Tagged With "Kinship placements"
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Journey with a local Department of Social Services
Our Trauma-Informed journey began with the Henrico Department of Social Services (DSS) in the fall of 2012 when we approached their leadership with a proposal to partner with the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (TICN) to create a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System. We began by developing a TIMELINE of activities (please note we set out to complete things in one year - little did we realize at the time that the process is always ongoing!). The first step on the timeline...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
UK - The Kinship Care: State of the Nation Survey (Grandparents)
https://www.grandparentsplus.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=75a6b874-6666-4224-8770-48905670dbaf The Kinship Care: State of the Nation Survey This report is based on a survey of members of the Grandparents Plus Kinship Care Support Network, which includes almost 4,000 kinship carers. The results are based on responses from 671 kinship carers living in England and Wales, making it the largest ever survey of its kind. Carried out in February 2017 using both online and postal...
Blog Post
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:...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
We Want Kids to Grow Up in Safe Families. So Let’s Measure That. [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Our cultural norm of relatives and kin stepping in to help struggling families is ingrained in our history and tradition. The U.S. Supreme Court has conferred constitutional protections on the sanctity of the extended family [ See Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 1977 ]. Federal law encourages states to “consider giving preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining placement for a child.” Placements with relatives and kin provide children with greater...
Blog Post
Will the new foster care law give grandparents a hand? (ncsl.org)
On Feb. 9, President Donald Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (H.R. 1892) to keep the government funded for six more weeks and pave the way for a long-term budget deal that will extend to the end of the fiscal year. Included in the act is the Family First Prevention Services Act, which has the potential to dramatically change child welfare systems across the country. One of the major areas this legislation seeks to change is the way Title IV-E funds can be spent by states. Title...
Calendar Event
2015 Child Health, Education, and Care Summit [Woodland, CA]
Reply
Re: How does the general public percieve Foster Children?
WOW!!! I am amazed at your excellent impulse control.... I could not have been so still listening.... I would have had to leave and would have been ill with a migraine for a day or I may have confronted less graciously .... But I love how you artfully had their engagement and then informed them they had met their first former foster child.... You are a hero!!! I totally understand the experience of stigma but I guess there is a blank spot in my intellect as to why??? I have never hid that...
Blog Post
Rebecca Lewis Pankratz: Breaking Generational Poverty, Poverty Circles, & Poverty Programs
"A CEs Connection is the curator of incredible hope, healing and possibility. Parents are not the bad guys. Most of us are just kids with ACEs who grew up..." Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz Last Friday, @Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz joined our A Better Normal series to discuss poverty circles and programs. Rebecca is the Director of Learning Centers as Essdack, as well as a poverty consultant, and we met online, via Twitter (her handle is @pOVERty’s Edge. Rebecca is a brilliant speaker, gifted writer, and...
Blog Post
Baby courts: A proven approach to stop the multigenerational transmission of ACES in child welfare; new efforts to establish courts nationwide
The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...
Blog Post
National Freeze on Aging Out of Foster Care Will Make 'Profound Difference,' New York Advocates Say [imprintnews.org]
By Megan Conn, The Imprint, January 13, 2021 Ten months into a deadly pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on society and the economy, a federal relief package bundled extra child welfare money to states with a new rule: You can’t let foster youth age out into adulthood during the ongoing coronavirus emergency. The news was welcomed by New York child welfare advocates, who had spent much of the past year appealing to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for a statewide moratorium on aging out of foster...
Blog Post
Cutting Edge Technology to Improve the Foster Care System will be Discussed on this week's "Breaking The Silence" Radio Program!
This Sunday evening's "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" Radio Show LIVE at 8:00 pm CST will be discussing an amazing new tool to bring the latest level of technology to help in the placement of foster children in the system. The experts in the field that will be special guests on this week's radio programs are Jennifer Jacobs and Jessica Stern, Co-Founders of Connect Our Kids. Jennifer Jacobs is the chief executive officer and a co-founder of Connect Our Kids, a non-profit...
Blog Post
Education and Skills Training May Ease Transition to Adulthood for Young People Involved in Foster Care [childtrends.org]
By Rachel Rosenberg, Maia O'Meara, Mya' Sanders, Child Trends, September 15, 2020 Nearly 18,000 young people aged out of the foster care system in fiscal year (FY) 2018. In other words, the child welfare system failed to reunify these young people with their parents or find them another legal, permanent placement through adoption or guardianship. Relative to their peers in the general population, young people who age out of foster care often experience lower levels of educational attainment...
Blog Post
Families Over Facilities: Ending The Use of Harmful and Unnecessary Institutions and Other Group Facilities in Child Welfare Systems [childrensrights.org]
From Children's Rights, March 2021 At any given time, there are approximately 42,823 children housed in institutions and other group facilities. Institutionalizing children denies them loving homes and robs them of their childhood. Families over Facilities is a call to action to end the unnecessary institutionalization of children in child welfare. The report details the physical, mental and emotional harm done to children in group settings, the significant unnecessary taxpayer costs...
