Tagged With "youth panel"
Blog Post
Is child protective services effective?
An article called "Is child protective services effective?" in this month's Children and Youth Services Review finds that CPS involvement does not reduce the risk of further substantiated maltreatment. It highlights both the need to improve interventions and questions current mandates that are not garnering results. As the article explains, one possible reason interventions may be less effective is that most CPS cases are opened for neglect, not abuse, and most services are aimed at...
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Love as Destiny: A Former Foster Youth's Journey in Motherhood [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Katarina Sayally, The Chronicle of Social Change, October 25, 2019 If you haven’t heard enough stories about what breaking the intergenerational cycle of foster care looks like, I want to share one. This is our story, and it’s a good one. When I found out I was pregnant, the only fear I had was, “What if my baby ends up in foster care?” As a former foster youth who works in the field, I am constantly reminded of this possibility. One study found that mothers in foster care were twice as...
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Native American Children Protected in Groundbreaking Foster Care Settlement [youthtoday.org]
By Bette Fleishman, Youth Today, May 8, 2020 For decades, we have repeated and recapitulated: Our nation’s foster care system is broken. New Mexico, which receives the lowest markers of child wellbeing and the second-highest level of childhood poverty, has, not coincidentally, one the worst child welfare systems in the nation. It is largely coercive and punitive, and disproportionately targets low-income children of color. Further, 23 Native American tribes and pueblos are located in the...
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Native American Children Protected in Groundbreaking Foster Care Settlement [youthtoday.org]
By Bette Fleishman, Youth Today, May 8, 2020 For decades, we have repeated and recapitulated: Our nation’s foster care system is broken. New Mexico, which receives the lowest markers of child wellbeing and the second-highest level of childhood poverty, has, not coincidentally, one the worst child welfare systems in the nation. It is largely coercive and punitive, and disproportionately targets low-income children of color. Further, 23 Native American tribes and pueblos are located in the...
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New York’s parent defender model lowers reliance on foster care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
New York City’s brand of wrap-around legal representation may not prevent the removal of children from their families. But they might be getting home much faster, and without any risk to their safety. A much-anticipated study of parent representation released this week found that for parents represented by interdisciplinary law offices (ILO) – which include lawyers, social workers and parent advocates – youth spend about four fewer months in foster care than in cases represented by...
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North Dakota Trauma Initiative Sparked at August 16th U.S. Senate Field Hearing and Roundtable in Bismarck
Dr. Tami DeCoteau, holds the sign-up sheet for a North Dakota trauma initiative, flanked by Dr. Zach Kaminsky, (left), Dr. Mary Cwik, (right) of the Center for American Indian Health, Johns Hopkins University, and Megan DesCamps, health policy advisor for U.S. Senator Heitkamp ________________________ There is often a distinct event that leaders in the trauma movement mention when asked about how it all got started in their community. Many times it is when one of the authors of the ACE...
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Over 14,000 CA foster youth facing end to critical services
May is National Foster Care Month. If foster youth are not reunified with their families or adopted by age 21, youth “age out” of the state’s foster care system and services often end abruptly. In 2015, more than 14,000 California foster youth—nearly a quarter of all those in care statewide—were between the ages of 16 and 20 years old.
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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (The National Academies Press 2016)
A study published by The National Academies of Sciences in 2016 resulting in 10 Recommendations to build support for parents... "Over the past several decades, researchers have identified parenting- related knowledge, attitudes, and practices that are associated with improved developmental outcomes for children and around which parenting- related programs, policies, and messaging initiatives can be designed. However, consensus is lacking on the elements of parenting that are most important...
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Coding Boot Camp Gives California Foster Youth a Path to Solid Tech Careers [ChronicleOfSocialChange.org]
As a teenager , Jose Colmenares spent time sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles as a runaway before ending up in a group home for foster youth. Besides missing many days of school, he missed out on important conversations about how he would plan for the future, including developing a career. At the group home where he lived from age 15 to 18, he remembers listening to many panel discussions about drug abuse, but never about careers. Colmenares had always been fascinated by technology, but...
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Flourishing From The Start: What Is It, And How Can It Be Measured? [childtrends.org]
This comprehensive research brief discusses the important factors needed to promote child well-being across childhood. Of course, recommendations are grounded in maternal-infant health and relationships, but the recommendations also discuss how to build protective factors across developmental domains and the development of the child. The researchers make many actionable recommendations for both practice and policy, as well as how to obtain ongoing data, and make data collection and...
