Tagged With "higher risk of infection"
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Partnering with Local Mental Health Providers to Support Foster Youth in College [cccstudentmentalhealth.org]
LAST YEAR, NEARLY 18,000 CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS WERE CURRENTLY OR FORMERLY IN FOSTER CARE. These students, and students from other vulnerable or underserved groups, are motivated and resilient. However, many face higher rates of trauma and unmet mental health needs, coupled with systemic barriers that prevent them from accessing services. Without support, these challenges can contribute to lower college completion rates. BACKGROUND In 2018-2020, John Burton Advocates for Youth...
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The Experiences of Older Youth In & Aged Out of Foster Care During COVID-19 [fieldcenteratpenn.org]
By Johanna K.P. Greeson, Sara R. Jaffee, Sarah Wasch, and John Gyourko, The Field Center for Children's Policy, Practice & Research, September 2020 Executive Summary Disasters, including disease outbreaks like COVID-19, share a common potential for significant ecological and psychosocial disruption at the individual, community, and societal levels. The detrimental impact of COVID-19 is revealed daily in our news media. Although COVID-19 affects all segments of the population, it is...
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New York City's Mistaken Child Welfare Priorities [imprintnews.org]
By Anne Williams-Isom and Benita R. Miller, The Imprint, March 22, 2021 Once again , New York City is reeling from the murder of a child. The circumstances around the killing of 10-year-old Ayden Wolfe are eerily familiar – a vulnerable mother, a new partner with a history of violence and the loss of an innocent child. Once again, there is a mad scramble by city officials to evaluate potential loopholes in procedures or failures to follow processes. Neighbors and family are asking themselves...
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You're Invited: Baby Shower Briefing for Expectant Youth in Care
Good morning PACE members, I hope you are safe and well today. I want to extend an invitation to you to our Baby Shower Briefing on May 5, 2021 at 11 a.m. so together we can Extend the Infant Supplement as a prenatal support for our youth! We will have a number of youth advocate speakers and members of the coalition speak to the issues. Will you join us for our Baby Shower Briefing for Expectant Youth in Care? Description: How does the pandemic impact expectant and parenting foster youth?
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Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs in Foster Care [childtrends.org]
By Kristen Sepulveda, Rachel Rosenberg, Sunny Sun, and Alexandra Wilkins, Child Trends, December 8, 2020 In this brief, Child Trends examines the prevalence of children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) in the foster care system. CYSHCN have—or are at increased risk for—chronic physical, developmental, or behavioral/emotional conditions. [i] This brief provides an overview of the literature on CYSHCN and their experiences in the foster care system, a detailed explanation of...
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New Report: A Vision for Creating Networks of Parent Peer Care [risemagazine.org]
Someone to Turn To: A Vision for Creating Networks of Parent Peer Care This Insights paper presents Rise’s vision for a peer network of collective care by and for parents. This fall, Rise created a parent Peer Vision Team to explore building a peer care model that can strengthen families while reducing contact with the family policing system . Nationwide and in New York City, where Rise is based, it’s crucial to broadly reorganize supports for families so that accessing resources and...
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As New York Legalizes Marijuana, Parent Advocates Push Child Welfare Agencies to Adapt [imprintnews.org]
By Megan Conn, The Imprint, May 11, 2021 For generations of New York parents, smoking a joint on the stoop or tucking some weed into a pocket has always come with the risk of not only a criminal charge, but the threat of being reported to child protective services. People of color and families living in poverty have long been the overwhelming majority of those tested for marijuana use, arrested and reported to child welfare agencies. But at the end of March, New York became the 16th state to...
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Research Brief: LGBTQ Youth with a History of Foster Care [thetrevorproject.org]
From The Trevor Project, May 12, 2021 Summary LGBTQ youth are at elevated risk for suicide compared with their straight/cisgender peers (Johns et al, 2019; Johns et al., 2020). This risk stems from experiences of minority stress including victimization and rejection rather than something inherent about being LGBTQ (Meyer, 2003). Victimization and rejection from caregivers can also result in LGBTQ youth involvement in the foster care system (Newcomb et al., 2019), which is strongly associated...
