address and meet the needs of these youth. There is a disproportionate number of...
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The All-Too-Common Tragedy of Foster Care (nytimes.com)
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...
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Foster Care Supply Drive delighted by community response
After a successful pilot launch, the Foster Care Supply Drive is set to expand throughout SW Washington State in the Spring of 2022. During the pilot phase, which began in Washougal/Camas we were able to procure enough donations from 6 businesses to create 110 welcome bags for youth entering foster care. Donation bins and marketing materials are scheduled to be delivered between March 1st, 2022, and March 4th, 2022. The Foster Care Supply Drive was created based on first-hand experiences of...
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Are You a Foster Parent With a Child in School? Join the Foster Parent Pandemic Education Experiences Study!
Please read this message from Mary Rauktis, lead author of this important study, and share it with your networks! "As an educator, I teach aspiring students how to engage with and build on the resilience of children and their caregivers. As a mentor, I have advised former foster care youth who have later become colleagues and friends. I have witnessed how challenging it is to go to college not as well prepared as peers, with far less familial support and the price paid emotionally and...
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Financial Empowerment for Youth Who Age Out of Foster Care (MoneyGeek)
A resource curated by MoneyGeek, a website created to make personal finance more "approachable and accessible" to everyone through free content and tools, provides expert input and guidance aimed at ensuring the successful financial futures of youth exiting foster care. The webpage utilizes infographics, call-out boxes, and bullets to convey information in a digestible format, organized into three sections: Financial roadblocks and solutions: Five financial challenges specific to youth...
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Building Coregulation Capacity to Support Positive Development for Youth in Foster Care [acf.hhs.gov]
Original article can be found on Children's Bureau Express here . A report from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explores how self-regulation can be applied as a framework for promoting youth health and well-being through coregulation. It reviews which developmental skills and competencies are addressed in the current literature, how coregulation is presented, and what...
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Best Practices Guide for Improving Education Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care [Alliance for Children's Rights]
Original article can be found on Children's Bureau Express here . Youth in foster care continue to have poorer education outcomes compared with their peers. For example, the high school graduation rate in California for youth in foster care is 58 percent while the general population graduation rate is 84 percent. Best Practices Guide for Developing a District System to Improve Education Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care from the Alliance for Children's Rights seeks to build on its Foster...
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Reconnecting Family Ties for Children and Youth in Foster Care
Written by the Capacity Building Center for States "Reconnecting with and strengthening my relationships with family has always been an important part of finding my identity and sense of belonging. However, this power comes with a different set of unexpected challenges. Family events can often be stressful as we struggle with how to treat one another. It is difficult to have healthy relationships because we did not have the opportunity to learn how to do this when we were younger."— Aleks...
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Support and Resources for Expectant and Parenting Young People in Foster Care [familyvoicesunited.org]
Original article can be found on Children's Bureau Express here . Family Voices United published a report featuring a summary of responses from youth with lived foster care experience to the question "What supports should be provided to maintain stable foster care placements for expectant and parenting youth, or to support them in achieving safe reunification with relatives/loved ones?" Policymakers can use this report to better understand constituents and tailor programs and systems to...
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Re: Introducing a New Course in Supporting Marginalized Students!
I'd like to take this course, but now there is no possibility. I'm busy preparing my thesis. Although I use assignment help online , most of the work I still need to prepare. I'd like to finish faster and start studying this course.
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Guides for How to Incorporate Coregulation With Older Youth in Foster Care [www.acf.hhs.gov] [
Original Post from Children's Bureau Express: For children and youth in foster care, having caring and supportive adults in their lives can significantly improve well-being and encourage positive youth development. These beneficial relationships are in part created through coregulation. Coregulation is when adults enact three types of support with youth: caring, consistent, and responsive relationships; cocreation of supportive environments; and intentional and developmentally informed...
