Tagged With "Lambda Legal"

This report — the third volume of the From Data to Practice series — explores permanency outcomes for youth who, at the time they came into Casey Family Programs’ out-of-home care (OOHC), were not residing with a family member. Family was defined as either biological family, kin or fictive-kin. The target population was 513 youth who entered Casey OOHC between July 1, 2013, and December 31, 2017, and who exited care between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2017. The outcomes indicated that...

By Leyland Cecco, The Guardian, September 29, 2021 A federal court in Canada has paved they way for billions in compensation to First Nations children who suffered discrimination in the welfare system, after a judge dismissed a pair of legal challenges by the government. Two years ago , the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the federal government had “wilfully and recklessly” discriminated against Indigenous children living on reserves by failing to properly fund child and family...

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...

By Asher Lehrer-Small, Photo: Asher Lehrer-Small, The 74 Million, January 27, 2022 P aullette Healy can tick off the ways her family’s life has been plunged into uncertainty and fear over the last three months: Her younger child’s repeated nightmares and increased anxiety, the hours she’s poured into collecting forms from her kids’ doctor and psychiatrist to prove she’s a fit parent and an arduous and probably costly legal process that still looms to clear her name. From early November...

Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts will be released on April 5, 2022. An award-winning scholar exposes the foundational racism of the "child welfare system" and calls for radical change. Many believe the "child welfare" system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy...

CSSP is excited to share our new Youth Thrive Blueprint: Tools and Resources for Putting Youth Thrive into Practice . The Youth Thrive Blueprint is: A practice resource for youth-serving agencies and organizations to advance the well-being of young people—ages 9-26 years. Full of actionable ideas and tools to build young people’s strengths and Protective and Promotive Factors . Developed with a focus on young people in foster care and relevant to other settings such as: afterschool and...

A new publication from the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law describes the different placement options available to kinship care families and the factors that should be considered when pursuing kin caregiving arrangements. Kinship Caregiving Options: Considerations for Caregivers is a 14-page guide developed primarily for relatives caring for or planning to care for their kin, but it is also a useful tool for professionals working with these families. It begins with a...

By Madison Hunt, Illustration: Christine Ongjoco/The Imprint, The Imprint, April 13, 2022 I n a series of social media posts launched today, women cradle their pregnant bellies. They kiss their newborns and lovingly nurse their tiny infants. “Black mamas deserve quality healthcare and unconditional support,” the messages spread by a campaign of New York advocates for low-income parents and families state. “We must make healthcare safe for birthing people at all times.” The coalition behind...

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...

Key Facts and Statistics from Childwelfare.gov Include these key points in your messaging to demonstrate the important role relative and kinship caregivers play in supporting family connections that are essential to a child’s health and well-being. There are over 407,000 children and youth in foster care , and 34 percent were placed with relatives or kin. The term kin encompasses both relatives (those related by blood or marriage) and fictive kin (those who are unrelated but have such a...

By Jeremy Loudenback, Photo: Jeremy Loudenback, The Imprint, May 17, 2022 H oisting signs that read “Fund Families, Not Systems” and “Poverty Is Not Neglect,” protesters in downtown Los Angeles today chanted “Black Families Matter!” and shared their wrenching experiences of family separation through the foster care system. “If you are outraged that the Supreme Court may soon allow the government to reach into your womb and control whether you have children, you should be deeply outraged that...

Original post by Children's Bureau Express COVID-19 has been a source of disruption and stress for families and systems and has significantly changed the way child welfare operates in its day-to-day business. At the start of the pandemic, many courts and child welfare agencies suspended or reduced in-person family time, which is a critical part of the reunification process and has several benefits to attachment and well-being. Family time also provides an opportunity for child welfare...

Fathers’ relationships—especially their relationships with coparents and romantic partners—can affect their own well-being and the quality of their involvement with their children. Using lessons from the Coparenting and Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education for Dads (CHaRMED) study, Child Trends’ new brief for the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation identifies common barriers that fatherhood programs face when addressing healthy relationships with fathers and provides...

Target Audience: This project has been planned for medical professionals (physicians, mental health professionals, and allied health), parents, provider agencies, MCO/LMEs, educators, attorneys, and other legal system professionals. Program Description This virtual conference will discuss how exposure to alcohol is the leading cause of intellectual and other developmental disabilities in the US and results in a variety of developmental disability diagnoses collectively referred to as Fetal...

Author Kelly Burch's article, After a medical diagnosis, my kids were wrongfully taken from me. Lorina Troy took her son J.J. to the hospital, where doctors suspected abuse. J.J. later received a diagnosis of a medical condition that causes fluid in the brain. This is Lorina's story, as told to Kelly Burch. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lorina Troy. It has been edited for length and clarity. When my son J.J. was born, something seemed off from the beginning. His head...

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...

The proposed paradigm shift from mandated reporting to community supporting is not a new idea, but one that has been proposed and championed by advocates, social workers, researchers, philanthropists, pediatricians, educators, and others across the country who have been informed by deep listening to families with lived expertise in the child welfare system. Creating a Child & Family Well-Being System: A Paradigm Shift from Mandated Reporting to Community Supporting from Safe and Sound...

The October 2022 issue of Children's Bureau Express (CBX) features resources related to the issue of youth homelessness and ways to mitigate the challenges children and youth involved with child welfare face during times of financial insecurity. Read a message from Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg about the importance of practicing positivity when engaging with children and youth and how the Lakota tribe implements this principle of being acutely mindful of the language they use...

By Erica L. Green, Photo by Chet Strange for the New York Times, The New York Times, October 13, 2022 The Biden administration proposes spending $20 billion over a decade to help some of the most vulnerable families in the country, including relatives suddenly thrust into child rearing. WASHINGTON — Maria Elena Thomas and her husband were ready for a simpler life after they retired in 2015, sold their home in Colorado and settled on the southeastern coast of Spain. “People would ask, ‘When...

By Roxanna Asgarian, Photo by Shuran Huang, The Texas Tribune, November 10, 2022 Jennifer and Chad Brackeen, an anesthesiologist and a stay-at-home dad, already had two biological children when they decided to foster a child. “God started to speak to our hearts about opening our home for more,” Jennifer explained in a now-defunct blog. The Evangelical Christian couple in Fort Worth began caring for a 10-month-old boy in 2016, and the next year, decided they wanted to adopt him. But the boy...

Because of a collaboration with Columbia University and UW-Madison, we have answers to these questions. By Peter Peter Pecora, Casey Family Programs, March 17, 2023 - Overview The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently released a “ roadmap ” to reduce child poverty by as much as half through the implementation of a series of social policy packages. The aim of this study was to simulate the reductions in Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement and foster care placements that are...

[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the effects of abuse, and includes research articles on PACEs. Every month, she posts the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs, PCEs and PACEs. Thank you, Harise!! — Rafael Maravilla] Domestic Violence – Effects on Children Makris G, Eleftheriades A, Pervanidou P. Early Life Stress, Hormones, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Horm Res...