Tagged With "child development"
Member
Belyn Magdonal
Member
Brenda Garrett
Member
Andrea Lowe
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
African American Grandfamilies: Helping Children Thrive Through Connection to Family and Culture
Both inside and outside the child welfare system, the probability that African American children will live in grandfamilies is more than double that of the overall population, with one in five African American children living in grandfamilies at some point during their childhood. Over the last few decades, drug epidemics, hurricanes and other tragedies have both created African American grandfamilies and challenged existing ones. The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest such crisis. As of mid-May...
Blog Post
The Opportunity is Now: Five Ways to Better Serve Adolescents and Young Adults through the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA)
This brief from the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) highlights opportunities within the Families First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) for states to build a prevention continuum that includes a focus on healthy adolescent development and that recognizes and helps rectify disparate opportunities and outcomes for Black, Latinx/e, and Native American youth, and youth who identify as LGBTQ+. Click here to download the brief.
Blog Post
Supporting the First 1,000 Days of A Child’s Life: An Anti-Racist Blueprint for Early Childhood Well-Being and Child Welfare Prevention
To support the health and well-being of children and families of color, we must implement comprehensive strategies that address systemic and institutional racism. This report offers a blueprint for creating equity-centered, anti-racist policies that support the health and well-being of children and families of color. Download the report from the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) here. Watch a webinar on the Blueprint here.
Blog Post
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. ]
Blog Post
How can child welfare systems support families in rural communities? (Casey Family Programs)
Due to significant differences between geographical areas, some traditional or evidence-based child welfare strategies developed for urban settings may be less effective in rural communities. Recognizing the unique strengths of rural communities and making creative use of both traditional and nontraditional funding is essential to provide services that not only protect children, but strengthen their families and support economic development and well-being for the community as a whole. Many...
Blog Post
What Lessons Can the Child Welfare System Take from the COVID-19 Pandemic?
This report from American Enterprise Institute makes the following key points: COVID-19 and subsequent government responses introduced new barriers to detection and responding to child maltreatment and achieving permanency for children in foster care. New strategies and better use of existing technologies are needed to detect child maltreatment for children unseen by school personnel. Improved use of virtual technology could improve family court processes and family treatment options during...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Color-Blind Ambition: The idea of removing race from child removal decisions is growing, despite some skepticism. (The Imprint)
In an all-too-common occurrence in the nation’s largest local child welfare system, a 37-year-old mother of five from Los Angeles County dialed 911 about two years ago, seeking protection from an abusive partner. That call brought not only the police but the Department of Children and Family Services to her home. Under the watch of social workers, Kenia Charles said, she moved into a shelter for domestic violence survivors, but still, the child welfare agency argued in court it had concerns...
Blog Post
‘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,...
Blog Post
Expand Support for Families, But Not Inside the Child Welfare System (The Imprint)
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent announcement that New York City will invest millions in “family enrichment centers” sounds like a win for families. But this initiative should be reconsidered, and the city should start by listening to what families actually want. While the mayor’s Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity has it right that New York should invest in family support, Black and brown parents have been vocal opponents of programs funded and overseen by the child welfare system (ACS).
Calendar Event
"Ending Violence Against Children" Workshop
Blog Post
Child Abuse and Neglect: What It Is and What to Do About It
We all have a role to play in making sure children have the opportunity to thrive. In Child Abuse and Neglect: What It Is and What to Do About It , you will learn more about the types of child maltreatment, what to do when you think a child or family needs more support, and how to make a report if you suspect that a child has been abused or neglected. We all want children to be safe and healthy. However, the heartbreaking reality is that every year thousands of children are victims of child...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) Reauthorization (PCAA)
This resource from Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA) highlights the status of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) reauthorization by Congress. PCA America supports a strong and comprehensive reauthorization bill that includes significantly higher funding levels, increases transparency and accountability in the program, increases the focus on primary prevention and family support services, and promotes race equity. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
The Indian Child Welfare Act: A Primer for Child Welfare Professionals (childwelfare.gov)
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 is one of the key components to protecting the rights and culture of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and families. Unfortunately, not all child welfare caseworkers are aware of how to apply ICWA or the troubling history that prompted the law to be enacted. This factsheet provides caseworkers with an overview of current and historical issues affecting child welfare practice with AI/AN families, practice implications, and cultural...
Blog Post
A Toolkit for Child Welfare Agencies to Help Young People Heal and Thrive During and After Natural Disasters (nctsn.org)
This toolkit from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network helps child welfare agencies support children and youth during and after natural disasters. This toolkit is for child welfare staff, supervisors, and administrators who work with and on behalf of children, youth, and families who experience a natural disaster. The information and resources included in the toolkit provide evidence- and trauma-informed guidance for promoting positive outcomes for children and youth who experience...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (nctsn.org)
This resource from National Child Traumatic Stress Network supports caseworkers, supervisors, and all other levels of the child welfare workforce in implementing trauma-informed knowledge and skills in their daily interactions, professional services and organizational culture. The third edition of the Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (CWTTT) incorporates two foundational trainings, a specialized skills training for supervisors and caseworkers, and a supervisor consultation series to...
Blog Post
New Study: Evolved Nest Experience In Childhood Buffers The Negative Effects Of ACEs
New Study: Evolved Nest Experience In Childhood Buffers The Negative Effects Of ACEs
Blog Post
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,...
