Tagged With "LGBTQ Youth"
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Shortage of foster families for teens, older kids
There are enough foster parents in Shasta County for the county’s children, and more. So why are some children and youths housed in other care programs waiting for a foster family? The answer is in the age group most foster parents want to foster. “Shasta County is a receiving county because we have more foster youth coming… from other counties for placement than we send out…,” said Dianna Wagner, branch director of children’s services at Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency...
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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...
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Specialized Foster Homes Needed for Commercially Sexually Exploited Children in King County, Washington
HOW YOU CAN HELP: Become a foster parent! King County is starting a new and innovative program—the Puget Sound CSEC Foster Care Pilot Program—to serve these youth! CAREGIVERS WILL RECEIVE THE FOLLOWING TRAINING AND SUPPORT: Extensive training and support—both upfront and ongoing Access to a CSEC social work expert for consultation services In home support services and respite care Ongoing community building/recreational activities for families and children INTERESTED IN LEARNING...
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State Prior Authorization Parameters for Psychotropic Medication for Children and Youth in Medicaid
The Center for Health Care Strategies has developed a series of resources that provides stakeholders with tools and guidance for ensuring that children prescribed psychotropic medications receive appropriate screening,...
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Study Evaluates ‘Resilience’ in Transition-age Foster Youth, Claims Non-whites More Resilient [ChronicleforSocialChange.org]
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...
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Supporting Brain Development in Traumatized Children and Youth
This Administration on Children and Families (ACF) bulletin summarizes the effects of early trauma on brain development and looks at steps child welfare professionals can take to screen for developmental delays and identify the trauma-affected children and youth in their care. It also looks at ways to access cross-sector, therapeutic, and evidence-based treatment to encourage healthy recovery for trauma-affected children and youth. HERE TO ACCESS MATERIALS. Document attached.
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Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project Evaluation Opportunity Announcement
The Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project , a five-year project of the Urban Institute, to support the Administration for Children and Families, is increasing the number of evidence-supported interventions for the child welfare population by conducting rigorous evaluations and supporting the field in moving toward rigorous evaluation. The project focuses on evaluating interventions that already have some evidence of effectiveness and are currently operating or those that will...
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Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project Evaluation Opportunity Announcement
The Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project , a five-year project of the Urban Institute, to support the Administration for Children and Families, is increasing the number of evidence-supported interventions for the child welfare population by conducting rigorous evaluations and supporting the field in moving toward rigorous evaluation. The project focuses on evaluating interventions that already have some evidence of effectiveness and are currently operating or those that will...
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Supporting Older Youth Beyond Age 18 [Child Trends]
Examining Data and Trends in Extended Foster Care During the transition from adolescence to adulthood, youth achieve important developmental milestones, such as learning decision-making and coping skills and becoming more independent. Older youth often rely on family and other supportive adults to help them during this transition by providing guidance as well as a financial and emotional safety net. However, these supports are often unavailable to older youth who are leaving the foster care...
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Sustaining Momentum: Improving Educational Stability for Youth in Foster Care [Anne E. Casey Foundation]
Entering the foster care system can catapult a youth’s academic career into a devastating tailspin marred by too many new-kid-in-the-classroom transitions. This report highlights the Annie E Casey Foundation’s 4-year...
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Systems Integration: Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice
This resource from the National Center for Juvenile Justice focuses on how policies and practices addressing the challenges posed by dual-status youth in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have changed within the past decade. It...
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Taylor CAREs: Upcoming Vulnerable Children Conference [theechonews.com]
On Friday, Oct. 27, Taylor will host the CARE Conference, a one-day event with speakers, workshops and organizational exhibits focused on vulnerable children and viable communities. According to Graduate Assistant Paige McCourt, the conference will begin with keynote speaker Beth Guckenberger of Back2Back Ministries in that morning’s chapel. Three breakout sessions with a break for lunch will follow, covering topics including adoption, refugees and immigration, child tracking,...
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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...
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit 3rd Edition (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network)
The NCTSN is happy to announce the release of The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (3 rd Edition)! The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (CWTTT) 3rd Edition is a training series designed to support the infusion of trauma-informed knowledge and skills into child welfare organizational cultures. The CWTTT contains targeted training for various levels and roles within child welfare organizations, resulting in positive sustainable changes in the policies, programs, and practices which...
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The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit 3rd Edition (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network)
The NCTSN is happy to announce the release of The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (3 rd Edition)! The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (CWTTT) 3rd Edition is a training series designed to support the infusion of trauma-informed knowledge and skills into child welfare organizational cultures. The CWTTT contains targeted training for various levels and roles within child welfare organizations, resulting in positive sustainable changes in the policies, programs, and practices which...