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Foster Youth Deserve the Right to Speak for Themselves in Court [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
As a youth in foster care, I am used to major decisions about me being made in my absence. Countless times, I was not made aware of my court dates, where my future would be decided. But not being able to participate in court can have a far-reaching impact on foster youth like me. Last year, I tried reaching out to my attorney to find out my court date and to discuss some challenges I had with my case workers. However, he never answered, and attended my hearing without me. I later found out...
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Foster Youth meets Psychiatry: First Do No pHarm
When a foster youth encounters a psychiatrist, chances are high that s/he will get medicated. Traumatized foster youth are often prescribed powerful psychotropics due to exhibiting a wide variety of “normal reactions to abnormal events”, such as despair, agitation, anxiety and self-harm. The practice has been well documented; foster children are prescribed psychotropics at a 2.7 to 4.5 times higher rate than non-foster youth [1] . The National Center for Youth Law aptly summarizes the...
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Healing the Helpers: Why Workplace Wellness for Child Protection Workers Matters [ktuu.com]
By Jill Burke, May 3, 2019, KTUU ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) — The Alaska Citizen Review Panel — a voluntary body with non-enforcement oversight of the Office of Children's Services — says the agency is making some much-needed internal improvements. OCS employees are "people who have some of the hardest, some of the most thankless jobs in the state — there's no sense of self care, there's no sense of helping each other, or that awareness that 'We have a hard job and it's killing us'," CRP Chair...
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Improve Birth and Perinatal Outcomes with a Trauma Sensitive Approach
The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health is excited to bring together 10 talented practitioners to explore the Trauma Informed Practices that help improve birth outcomes and support human development right from the very start. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (1998) launched the importance of trauma and trauma informed care in our health and educational systems. We suddenly had a measure of how early experiences in childhood could correlate with adult disease.
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75 Calm Down Strategies for Kids
I came across this webpage and wanted to share with my parent and caregiver small groups. My intern typed it up into a handout. Feel free to share.
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Across the Country, Diverging Policies for LGBTQ Youth in Child Welfare System [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The ways in which states and their respective child welfare agencies support LGBTQ youth varies greatly, according to a state-by-state analysis and map of child welfare systems’ policies from Lambda Legal . Some state agencies have explicit safeguards that protect youth from discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, while other states have none at all, according to the national organization that works to promote the civil rights of the LGBTQ community. The issue has grabbed attention...
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Pasadena Unified Establishes Foster Youth Advisory Council [Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley Journal]
What an amazing solution story highlighting some great work done in the Pasadena Unified School District to support foster youth! The district has established an advisory council to ensure the success of the 400 foster youth enrolled across the district. The district has established services, training, programs and resource centers to support the needs of enrolled foster youth. At its meeting on August 25, 2016, the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) Board of Education approved the...
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Perinatal Trauma Informed Care and the Trauma Sensitive Intake
Monday, March 4, marks the beginning of Birth Psychology Month for the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Pyschology and Health (APPPAH). This monthlong celebration features a panel of speakers around trauma informed practices for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care. APPPAH received a grant for this project, so live lectures are free. Our first two speakers will be on Monday at 7 pm and 8:30 pm Eastern time. Jennie Birkholz, Principal of Breakwater Light, LLC, Trauma informed educator...
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The foster care system, trauma, and resilience - a panel discussion
Trauma often does its greatest harm when it occurs during the impressionable stages of our youth. Losing one's parents, moving from different schools, living in an unstable environment - all of these are issues that can break into a child's world and cause difficulties well into adulthood. What can we do? What has research shown to be the current best practices? What is the science behind this aspect of foster care, and how does it relate to our faith? I was honored to be a part of a panel...
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This Is How You End the Foster Care to Prison Pipeline [nationswell.com]
Almost half of all foster care youth end up in jail within two years of aging out of the system. First Place for Youth has figured out a housing and support strategy to keep these young adults out from behind bars and living on their own. Moments of stability were rare during Pamela Bolnick's childhood. She repeatedly witnessed her father beat her mother, a Venezuelan immigrant diagnosed with schizophrenia. Bolnick's mom eventually left her abusive spouse, fleeing to the Bay Area with her...