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Minneapolis Lawyers Rely on 'Gold Standard' Law to Keep Native American Families Together [imprintnews.org]
By Elizabeth Amon, The Imprint, May 17, 2021 A federal law enacted 43 years ago designed to protect Native American families from separation is now under threat like no time in recent history. Last month, the Indian Child Welfare Act, widely considered to be the “gold standard” of the field, was found to be constitutional by a federal appeals court. But the justices nevertheless chipped away at key provisions that make the law known as ICWA successful. The lengthy, complicated decision could...
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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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Protective Factors Approaches in Child Welfare (Child Welfare Information Gateway)
This issue brief from Child Welfare Information Gateway provides an overview of national protective factors approaches to prevent child abuse and neglect. It is designed to help child welfare professionals, administrators, service providers, policymakers, and other interested individuals understand the concepts of protective and risk factors in families and communities and learn ways in which building protective factors can help lower the risk of child abuse and neglect now and in the...
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How to Advocate for Child Abuse Prevention in Your Community?
The foster care system is designed to temporarily shelter children who have been removed from their homes due to maltreatment. Each year, the United States has more than 400,000 children living in foster care (1) . Placing children in foster homes can help to provide them a safe environment. Foster parents are dedicated to giving the best care for children living in their homes. Their care can provide children with a safe and stable environment to thrive and survive (2) . Effective child...
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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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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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How can child protection agencies identify and support youth involved in or at risk of commercial child sexual exploitation? (casey.org)
The second largest criminal industry worldwide (second only to drug dealing and tied with the illegal arms industry), human trafficking is the fastest growing of all criminal enterprises. The commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is one form of human trafficking, affecting thousands of children and youth in the United States every year. (Exact numbers are difficult to estimate, given the clandestine nature of the crime.) Although CSEC historically has been under the purview of...
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Dual System Youth: At the Intersection of Child Maltreatment and Delinquency (nij.ojp.gov)
By Barbara Tatem Kelley and Paul A. Haskins, National Institute of Justice Journal, August 10, 2021 Youth who have experienced both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have complex needs that require collaborative, multipronged interventions. In a perfect world, a push of a button would connect all juvenile court judges and authorized staff to relevant local child welfare files for each young person summoned before the court. The imperfect reality is that in many American juvenile...
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Child Sex Trafficking in America: A Guide for Child Welfare Professionals (missingkids.org)
A factsheet from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) focuses on the role that child welfare professionals play in prevention, intervention, and service provision with regard to child sex trafficking. Children and youth involved with child welfare have a higher risk of being victims of sex trafficking, and one in six of the children reported missing to NCMEC were likely victims of sex trafficking. It is important that child welfare professionals be properly equipped...
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Spring Registration Now Open for These Courses for Educators!
Spring registration is now open for Trauma-Informed Education & Supporting Marginalized Students courses! NYC teachers may earn A+ credits.
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Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) reports related to youth involved in systems of care
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,...
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Evidence-Based Treatments are Effective for Children in the Child Welfare System: Connecticut’s Family First Prevention Services Plan Can Expand Access to Effective Care
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...
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The Foster Care System Turns to Big Data: Promising or Profiling? [imprintnews.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback, Illustration: Christine Ongjoco, The Imprint, February 1, 2022 F or decades, social workers investigating Los Angeles County parents accused of child abuse and neglect have relied on training, in-person interviews, consultations with supervisors and a straightforward, 16-item risk assessment to decide how cases should proceed. But in recent months, county workers who decide whether or not kids should be removed from their homes have begun using a new, more high-powered...
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Evidence-based treatments in the Child Welfare System
Connecticut’s Family First Prevention Services plan provides an opportunity to build an array of effective behavioral health treatments and other services for those children most at-risk for foster home placement with the goal of keeping families together. This is a link to an article from Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut that provides insights on the effectiveness of EBT. There are also three solid recommendations in the article including collaboration, training and...
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Introducing New Recorded Trainings!
Are you looking for ways to support students from marginalized communities, but don't have time to take a class? Then check out our new trainings, created to help you develop a better understanding of your students, and provide supportive strategies grounded in a trauma-informed approach! The series includes a detailed look into the experiences of children from several marginalized communities, and offers techniques designed to help students feel safe, empowered, and able to focus on their...
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Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences at the Montana Summer Institute!
This year, in an effort to make this conference more accessible to those working with foster youth and those at risk of entering foster care, The majority of sessions in this conference are based on Title IV-E billable topics. The full agenda is attached with Title IV-E topics highlighted in green.