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The Foster Care Anthology Project
If you haven't heard about this yet, this is an amazing opportunity to lift up and support the resilience of foster youth by publishing a book of their stories! Here is a link to a video explaining the book project and their kickstarter campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMGATnMOTVw&feature=youtu.be
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The foster care system, trauma, and resilience - a panel discussion
Trauma often does its greatest harm when it occurs during the impressionable stages of our youth. Losing one's parents, moving from different schools, living in an unstable environment - all of these are issues that can break into a child's world and cause difficulties well into adulthood. What can we do? What has research shown to be the current best practices? What is the science behind this aspect of foster care, and how does it relate to our faith? I was honored to be a part of a panel...
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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.
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The Mockingbird Society - Youth Trainings [mockingbirdsociety.org]
The Mockingbird Society, an advocacy organization for youth in foster care, offers trainings for youth and young adults on topics such as Legislative Advocacy, Voice Development, Transitions, The Power of Voting, & Storytelling for Advocacy. The mission of this organization is to improve foster care and end youth homelessness through guiding principles such as: Children in "the system" are our children, our responsibility and Institutions do not change lives - relationships do Every...
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The Support that is Helping Make College Graduation a New Reality for Foster Youth (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
About 30 percent of high school students in California go on to graduate from college, but only about 8 percent of foster youth make it that far, according to research by the Public Policy Institute of California and the University of Chicago. Young people who spend their teen years in foster care are more likely to land in jail than to earn a college degree. Those bleak prospects deter some students from even considering higher-ed options. Under the umbrella of Guardian Scholars programs,...
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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...
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‘This is not a child safety crisis. It’s a poverty crisis, a racism crisis.’ – A social worker and former foster youth featured in HBO’s ‘Foster’ shares her vision of societal and system change (www.risemagazine.org)
Excerpts from article by Sarah Harris from Rise Magazine . Q: What led you to work in the foster care system? A: I am a former foster youth and I’ve been a social worker at the L.A. Department of Child and Family Services for 5 years. I entered foster care through probation, and I got into probation through survival. I was breaking the law for clothes and food. In foster care, I bounced around a lot. For the most part I was AWOL. I was in group homes but I stayed with family or friends.
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TIC: News and Notes for February 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 1) Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 2) Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 3) Family dynamics may influence suicidal thoughts in children Fawning: The fourth trauma response we don't talk about FPs are best equipped to tackle adverse childhood experiences New study reveals annual cost of childhood adversity in California is approximately $113 billion Signs your child may be struggling from an adverse childhood experience...
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Time Spent on Me Wasn’t Wasted [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Ricardo Rodriguez is a 26-year-old San Diego resident and former foster youth who balances a job in tech with volunteer work and entrepreneurial pursuits. Thanks to his relentless drive and support from key sources, his life has turned out far different from previous expectations. During his childhood, medical professionals said Rodriguez would never be able to walk, talk or understand words. Despite many obstacles, Rodriguez has made his lifelong dream of working in the tech industry a...
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To help address foster care tragedies, better understand and listen to youth [www.tribtalk.org]
Earlier this month, two teenagers in foster care were struck by a vehicle after running away from Child Protective Services (CPS) offices in Houston, where they had been staying because of a lack of appropriate placement options. One, a 15-year-old girl, died from her injuries. The tragic fatality has heightened attention on Texas’ foster care capacity crisis, but it is important to recognize that the issues Texas must address are much broader. Due to challenges with how information was...
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Toxic Childhoods [politco.com]
Often times, a pediatrician or medical professional well-versed in the effects of ACEs or toxic stress can be the initial bridge to services, support, and building resilience for children, youth and families served by child welfare. It's exciting and encouraging to read about more and more pediatricians grounding their medical practice within ACEs framework. A toddler came into my examination room recently at Bayview Child Health Center in Bayview Hunters Point, an underserved, largely...
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Trauma-Informed Care as a Universal Precaution: Beyond the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire [jamanetwork.com]
By Nicole Racine, Teresa Killam, and Sheri Madigan, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Experiences of childhood adversity are common, with more than 50% of adults reporting having experienced at least 1 adversity as children and more than 6% exposed to 4 or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). There is currently a controversial debate in the medical field as to whether the ACEs questionnaire, which asks about abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18 years, should be...
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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...
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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...
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Trump Administration Approves Vouchers for Housing After Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, July 25, 2019 Earlier this year, we reported on the case made by current and former foster youths to use existing authority at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to connect youth aging out of care with housing supports. The Chronicle of Social Change has learned that, after a thorough review of the policy by HUD’s general counsel, the agency is set this week to approve this and notify thousands of public housing authorities.
