Tagged With "youth in court"
Blog Post
Shared Grief: If my daughter could know me it would help her understand her own suffering (www.risemangazine.org)
Rise Magazine is one of the few places I know of that gives voice to the experiences of parents who have children involved with child welfare. About Rise: Every year almost 300,000 children enter foster care nationwide. Media coverage of foster care focuses on tragic child deaths, the need for foster and adoptive parents, and the experiences of young people who age out of foster care at 18 or 21. Less understood is that more than half of children in foster care return home to their parents...
Blog Post
Sharing Data to Benefit Kids: A Guide for Child Welfare and Education Systems [aecf.org]
Re-sharing this blog post from the Annie E. Casey Foundation where they shared a guide for data sharing linkages between child welfare and education - the Roadmap for Foster Care and K-12 Data Linkages . ...Successful data linkages mean agencies are able to draw on all the publicly collected information to create a more complete picture of individual students in foster care, helping inform interventions that are more effective. “Data sharing between foster care and educational agencies is...
Blog Post
Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
Blog Post
Telling a more complete story about child welfare
A new study from Berkeley Media Studies Group found that coverage of the child welfare system omits important context and connections to other issues. Here are four steps practitioners can take to improve the news.
Blog Post
Temporary County Jobs Offer Former Foster Youth Pathway to Employment (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
“Finding good full-time employment is a key factor in reducing the pipeline from foster care into homelessness,” said Wende Nichols-Julien, CEO at Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Los Angeles. On February 14 th of this year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors moved to expand such opportunities with the Temporary Services Registry pilot project. Proposed by supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn, the pilot project creates a registry that connects residents facing barriers...
Blog Post
Texas has options for improving its foster care system - and Texas must [Star-Telegram.com]
I’ve always been intrigued by community-based or county run vs. state administered/state run child welfare systems; does one model perform better than the other? I remember hearing about Florida transitioning to a community-based child welfare system following several instances in which children in the system were hurt by the system. This article references some great outcomes for Florida, and describes how Texas is in the midst of their own reform – Foster Care Redesign , a pilot operating...
Blog Post
The implicit bias of, “Mental Illness” and “mentally ill”, a lexicon of hurt.
How can we heal from the implicit bias of “ Mental Illness ” and “ mentally ill ”? I hear these words and it sounds like fingernails scraping down the chalkboard. “ The stain of dehumanization colors the mind, body and spirit and it is not so easily washed away.” - Michael Skinner Recently I read a blog post at the ACEsConnection website, “Erasing My ACES” by Sirena Wheeler. It was posted on April, 19, 2020. It struck a chord with me, many in fact and it put me on a spiral down memory lane.
Blog Post
The Ubering of Foster Care has Begun [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/child-welfare-2/ubering-foster-care/21670 Earlier this month , I wrote a story about how Los Angeles County was considering using ridesharing services like Uber to improve “family visitation.” The problem in L.A. and across the country is that it is hard to transport children and their parents to court-ordered visits. My back-of-the-envelope math suggested that if every L.A. foster child were to be afforded one hour of visits a week – way less than court...
Blog Post
This Is How You End the Foster Care to Prison Pipeline [nationswell.com]
Almost half of all foster care youth end up in jail within two years of aging out of the system. First Place for Youth has figured out a housing and support strategy to keep these young adults out from behind bars and living on their own. Moments of stability were rare during Pamela Bolnick's childhood. She repeatedly witnessed her father beat her mother, a Venezuelan immigrant diagnosed with schizophrenia. Bolnick's mom eventually left her abusive spouse, fleeing to the Bay Area with her...
Blog Post
TIC: News and Notes for March 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Lessons learned integrating ACEs science into health clinics: Staff first, THEN patients Launching a revolution Stress is a key to understanding many social determinants of health Is trauma driving some eating disorders? Adverse childhood experiences: What we know, what we don't know, and what should happen next Childhood maltreatment initiates a developmental cascade that leads to relationship dysfunction in emerging adulthood Report reveals link between poverty,...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Uber [chronicalofsocialchange.org]
As Los Angeles County mulls the idea of using ride-sharing services to escort foster youth to visitations with biological parents, some child-welfare experts wonder how such a service would be able to grapple with children with significant experiences of trauma and loss. Children in the county’s foster-care system remain spread out across the vast geographical expanse of Los Angeles County. Trips to court, meetings with social workers or visitations with parents or other family members can...
Blog Post
Treating trauma's steep toll on native youth remains challenge for courts [inforum.com]
Of the many reaches of trauma-informed practice, a trauma-informed court room seems to be one of the most impactful. The court is an instutution which holds tremendous power, through the work of trauma-informed courts, judges are uniquely positioned to use this power to help traumatized youth who appear before them. What this means is a more accurate assessment of what a traumatized youth may need as far as mental health, behavioral, and social-emotional support. When trauma-informed systems...