Ask the Community
(TRMBW™) Trauma Responsive Mind-Body Wellness Training
Hello everyone, I am the founder of Rituals for Recovery a non-profit organization in Ontario Canada who is commited to combating complex trauma and the stigma and suffering that results from it. We are getting ready to launch our fall programming and trauma responsive mind body wellness training and are looking for clinicans, social workers and helping professionals working with children and families in the foster care system (particularly those who offer free services for at-risk families...
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Factsheet Helps Youth in Care Learn to Self-Advocate [www.childwelfare.gov]
A factsheet from Child Welfare Information Gateway seeks to empower youth involved in the child welfare system to speak up about their feelings, wants and needs, questions and concerns, and aspirations. In doing so, youth can play an active role in the conversations and decision-making that directly affect them. The publication, Using Your Voice: A Guide for Youth on Participating in Case Planning , answers and expands upon the following questions: What is youth engagement? What is case...
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A Unique Support Group Helps Parents of Children in Foster Care [imprintnews.org]
By Sara Tiano, The Imprint, August 3, 2022 Parents caught up in the child welfare system have to tell their stories to social worker investigators, lawyers and judges as they fight to keep their families together. But what happens when they share their stories with each other? A nationwide network serving parents who battle mental health challenges, substance abuse disorders and domestic violence shows regular participation in a support group may make all the difference. The groups are run...
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Supporting the Sexual and Reproductive Health of Youth in Foster Care After Roe [cssp.org]
Bodily autonomy—or the ability to make decisions about our bodies, health, and sexuality without policing or coercion by others—is essential to living a life with dignity, and yet, in this country, it is not guaranteed to all. The U.S. has a long and sordid history of exploiting and controlling people’s bodies, especially those of Black, Indigenous, and poor people. For youth in foster care, a glaring lack of autonomy and control over their lives and decision making is reflected in their...
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Connect Our Kids [connectourkids.org]
Connect Our Kids' technology platform enhances the most successful family search and engagement programs in the country. Child welfare professionals use their technology tools to dramatically scale up their family search and engagement efforts and to ensure work is perfectly documented, organized, and reports are easily shared. Connect Our Kids' technology tools offer a strong foundation to meet legal requirements and quickly identify relatives of a child in the government's custody. Learn...
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American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Children Are Overrepresented in Foster Care in States With the Largest Proportions of AIAN Children [childtrends.org]
By Deana Around Him, Child Trends, November 8, 2022 In the 10 states with the largest proportions of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children, AIAN children are overrepresented in foster care in nearly every state when comparing their percentages in the foster care and total child populations (see figure below). Of these 10 states, the percentage of AIAN children in foster care was highest in South Dakota, Alaska, and North Dakota; and lowest in Arizona, Oregon, and Nebraska. These...
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Announcing The Connections Matter Academy - Videos to Help Teens Cope with Trauma
The Connections Matter Academy is a set of engaging videos designed to educate young people about trauma and how it impacts their life. We created it to inspire teens to begin their healing process, break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, and reach their highest potential through healthy connections with others. What exactly is The Connections Matter Academy? An educational, inclusive, and entertaining animated series to help teens and young adults cope with trauma Co-created by Beth...
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With nowhere else to go, kids needing foster care sleep on the floor in county offices (northcarolinahealthnews.org)
Photo Credit: Walt Stoneburner, Flickr Creative Commons By Michelle Crouch, The Charlotte Ledger, July 5, 2023 -- With foster homes in short supply, more than 55 children over the past year have spent at least one night sleeping on an air mattress in a Mecklenburg government conference room; “It’s as bad as it’s ever been.” Dozens of children have been forced to sleep on the floor of Mecklenburg County offices over the past year because of a severe shortage of foster homes and crisis beds,...
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Building Resilience is a Team Effort that Starts Early
“YES!” was the response of Gaile Osborne, executive director of Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina (FFANC), when asked for input on a new program to help foster and kinship care families learn how to support the brain development of young children. “I love these Brain Insights materials. How soon can we start?” said Osborne upon receiving the "The First 60 Days ” booklet on myths about newborns and their caregivers and the eight “ Neuro-Nurturing ” ringed books. The materials delivered...