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Trump’s Top Child Welfare Official Speaks [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
by Daniel Heimpel , November 6, 2017 In June, the Trump administration hired Jerry Milner to lead the federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees federal child welfare funding and policy. The Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) was established in 1977 and oversees the Family and Youth Services Bureau as well as the much larger Children’s Bureau, which was created by President William Howard Taft back in 1912. As acting commissioner of...
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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.
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Understanding Trauma to Promote Healing in Child Welfare [co-invest.org]
California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership, Summer 2019. For child welfare stakeholders, the concept that children and their families come into our systems bearing the burden of traumatic experiences associated with neglect and abuse is not new. What has evolved over the last couple of decades is the science of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and understanding of the long-term physical and behavioral health consequences and high societal costs. A landmark study , and the many...
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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:...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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We Need to Help Relatives Navigate Their Child Welfare Options [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jenny Keefe and Nikeyah Flagg, The Chronicle of Social Change, November 21, 2019 A new data project focusing on foster care capacity has illustrated a growing reality across the nation’s child welfare system: relatives are increasingly stepping up to provide care for children removed from their parents. The newly released data, compiled and analyzed by The Chronicle of Social Change, shows that the most recent surge in youth entering foster care is over. It also finds that a majority of...
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‘We Want to Be Heard, Not Fixed’: Voices of Foster Youth [risemagazine.org]
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...
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What Does Trauma-Informed Mean to Foster Youth? [JJIE.org]
For three decades, I have listened in awe to the brave voices of children, youth and families who have shared, in anguish, their past experiences — experiences that anyone would objectively call “adverse” and ones that can have lasting effects on health and well-being. The seminal ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study opened my eyes to how pervasive their stories were and how these findings might influence the development of effective interventions and treatment, especially for...
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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...
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What Success Looks Like: On-Campus Resources and Support for Foster Youth (socialjusticesolutions.org)
After identifying a statewide need for support services for foster youth, the Foster Youth Success Initiative (FYSI) was created in 2006 through a collaboration between the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), the Foundation for California Community Colleges and numerous partners and stakeholders. According to Jessica Smith, the statewide liaison for FYSI, the “network of support” provided by FYSI includes assistance with academic needs, financial aid, physical and...
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Who Cares: A National Count of Foster Homes and Families [fostercarecapacity.com]
By The Chronicle of Social Change, September 11, 2019 There are more than 400,000 children and youth living on foster care today. The questions the Who Cares project endeavors to answer are: Who are the people caring for them, and in what types of settings? Most foster youth live with relatives, in the home of foster parents, or in group homes or residential facilities. But as foster care numbers have crept up in the past six years, and there has been a push towards phasing out group homes,...
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Who Cares: A National Count of Foster Homes [fostercarecapacity.com]
By The Chronicle of Social Change, October 2019 Who Cares is the nation’s first public resource on foster care capacity. The Chronicle of Social Change collects data directly from each state, and combines that with specially obtained federal reports to shed light on two critical questions: How many kids are in foster care today? And where are they living? This year the data suggests that nationwide, the number of youth in care is going down, and the number of foster homes is going up. But...
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Who Cares: A National Count of Foster Homes [fostercarecapacity.com]
By The Chronicle of Social Change, October 2019 Who Cares is the nation’s first public resource on foster care capacity. The Chronicle of Social Change collects data directly from each state, and combines that with specially obtained federal reports to shed light on two critical questions: How many kids are in foster care today? And where are they living? This year the data suggests that nationwide, the number of youth in care is going down, and the number of foster homes is going up. But...
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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...
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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...
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Why We Need To Collect Data on LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
In the United States , the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) collects demographic and other types of information on all youth who enter the foster care system. This practice allows the government and the public to track how well the system is meeting its ultimate goal — to place all children into stable and loving homes. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) made a final rule that would...
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Young Parents Speak Out: Barriers, Bias, and Broken Systems [aecf.org]
By National Crittenton and Katcher Consulting, Annie E. Casey Foundation, March 2020 Founded in 1883 as a social justice advocacy organization, National Crittenton has been dedicated to the needs and potential of girls, young women and women facing violence, poverty and injustice across the country for more than a century. Additionally, National Crittenton convenes the 26 Yet, systems have turned a blind eye to the ways in which the “safety net” designed for adults is a “trap” for young...
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Youth Voice Contest Second Place Winner: “Ellusion” [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
This year, Fostering Media Connections (FMC) launched its first-ever Youth Voice nonfiction writing contest and invited current and former foster youth between the ages of 18 and 24 to submit essays. This year’s theme: “What love is.” Dozens of youth entered the contest from all over the United States. The winning essays appear in the May/June issue of Fostering Families Today (FMC’s magazine for foster parents). Following is a piece by our Second Place winner, Sierra Howard. Check back...