Blog Post
Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
Blog Post
Using Screening and Assessment Evidence of Trauma in Child Welfare Cases [americanbar.org]
While many families encounter child welfare and never become involved in the legal system, a large majority of open child welfare cases are court involved. This means that most of the major decisions being made about children and families are occurring the court room. Lately, we've all seen a lot of news, discussion and stories about trauma-informed judges and trauma-informed courts. Trauma-informed courts are important everywhere, but especially in child welfare. As a child welfare worker,...
Blog Post
Videos & Audio
20/20 Reports On Foster Children And How Psychotropic Drugs Are Being Used To Control Behavior/Emotions. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be Link:...
Blog Post
We Want Kids to Grow Up in Safe Families. So Let’s Measure That. [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Our cultural norm of relatives and kin stepping in to help struggling families is ingrained in our history and tradition. The U.S. Supreme Court has conferred constitutional protections on the sanctity of the extended family [ See Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 1977 ]. Federal law encourages states to “consider giving preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining placement for a child.” Placements with relatives and kin provide children with greater...
Blog Post
What's In The Coronavirus Stimulus for Youth and Family Services [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, April 1, 2020 Congress passed, and President Trump has signed, the CARES Act, a massive piece of stimulus legislation aimed at shoring up the American economy and protecting workers and businesses in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic. One of the nation’s largest employment sectors – human services, a field dominated by nonprofits delivering contracted help to children and families – secured some relief as Americans prepare for a recession...
Blog Post
Why Do Child Welfare Agencies Keep Demanding Poor People Raise Their Kids ‘Independently’ When No One Else Does? [youthtoday.org]
I’ve just caught up with an excellent 2014 story from ProPublica on how child welfare systems deal with parents who have mental illnesses. The story looked at two cases in which parents really did have some sort of mental illness (putting them in the same company as an estimated 43.8 million Americans in any given year). That sets the point of the story apart from another major problem in child welfare — quick-and-dirty “psych evals” that mislabel parents mentally ill largely because they...
Blog Post
Why Do LA’s Foster Care Facilities Keep Calling The Cops On Traumatized Kids? (witnessla.com)
On March 21, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed an important motion that instructed the Director of the Office of Child Protection, Michael Nash, former presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court, to find out why so many of LA County’s foster children were crossing into the county’s delinquency system, what could be done to prevent that crossing, and how these so-called crossover kids could be helped if and when and if they found themselves in the clutches of both...
Blog Post
Why Neuroscience, Positive Feedback Are Transformative in Youth Work [youthtoday.org]
I am a long-time advocate for how the power of neuroscience can transform the youth-serving profession. When combined with a commitment to putting the needs of youth first and a sizable dose of courageous leadership, the insights and practical guidance provided by brain research can have remarkable results. A prominent example of the transformational application of this “secret recipe” can be found at the Sacramento County (California) Youth Detention Facility (YDF). In 2010, Sacramento...
Comment
Re: Is child protective services effective?
When I entered child welfare, the worker who came into my beat down, no plumbing trailer asked me what I did to make my parents - parents who had provided me with 10 ACEs- so mad? I was going to be Valedictorian despite all the Hell and Pain I had endured. They separated me from my brother and sister and put them in a separate foster home where I had no contact. When I called, the new home my sister was in told me to never call back because my sister had a new family now. I almost died from...
Comment
Re: Is child protective services effective?
Thanks for sharing your story. I agree that the child welfare system misses on a lot of fronts and tends to pile more ACEs on to people who have already experienced many. Instead of maintaining your sibling relationships, they caused you more stress. Hopefully we can work to get the system to work better.
Comment
Re: Chronicle investigation spurs calls to close foster care shelters (sfgate.com)
"Fostering Failure: How shelters criminalize hundreds of children" (May 18) exposes a heartbreaking reality in California's foster care system today. It highlights the lack of understanding and appreciation of the trauma and adversity these children have suffered and the critical need for "trauma informed” responses to their behaviors. No doubt the children in the story are trying to cope with years of unrecognized and untreated trauma. Research clearly shows that when behavioral indicators...
Blog Post
Alameda County’s Youth Transitions Partnership Program: A Promising Model for Supporting Transition-Age Youth in Foster Care [chapinhall.org]
By Laura Packard Tucker, Amy Dworsky, and Molly (Mayer) Van Drunen, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, June 2020 The Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP) blends service coordination, intensive case management, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help transition age youth in foster care in Alameda County, CA engage with support systems and improve their outcomes. YTP was funded by the Children’s Bureau Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH) grant program. This brief describes the...
Blog Post
Researchers Find Association between Participation in Extended Foster Care and Reduced Risk of Homelessness [chapinhall.org]
By Huiling Feng, Justin S. Harty, Nathanael J. Okpych, and Mark E. Courtney, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, June 2020 A fundamental tenet of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is that allowing foster youth to remain in care past their 18th birthday would improve their outcomes as adults. One of the most significant challenges transition-age foster youth face is homelessness. Foster youth experience disproportionately higher rates of...
