Tagged With "Child Trends"
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‘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,...
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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).
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"Ending Violence Against Children" Workshop
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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...
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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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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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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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...
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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 .
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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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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...
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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.
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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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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...
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‘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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Child Care is a Family Policing Issue Handout (Rise)
This new infographic from Rise highlights how universal child care will reduce involvement with the family policing system and strengthen family well-being. It provides an overview of Rise's policy recommendations related to making child care and respite care free and accessible—without family policing system involvement. It also includes data related to issues with child care: child care is too expensive; lack of access to child care is linked to "neglect" reports; and there are not enough...
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New Book: Torn Apart by Dorothy Roberts
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...
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In child welfare, if the solution is money, the problem is poverty [youthtoday.org]
By Richard Wexler, Youth Today, March 3, 2022 In the beginning, the builders of what would become a system of massive intrusion into families , and, ultimately, the separation of millions of children from their parents, all in the name of “child welfare,” insisted that poverty had nothing at all to do with what they labeled “child abuse” and “child neglect.” “Child abuse crosses class lines” was the mantra in the 1970s and 1980s. In the effort to pass the federal Child Abuse Prevention and...
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Moving From ACEs to HOPE: The Power of Positive Experiences [cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov]
By the Capacity Building Center for States, Children's Bureau Express, March 2022 "A healing-centered approach to addressing trauma requires a different question that moves beyond 'what happened to you' to 'what's right with you' and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation of their own well-being rather than victims of traumatic events."—Dr. Shawn Ginwright (2018) The landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences Study helped us understand the effects of adverse experiences (ACEs)...
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Cocreating a More Equitable Child Welfare System [cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov]
By the Capacity Building Center for States, Children's Bureau Express, March 2022 "Historically, the child welfare system has not served all people equitably, and too often, poverty has been treated as neglect and child maltreatment."— Letter From Children's Bureau Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg , August 3, 2021 Racial inequity, disparities, and disproportionality are complex and longstanding challenges in child welfare that cannot be addressed in isolation. Rather, the effort to...
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Anti-Racist Policymaking to Protect, Promote, and Preserve Black Families and Babies Issue Brief [equity-coalition.fpg.unc.edu]
By Iheoma U. Iruka, Kristen Harper, Chrishana M. Lloyd, et al., Equity Research Action Coalition and Child Trends, October 2021 A recent issue brief, Anti-Racist Policymaking to Protect, Promote, and Preserve Black Families and Babies , investigates strengths-based programs and policies that support the well-being of Black families and children. It was developed as a collaborative effort between Child Trends and the Equity Research Action Coalition at the University of North Carolina Frank...
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Trauma-Informed Youth Transitions in Tribal Child Welfare [tribalinformationexchange.org]
The Capacity Building Center for Tribes' Tribal Information Exchange released a series of tip sheets on trauma-informed practice in tribal child welfare. One of the tip sheets, Trauma-Informed Youth Transitions in Tribal Child Welfare , focuses on helping tribal child welfare professionals understand the trauma that tribal children may have faced, respond appropriately, and prevent future traumatic experiences as they support them throughout the transitions they may experience during their...
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Systemically Neglected: How Racism Structures Public Systems to Produce Child Neglect [cssp.org]
This report from the Center for the Study of Social Policy outlines the history of how child protective services developed to surveil families of color, examines how policy pushes families of color into the child welfare system today, and concludes with some recommendations for adequately supporting children and families of color and keeping families together in the future. Please click here to access the report.
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New Child Welfare Journal Inaugural Issue: Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly
A new child welfare journal, Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly , recently released its inaugural issue , which focused on harms created by the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). The journal's editors and writers point out problems with ASFA's passage and implementation, including the lack of American Indian and Alaska Native leaders in drafting the law, the preference for adoption over other forms of permanence, and built-in biases that continue to perpetuate systemic racism. "We...
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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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Engaging Fathers Podcast Series from Child Welfare Information Gateway
Child Welfare Information Gateway released a three-part podcast series dedicated to the importance of engaging fathers in child welfare services. The podcasts share strategies implemented in three of the five state or county agencies that participated in the Fathers and Continuous Learning in Child Welfare project (Los Angeles County, CA; Hartford, CT; and Prowers County, CO), which aimed to improve placement stability and permanency outcomes for children by engaging their fathers and...
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Implementing Positive Youth Development Approaches in Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice [childtrends.org]
Original article can be found on Children's Bureau Express here . A recent working paper by Child Trends, Integrating Positive Youth Development and Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Approaches Across the Child Welfare and Justice Systems , focuses on the importance of positive youth development (PYD) approaches in child welfare. Specifically, the working paper explores the need for PYD approaches that incorporate racial equity and inclusion, why it is important to focus on young...
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The Power of Co-Opting: Language Is Changing, But Will It Change the Status Quo? [upendmovement.org]
By Joanna Lack, Alan Dettlaff, and Kristen Weber, UpEND, April 7, 2022 Language is powerful. The words we use signal how we make sense of the world – and people – around us. When we use the term “people of color,” it signals that we have defined diversity against a standard of Whiteness. When we describe people as “disadvantaged,” we diminish the fullness of their humanity and de-emphasize the unjust systems that shape those words. And when we call a system that surveils, regulates,...
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Trapped in the Web of Family Policing: The Harms of Mandated Reporting and the Need for Parent-Led Approaches to Safe, Thriving Families
By Imani Worthy, Tracy Serdjenian and Jeanette Vega Brown, RISE This article was published in the Spring 2022 Issue of Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly , "Poverty Is Not Abuse...Poverty Is Not Neglect." A family’s contact with the family polic ing system often begins with a call to the child abuse and maltreatment “hotline” made by a mandated reporter. About two-thirds of reports to New York’s Statewide Central Register (SCR) are made by mandated reporters—“ certain professionals...
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The Impact of COVID-19 on Reunification for Child Welfare-Involved Families
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...