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Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences at the Montana Summer Institute!
This year, in an effort to make this conference more accessible to those working with foster youth and those at risk of entering foster care, The majority of sessions in this conference are based on Title IV-E billable topics. The full agenda is attached with Title IV-E topics highlighted in green.
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Housing Insecurity Is Linked with Increased Social System Involvement and Adverse Outcomes for Adolescents [housingmatters.urban.org]
By Katherine E Marçal and Kathryn Maguire-Jack, Photo: fizkes/Shutterstock, Housing Matters, April 20, 2022 Families of color and those with low incomes face high risk of experiencing housing cost burden, eviction, and housing instability. Housing instability can create challenges for adolescents, including higher levels of depression and psychological challenges, as well as behavioral issues. It can also cause increased interactions with other social systems, like the child welfare and...
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An algorithm that screens for child neglect raises concerns [apnews.com]
By Sally Ho and Garance Burke, AP News, April 29, 2022 Inside a cavernous stone fortress in downtown Pittsburgh, attorney Robin Frank defends parents at one of their lowest points – when they risk losing their children. The job is never easy, but in the past she knew what she was up against when squaring off against child protective services in family court. Now, she worries she’s fighting something she can’t see: an opaque algorithm whose statistical calculations help social workers decide...
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Connecting Communities One Book at a Time launches July 13: Register now to learn from our national and Georgia partners how to lead a book study of 'What Happened To You?'
After more tha n two years of a deadly pandemic, a racial reckoning laying bare gross inequities, historic environmental catastrophes, and record-breaking gun violence and mental health challenges, could the first known national study of “What Happened to You?,” by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, help us heal our collective trauma, one relationship and community at a time? That’s the question Carey Sipp, PACEs Connection director of strategic partnerships, hopes will be answered with a...
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Summer Course Registration Now Open!
Announcing upcoming courses for educators! Join Trauma-informed Education or Supporting Marginalized Students this summer!
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Connecting Communities One Book at a Time launches July 13: Register now to learn from our national and Georgia partners how to lead a book study of 'What Happened To You?'
After more tha n two years of a deadly pandemic, a racial reckoning laying bare gross inequities, historic environmental catastrophes, and record-breaking gun violence and mental health challenges, could the first known national study of “What Happened to You?,” by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, help us heal our collective trauma, one relationship and community at a time? That’s the question Carey Sipp, PACEs Connection director of strategic partnerships, hopes will be answered with a...
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Strengthening Families with Infants and Toddlers: A Policy Framework for States [zeroththree.org
Strengthening Families with Infants and Toddlers: A Policy Framework for States , is a new report from ZERO TO THREE designed to reframe the role of child welfare from preventing harm to children toward strengthening families and the communities where they live. The policy framework includes 11 recommendations for states and communities that aim to advance equitable outcomes supporting the health and well-being of very young children and their families, including those who are in or are at...
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Register now to lead a "What Happened to You?" book study and attend leader training on July 27!
Register NOW to learn how to lead a book study of What Happened to You? by Bruce D. Perry, MD PhD, and Oprah Winfrey in your community! Learn how you can bring a book club on to your community and help inspire a desire to work together to create a more equitable society. Come hear lessons learned and tips about how you can use the Alliance’s book club guide in working with your community. Children’s Trust Fund Alliance (CFTA) will conduct this training on Wednesday, July 27, 3-5 p.m. ET.
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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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Register NOW for September 20 Book Study Leader Check-in and other "What Happened to You?" book study resources
It's not too late to lead your own book study of What Happened to You? by Bruce D. Perry, MD PhD, and Oprah Winfrey in your community! Register NOW to attend the Book Study Leader Check-In with Children’s Trust Fund Alliance on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 7-8:30 p.m. ET This is an opportunity to share your experiences as a book study leader, raise questions, make recommendations, and celebrate with us. Open to all book study leaders and those who may want to facilitate a study! This event is part of...
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‘This job is impossible’: High turnover, low morale plague Missouri child welfare agency [missouriindependent.com]
By Clara Bates, Missouri Independent, September 19, 2022 More than half the frontline staff working in the Children’s Division at the start of the last fiscal year left by the end of the year. Some who remain take second jobs or sell plasma to make ends meet. It’s a situation advocates warn puts Missouri’s most vulnerable children at risk. Eighty open cases of child abuse and neglect sat on Matt Cordova’s desk in 2017 during the height of the “hole I found myself buried in,” he remembers.