Blog Post
California Considers Extending Foster Care for Young Adults Until Pandemic Emergency Ends [calhealthreport.org]
By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report, June 22, 2020 At the beginning of March, Monse Gonzalez had her entire year planned. She would graduate from community college, save part of her paychecks as a childcare worker, and start school at the University of Santa Barbara. Then came the pandemic. Suddenly, everything Gonzalez, 18, had worked for was in jeopardy: her job, her housing, her associates degree. While many young adults have families to lean on during these uncertain times,...
Blog Post
Community Resilience Series Part 1: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty [Peace & Justice Institute at Valencia College]
The Peace and Justice Institute (PJI) at Valencia College is excited to offer 3 free, online workshops with Dr. Ken Ginsburg , as part of a Community Resilience Series. The first workshop in this FREE series will be specifically for parents: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty , July 7th from 5:30 - 7:00 pm EST (zoom). REGISTER HERE “As parents, we want to protect our children from witnessing the fear and uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We wish we could take away the disruption...
Blog Post
Online Trauma-Informed Nonviolent Parenting Classes (www.echotraining.org) m)
There are online parenting classes in both English and Spanish offered through Echo Training. Here's more information about the online classes from @Louise Godbold who is the Executive Director of Echo Training.
Blog Post
Rebecca Lewis Pankratz: Breaking Generational Poverty, Poverty Circles, & Poverty Programs
"A CEs Connection is the curator of incredible hope, healing and possibility. Parents are not the bad guys. Most of us are just kids with ACEs who grew up..." Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz Last Friday, @Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz joined our A Better Normal series to discuss poverty circles and programs. Rebecca is the Director of Learning Centers as Essdack, as well as a poverty consultant, and we met online, via Twitter (her handle is @pOVERty’s Edge. Rebecca is a brilliant speaker, gifted writer, and...
Blog Post
Baby courts: A proven approach to stop the multigenerational transmission of ACES in child welfare; new efforts to establish courts nationwide
The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...
Blog Post
Influential Foster Youth Forum Calls for Sweeping Changes to Address Racism, Mental Health Issues [thelundreport.org]
By Ben Botkin, The Lund Report, August 31, 2020 A forum for current and former youth in foster care has called for sweeping changes to help children who have suffered trauma, are entering adulthood or belong to communities of color. The recommendations are the product of the Oregon Foster Youth Connection Policy Conference, a biennial forum for lawmakers, state agency officials, advocates and others interested in the state safety net. The conference, sponsored by the advocacy group Our...
Blog Post
Monty’s Day in Court - Children's Book
I wanted to tell everyone about my new children’s book available in English and Spanish: “Monty’s Day in Court: What To Expect When You Have To Testify In Court”. “Monty’s Day in Court” is the first children’s book written from the perspective of a child who testifies in court against his abuser. Monty’s story serves as a tool for children in learning resilience and as an aid for those on the front lines helping young people through challenging times. To learn more about the book please...
Blog Post
Request for Support: Healthy Futures for Foster Youth
Dear ACES community, I’m writing to ask for your help today to advance JBAY’s reproductive sexual health budget ask for foster youth who are expectant parents. There is so much happening right now with the pandemic that has impacted foster youth health and well-being. For our expectant and parenting foster youth they have experienced so much this past year and we are seeking to support their health with a modest budget request of $729,000. We are working as a coalition to provide the infant...
Blog Post
Supporting Families of Color: How Racial and Complex Trauma Affect Parents of Color Navigating Family Court During the Time of COVID and Beyond — A Report by Tricia Stephens, LCSW-R, Ph.D.
By Tricia Stephens, Rise, June 24, 2020 This report is intended to provide family court officers and child welfare professionals who engage with child welfare involved (CWI) parents, introductory knowledge on the trauma-informed approach. Readers will be introduced to the importance of using the trauma-informed approach in their work with CWI parents, with a focus on the impact that language has on the way in which CWI parents are depicted and responded to in the courtroom. Definitions of...
Ask the Community
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...
Blog Post
Mississippi judiciary trains on the power of hope, inspiring Youth Courts judges and staff
Dr. Chan Hellman, leading researcher in the power of hope to improve lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect, Justice Dawn Beam, and Christopher Freeze, co-chair of Mississippi ACEs Connection , on day three of presentations by Hellman to judges and staff members of Mississippi's Youth Courts. “Hope is a better predictor of college success than the ACT or the SAT score” was one of the startling comments made by Chan Hellman, Ph.D., in the first of...
Member
Connie Ricketts
Member
Tracey Latture
Member
Kimmy Farone
Member
Teressa Jimenez
Member
Pam Wysocki
Member
Amanda Pra Sisto
Member
Daniel Cates
Member