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Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
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What's In The Coronavirus Stimulus for Youth and Family Services [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, April 1, 2020 Congress passed, and President Trump has signed, the CARES Act, a massive piece of stimulus legislation aimed at shoring up the American economy and protecting workers and businesses in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic. One of the nation’s largest employment sectors – human services, a field dominated by nonprofits delivering contracted help to children and families – secured some relief as Americans prepare for a recession...
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What You and Your Family Need to Know About Maternal Depression [nytimes.com]
For the first time, a national health panel has recommended a way to prevent depression during and after pregnanc y. This condition, known as perinatal depression, affects up to one in seven women and is considered the most common complication of pregnancy. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, said two types of counseling can help keep symptoms at bay. Its recommendation means that under the Affordable Care Act, such counseling must be covered by insurance with no...
Ask the Community
Cross Culture/Loss of Culture in Foster Care
Hello everyone, I'm looking for a video or a great resource/article about the impact of adapting to different cultures and/or losing sense of their own culture while in foster care and the long-term impact of this. We are doing a discussion/student panel during Foster Care Awareness Month. A video or article may assist in the discussion. Thank you in advance!
Calendar Event
Mental Health and Immigration under Extreme Circumstances
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Re: Cross Culture/Loss of Culture in Foster Care
Very interesting topic! I would be interested to see what talking points will emanate from you panel discussion. Below is link to an interesting article on a case of Muslim kids loosing their identity in the foster care system in Michigan. Population demographics are important precursors for the recruitment of foster homes, not to say recruitment and retention of foster parents is an easy task. https://www.freep.com/story/ne...lim-homes/473928001/
Comment
Re: Is child protective services effective?
When I entered child welfare, the worker who came into my beat down, no plumbing trailer asked me what I did to make my parents - parents who had provided me with 10 ACEs- so mad? I was going to be Valedictorian despite all the Hell and Pain I had endured. They separated me from my brother and sister and put them in a separate foster home where I had no contact. When I called, the new home my sister was in told me to never call back because my sister had a new family now. I almost died from...
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Re: Is child protective services effective?
Thanks for sharing your story. I agree that the child welfare system misses on a lot of fronts and tends to pile more ACEs on to people who have already experienced many. Instead of maintaining your sibling relationships, they caused you more stress. Hopefully we can work to get the system to work better.
Blog Post
Alameda County’s Youth Transitions Partnership Program: A Promising Model for Supporting Transition-Age Youth in Foster Care [chapinhall.org]
By Laura Packard Tucker, Amy Dworsky, and Molly (Mayer) Van Drunen, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, June 2020 The Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP) blends service coordination, intensive case management, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help transition age youth in foster care in Alameda County, CA engage with support systems and improve their outcomes. YTP was funded by the Children’s Bureau Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH) grant program. This brief describes the...
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Researchers Find Association between Participation in Extended Foster Care and Reduced Risk of Homelessness [chapinhall.org]
By Huiling Feng, Justin S. Harty, Nathanael J. Okpych, and Mark E. Courtney, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, June 2020 A fundamental tenet of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is that allowing foster youth to remain in care past their 18th birthday would improve their outcomes as adults. One of the most significant challenges transition-age foster youth face is homelessness. Foster youth experience disproportionately higher rates of...
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California Considers Extending Foster Care for Young Adults Until Pandemic Emergency Ends [calhealthreport.org]
By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report, June 22, 2020 At the beginning of March, Monse Gonzalez had her entire year planned. She would graduate from community college, save part of her paychecks as a childcare worker, and start school at the University of Santa Barbara. Then came the pandemic. Suddenly, everything Gonzalez, 18, had worked for was in jeopardy: her job, her housing, her associates degree. While many young adults have families to lean on during these uncertain times,...
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Community Resilience Series Part 1: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty [Peace & Justice Institute at Valencia College]
The Peace and Justice Institute (PJI) at Valencia College is excited to offer 3 free, online workshops with Dr. Ken Ginsburg , as part of a Community Resilience Series. The first workshop in this FREE series will be specifically for parents: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty , July 7th from 5:30 - 7:00 pm EST (zoom). REGISTER HERE “As parents, we want to protect our children from witnessing the fear and uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We wish we could take away the disruption...