Blog Post
Prevention Resources from the Center for States
The Center for States helps public child welfare organizations and professionals build the capacity necessary to strengthen, implement, and sustain effective child welfare practice and achieve better outcomes for children, youth, and families. Please check out the resources below, supporting the development of prevention-focused systems: The Visioning for Prevention: Protecting Children Through Strengthening Families series can provide agency leaders and managers the information and tools...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Surveillance of Black Families in the Family Policing System (upendmovement.org)
This upEND publication by Victoria Copeland and Maya Pendleton, who helmed the Repeal Mandatory Reporting Laws panel during the 2021 How We endUP convening, discusses how the monitoring and subsequent criminalization of Black communities have expanded from the criminal punishment system to social services, education, medical systems, and the family policing system. For more information, read Surveillance of Black Families in the Family Policing System .
Blog Post
Achieving Racial and Ethnic Equity in U.S. Health Care A Scorecard of State Performance (childtrends.org)
This Toolkit from Child Trends is for child welfare staff, supervisors, and administrators who work with and on behalf of children, youth, and families who experience a natural disaster. The information and resources in the Toolkit provide evidence- and trauma-informed guidance for promoting positive outcomes for children and youth who experience natural disasters. Click here to access the toolkit.
Blog Post
Canada Pledges $31.5 Billion to Settle Fight Over Indigenous Child Welfare System (nytimes.com)
By Catherine Porter and Vjosa Isai, The New York Times, Jan. 4, 2022 The government agreed to a landmark settlement to repair the system and compensate those families harmed by it. It potentially ends many years of litigation. The Canadian government announced Tuesday that it had reached what it called the largest settlement in Canada’s history, paying $31.5 billion to fix the nation’s discriminatory child welfare system and compensate the Indigenous people harmed by it. The agreement in...
Blog Post
The Carceral Logic of the Family Policing System (upendmovement.org)
By Emma Peyton Williams, upEND Contributor, November 17, 2021 By including the family policing system in their book Prison by Any Other Name , Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law link the punitive nature of the prison system to “the current punitive model for social services.” The similarities that Schenwar and Law note, such as each system’s focus on coercing compliance as opposed to changing material realities and the disproportionate impact of each system on people of color, particularly Black...
Blog Post
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.
Blog Post
Child welfare and justice systems can use the STRENGTH principles to support young people (childtrends.org)
In collaboration with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Child Focus, Child Trends has developed the STRENGTH principles to serve youth in the child welfare and justice systems in positive, developmentally appropriate ways. The principles help systems that serve children and young adults apply Positive Youth Development approaches, focus on equity and inclusion, and involve communities and families. More information is available here: Integrating Positive Youth Development and Racial Equity,...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Broader Array of Programs and Services Needed for Tribal Communities and Communities of Color
Children and families of color are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system. The Family First Prevention Services Act offers an opportunity to address these inequities with evidence-based programs and services, but includes few culturally specific ones in its Clearinghouse. Culturally specific programs and services consider the role of race and culture as integral to developing solutions to challenges families face. In this brief, Chapin Hall policy staff offer an overview...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Guiding Principles for Working with Transition Age Youth: Provider Fact Sheet
This fact sheet from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers information for providers supporting transition age youth with trauma-informed guiding principles to inform their work. This fact sheet describes transition age youth and their unique experiences, and six trauma-informed guiding principles to better support youth in their journey and recovery. Please click here to download the fact sheet.
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Child Care is a Child Welfare Issue: Why Rise Identified Child Care as a Policy Priority (risemagazine.org)
by Keyna Franklin, Rise Magazine, February 15, 2022 Halimah Washington, Rise Community Coordinator, discusses the connection between child care and family policing, how child care supports family safety and well-being and why Rise identified access to child care as a policy priority . Q. Why is the campaign for child care important to you as a parent? A. Universal child care is important to me as a parent because I have children that need child care after school, sometimes before school, and...
Blog Post
‘If I had access to child care, I wouldn’t have had an ACS case.’ (risemagazine.org)
by Keyna Franklin, Rise Magazine, February 15, 2022 If it was easy to get child care, many families wouldn’t get an ACS case or have to deal with the family policing system, because they wouldn’t have to leave their children at home. If I had access to child care, I never would have become involved with the family policing system. ACS became involved with my family when I left my younger kids with my 14-year-old child watching them when I went out for an appointment. If I knew that this...
Blog Post
Envisioning systems where families are supported, not policed (prismreports.org)
by Cynthia Gutierrez, Photo: istock, Prism, February 9, 2022 Child Protective Services often result in the policing, surveillance, and separations of Black, Indigenous, and families of color. We need alternative solutions. The 2020 uprisings against police brutality and state-sanctioned violence pushed more people to recognize how police forces disproportionately abuse and kill Black, Indigenous, and people of color . But policing by other branches of the state also extends to people’s...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
State-level Data for Understanding Child Welfare in the United States (Child Trends)
This comprehensive child welfare resource from Child Trends provides state and national data on child maltreatment , foster care , kinship caregiving , and adoption from foster care. The data are essential to help policymakers understand how many children and youth came in contact with the child welfare system, and why. States can use this information to ensure their child welfare systems support the safety, stability, and well-being of all families in their state. Please click here to...
Blog Post
For Me, Child Care Could Be a Life Saver: ‘I’ve pushed off medical treatment because I don’t have child care, and I don’t want the hospital to call ACS.’ (risemagazine.org)
By Anonymous, Art by Eileen Jimenez, Rise, March 15, 2022 I am a single mom and it is only my son and I living together. That means that unless he is in school or at camp, wherever I go, he goes, too—even when I have to go to the hospital. I have numerous medical problems and when I end up in the hospital, it’s not always during school hours. There are lots of reasons why I would need to bring my son with me to the hospital, such as if I’m having seizures or sudden severe pain, and these...