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10 Tips for Sexual Abuse Prevention
When we consider the high numbers of children that are sexually abused it is disappointing how little is out there to support parents in prevention efforts. Although Erin’s Law has brought Sexual Abuse Prevention to many children in the school setting, parents are still often at a loss as to how to talk to their children about this difficult topic. As a therapist who has specialized in treating child sexual abuse for twenty years, I have crossed paths with thousands of children and families...
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Mental health in the USA—a time to mourn (thelancet.com)
Source: image Author: To read Abigail Mundy's article, please click here. “I just feel like kids have it harder nowadays,” a 15-year-old boy in Rhode Island, USA, tells his father, shortly before taking his own life. Earlier in Ken Burns' new two-part documentary series, Hiding in Plain Sight , grainy footage from the 1950's shows a boy joyfully throwing a paper airplane. Mid-flight the paper transforms into aluminium and the plane hits the World Trade Center, the scene cutting cleanly to...
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Trauma-informed Design Evaluation Tool for K-12 Schools Is Here!
The Trauma-informed Design Society is pleased to announce the new TiDEvalK12 tool ! This tool is the first of its kind--an evidence-based tool to facilitate interior design renovations and new builds of K-12 schools! It can be used to evaluate the physical space and identify changes that can lower the stress levels of students and staff. The tool is grounded in the Substance and Mental Health Services Administrations' guidance for a trauma-informed approach, the Trauma-informed Design (TiD)...
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Thousands of kids lost loved ones to the pandemic. Psychologists are teaching them how to grieve, and then thrive [apa.org]
By Tori DeAngelis, American Psychological Association, October 1, 2022 At least 204,000 U.S. children and teens have lost parents and other in-home caregivers to COVID -19—more than 1 in every 360 youth, according to COVID Collaborative , an interdisciplinary group of experts that is raising awareness and support for COVID -bereaved children. The growing number of children facing these tragedies highlights the pressing need for clinicians to become versed in helping them cope and ultimately...
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Is N.Y.’s Child Welfare System Racist? Some of Its Own Workers Say Yes. [nytimes.com]
By Andy Newman, The New York Times, Photo by Nora Savosnick for the New York Times, November 22, 2022 New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services must protect children without overpolicing families. A report the agency commissioned says it often fails. For decades, Black families have complained that the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, is biased against them. It turns out that many of the agency’s own employees agree, according to a racial...
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How much would the NAS poverty reduction packages reduce referrals to CPS and foster care placements? Would they reduce racial disproportionality in child welfare? (nasonline.org).
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...
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4 Ways Outdoor Play Helps Develop Resilience In Children
Outdoor play is key to the health and well-being of children. Getting muddy and staying out till sunset is great for children’s development and can help them refine their motor coordination skills. Kids who play outdoors have improved cognitive skills, too. A recent systematic review found that children who have regular access to green spaces show improved “mental well-being, overall health, and cognitive development.” Children who play outside also had better self-discipline and showed...
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PACEs Research Corner — May 2023, Part 2
[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...
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Health Equity and the Social Determinants of Health Are NOT Synonyms
Successful health equity strategies must be inclusive, and focus on all marginalized and minoritized persons and their communities. Any lesser view will continue to yield a faulty health equity equation.
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What Children Really Need Is Adults That Understand Development
The brain doesn’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This fact is sometimes quite surprising and eye opening to most adults. It can also be somewhat overwhelming for new parents and professionals who are interacting with babies and young children every day, to contemplate. It is essential to realize however, that the greatest time of development occurs in the years prior to kindergarten. And even more critical to understand is that by age three 85 percent of the core structures of the...
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Healing Centered Relationships & Education (Change Your Story Podcast)
To listen to the Podcast, please click here. What if one person could shift your story? One person who sees you, hears you, and is genuinely interested in helping you overcome the obstacles life has thrown at you. In this episode, my incredibly humble friend, Staci Roth, is that person in so many lives. From being an educator at Learn4Life, to creating the HOPE Program providing education and resources for teenage parents, to becoming a Trauma- Resilient Professional and Coordinator of the...