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Influential Foster Youth Forum Calls for Sweeping Changes to Address Racism, Mental Health Issues [thelundreport.org]
By Ben Botkin, The Lund Report, August 31, 2020 A forum for current and former youth in foster care has called for sweeping changes to help children who have suffered trauma, are entering adulthood or belong to communities of color. The recommendations are the product of the Oregon Foster Youth Connection Policy Conference, a biennial forum for lawmakers, state agency officials, advocates and others interested in the state safety net. The conference, sponsored by the advocacy group Our...
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Early Child Care & COVID-19: The Science of Transmission, Safe Practices, Stress and Resilience [ucsf.edu]
From University of California, San Francisco, September 9, 2020 Please join UCSF's Early Success Clinic Collaborative for a panel discussion on "Early Child Care & COVID-19: The Science of Transmission, Safe Practices, Stress and Resilience" on Thursday, September 10th from 6:30-8:30 P.M. This conversation will be focused on translating the science around COVID-19 in preschool and early childhood ages to help inform considerations to keep children, teachers, and caregivers healthy. The...
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Request for Support: Healthy Futures for Foster Youth
Dear ACES community, I’m writing to ask for your help today to advance JBAY’s reproductive sexual health budget ask for foster youth who are expectant parents. There is so much happening right now with the pandemic that has impacted foster youth health and well-being. For our expectant and parenting foster youth they have experienced so much this past year and we are seeking to support their health with a modest budget request of $729,000. We are working as a coalition to provide the infant...
Ask the Community
Research/speaker to share sides of foster youth independence and resiliency
For each year's Foster Care Awareness Month, we pick a theme or topic to bring awareness to and to discuss among students within UC Davis Guardian Scholars Program. This year the title is "The Diary of the Independent, Resilient Foster Youth". We are aiming to highlight how former foster youth build skills and gain sense of independence and resiliency while also feeling isolated and alone or feeling the pressure to "do it all" by themselves. We are looking for a speaker that can address this...
Calendar Event
OC CAPC Blue Ribbon Community Forum
Calendar Event
Caregiver Panel: Are We Ready for Re-Opening?
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Trauma and Resilience Resources and Training [frcma.org]
If you are working with foster parents, hope you will consider using our brochure designed for parents and caretakers about childhood trauma. Our focus groups included foster parents. It is available in eight languages (attaching to this email in English and Spanish), and I am working on a version where the resource panel can be deleted so that locally available resources can be inserted: https://www.frcma.org/about/tr...sources-and-training Find information on trauma-informed resources for...
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Foster Boy: National Foster Care Month Screening [fosterboy.com]
You're invited to a nationwide screening of the award winning film, ' Foster Boy ,' executive produced by Shaquille O'Neal and starring Matthew Modine, Shane Paul McGhie, Louis Gossett Jr., Amy Brenneman, & Julie Benz, and participate in a live Q&A about the importance of reforming the foster care system. REGISTER WATCH THE TRAILER Screening window: May 7 - May 10 Live Panel discussion + Q&A: May 11th at 8:00 pm EST/7:00 pm CST/5:00 pm PST MEET OUR PANELISTS Jay Paul Deratany Jay...
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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...
Calendar Event
Rise's Peer and Community Care Model Webinar
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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...
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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.
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Explore the Role of Culture in Healing with La Maida Project
La Maida Project is thrilled to share videos from our recent webinar series “Exploring the Role of Culture in Healing”. We had an great audience turn out and robust dialogue with our panel of guest speakers including Ken Epstein, PhD LCSW , leader in trauma-informed systems transformation, Anil Vadaparty , CEO of child-welfare agency McKinley, and Omid Naim, MD , integrative psychiatrist and founder of La Maida Project. In these webinars we discuss the role of leadership in trauma-informed...
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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...
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Away From Home: An in-depth report on the experiences and perspectives of young people who have recently lived in institutional placements in foster care (Think of Us)
A new report from Think of Us examines the experiences of foster youth who are placed in congregate care placements, such as group homes or residential treatment centers. The report uses stories, art, and other first-person accounts from foster youth to understand their day-to-day lives in these living arrangements. The experiences of these youth offer ideas for improving congregate care placements, and for alternatives to these placements that better support the development and well-being...
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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...
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