Blog Post
From Data to Practice: Moving Youth to Family – Level of Need and the Impact on Legal and Relational Permanency (Casey Family Programs)
This report — the third volume of the From Data to Practice series — explores permanency outcomes for youth who, at the time they came into Casey Family Programs’ out-of-home care (OOHC), were not residing with a family member. Family was defined as either biological family, kin or fictive-kin. The target population was 513 youth who entered Casey OOHC between July 1, 2013, and December 31, 2017, and who exited care between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2017. The outcomes indicated that...
Blog Post
Study Finds Overrepresentation of LGBTQ+ Youth in Midwest Foster Care System
The study outlined here is one of the first of its kind to be conducted in a Midwestern state, where available data on LGBTQ+ youth is extremely limited. It follows similar studies in New York City and Los Angeles showing equally high representation of youth with diverse SOGIE in foster care. Together these studies provide evidence that in the middle of the country, as well as in large urban areas, a greater proportion of LGBTQ+ youth are represented in foster care than in the general...
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
I Will Never Forget That I Could Have Lived With People Who Loved Me (nytimes.com)
By Sixto Cancel, The New York Times, September 16, 2021 When I was 15, an usher at my church offered to become my foster parent. Hers was one of the best foster homes I lived in. But she wanted a son. It was more than I was able to give. I had been in foster care since I was 11 months old because of my mother’s drug addiction and poverty. Adopted at age 9 by a racist and abusive woman, I was locked out of the house at age 13. For two years, I couch surfed with friends, then entered foster...
Blog Post
Foster Care: Infants Form Selective Attachment Bonds
Extended Respite vs Child-Centered models of care Stability of Placements, especially of these young children, should be valued and maintained. Placements should be disrupted only if there are strong reasons to believe that continuing the placement is likely to be harmful and that the new placement is likely to better meet the child’s emotional needs. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3422627/
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
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
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...
Blog Post
Kinship Caregiving Options: Considerations for Caregivers
A new publication from the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law describes the different placement options available to kinship care families and the factors that should be considered when pursuing kin caregiving arrangements. Kinship Caregiving Options: Considerations for Caregivers is a 14-page guide developed primarily for relatives caring for or planning to care for their kin, but it is also a useful tool for professionals working with these families. It begins with a...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
May is Foster Care Awareness Month
Key Facts and Statistics from Childwelfare.gov Include these key points in your messaging to demonstrate the important role relative and kinship caregivers play in supporting family connections that are essential to a child’s health and well-being. There are over 407,000 children and youth in foster care , and 34 percent were placed with relatives or kin. The term kin encompasses both relatives (those related by blood or marriage) and fictive kin (those who are unrelated but have such a...
Blog Post
Connecticut Codifies Child Welfare Protections for Native American Families in State Law [imprintnews.org]
By The Imprint Staff Reporters, Photo: Unsplash, The Imprint, June 2, 2022 T he Connecticut governor signed a new law late last month ensuring that federal protections for American Indian families are also enforced in state law — even if a pending U.S. Supreme Court case invalidates the related federal statute. The legislation approved by Gov. Ned Lamont (D) ensures that proceedings involving an Indigenous child’s custody, placement in a foster or adoptive home or termination of parental...
Blog Post
Kinship care resources from Children's Bureau Express
Placing children in need of out-of-home care with relatives can help them maintain connections to family, community, and culture. Discover important resources from Children's Bureau Express on kinship care to help you support the important work kin caregivers do for the children in their family. Speaking of Change: How Can Kinship Care Advance Racial Equity in Child Welfare? Amara's Kinship Program has a second installment in its Speaking of Change webinar series that seeks to break down...
Blog Post
Can ‘Kinship Care’ Help the Child Welfare System? The White House Wants to Try. [nytimes.com]
By Erica L. Green, Photo by Chet Strange for the New York Times, The New York Times, October 13, 2022 The Biden administration proposes spending $20 billion over a decade to help some of the most vulnerable families in the country, including relatives suddenly thrust into child rearing. WASHINGTON — Maria Elena Thomas and her husband were ready for a simpler life after they retired in 2015, sold their home in Colorado and settled on the southeastern coast of Spain. “People would ask, ‘When...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
A Balanced View on Mandated Reporting versus Family Supporting
Viewpoint July 31, 2023 Seeking a Balanced View of Child Protective Services Howard Dubowitz, MD, MS 1 ; Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW 1 Author Affiliations Article Information JAMA Pediatr. 2023;177(10):991-992. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.2578 A s professionals working closely with child protective services (CPS) for many years, we are well aware of its shortcomings, particularly undertrained and overwhelmed staff who may inadequately protect children and serve families as mandated by...