Tagged With "Quick Focus Group"
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Adverse Childhood Experiences and Psychosocial Well-Being of Women Who Were in Foster Care as Children [the Permanente Journal]
Research has shown that many children in foster care later have psychosocial problems as adults; this is often attributed to cumulative adversities and a lack of supportive caregivers. The risk factors associated with foster care, such as maternal separation and multiple placements, often counteract many protective factors that can ameliorate the effects of childhood adversities. This study assessed the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and psychosocial well-being in...
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Advocates Hope NY Court Ruling on Warrants for Foster Youth Leads to Reform [jjie.org]
NEW YORK — Christina Young remembers the day the cops came for her at school. She was 15 years old — a sophomore at Murry Bergtraum High School for Business in lower Manhattan. She and four of her friends were sitting together at a table in the school’s large and chaotic cafeteria. It was lunch time but they weren’t eating. They didn’t like eating lunch at school. They didn’t have a reason why really, they just didn’t like to. Instead they used the time to hang out, and listen to music on...
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Aging Out Institute: The best Collection of Resources for Aging Out of Foster Care on the Internet
National Resources Below you will find programs that are not state-specific, but rather can be leveraged regardless of where the foster youth lives in the U.S. Simply click on the name of the program to get to more information about it. A Home Within:...
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Almost 60 Percent of Parents With Children Aged 14 to 18 Reported Them Being Bullied [comparitech.com]
By Paul Bischoff, Comparitech, May 8, 2019 Bullying used to be depicted as kids being shoved into lockers and coerced out of their lunch money by the older, more popular rulers of the school. Nowadays, the focus on bullying has shifted to those hiding behind computer screens and taunting others in the virtual world. While in-school bullying is on the rise, technology and social media have created alternate avenues for bullies to wreak havoc. Whether bullying is done on school grounds or over...
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Announcing the Parenting with ACEs Monthly Chat Series!
I'm thrilled to announce our NEW Live Chat series!!! Starting in May, once a month, we will have a live Chat Event. It will take online in the Parenting with ACEs Group the second Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST). We'll learn from our featured guests (below) about ACE-related issues. We'll have discussions and share experiences, stories, and resources with each other. Here is who and what we have scheduled for 2017. 2017 Monthly Chat Schedule / Time is Always: @ 10 AM PST (1...
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Balancing Adverse Childhood Experiences with Hope [alliance1.org]
This report presents evidence for HOPE (Health Outcomes of Positive Experiences) based on newly released, compelling data that reinforce the need to promote positive experiences for children and families in order to foster healthy childhood development despite the adversity common in so many families. These data: Establish a spirit of hope and optimism and make the case that positive experiences have lasting impact on human development and functioning, without ignoring well-documented...
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Better Training for Foster Parents Could Have Changed My Life [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
When I was 11 years old, I went to the doctor for a check-up and my whole world stopped. In that one moment, the family I had spent six months becoming a part of decided against adoption. I was removed from my biological mother at just six months, and this was the closest I had ever been to joining a family. One week before a judge made me somebody’s daughter, my almost-parents decided that they did not want “a kid with a baby.” “You’re pregnant!” “What were you thinking?” “There are...
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Brief Aims to Better Understand How Positive Factors Change Child Trauma [socialjusticesolutions.org]
According to a leading group of children’s advocates, it’s not enough to just study the impact of childhood trauma and how we can lessen its toll on children and adults later in life. Armed with new data, researchers from Center for the Study of Social Policy, Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Prevent Child Abuse America, Casey Family Programs and the Montana Institute say that positive childhood experiences are more important...
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Bringing ACEs, Resilience, and Hope to preschool families
This school year, an endeavor of the Franklin Pierce Hewins Early Learning Center (ELC) was to bring Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Resilience to the preschool families. What began as a broad idea soon turned into an exciting project: “Rise to Resilience & Hope”. Our ELC has had a Kids at Hope culture for many years – believing that all children are capable of success, with no exceptions. With Kids at Hope, the adults are Treasure Hunters, seeking out and recognizing the...
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Permanency for Sibling Groups: The Neighbor to Family Model [cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov]
Research has shown that keeping siblings together when they enter foster care bolsters positive outcomes, including reducing the trauma they experience upon being removed from their homes. The Neighbor To Family (NTF) model was designed to...
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Placing Foster Children with Relatives May Help Prevent Congregate Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback, The Chronicle of Social Change, February 20, 2020 California foster youth placed with relatives are less likely to spend time in group homes or institutional placements, and black children are more likely than their white counterparts to do so, according to new research. According to the study, which looked at six years’ worth of data on 12- to 14-year-olds in California foster care, about one in five children in foster care (17 percent) moved from a family-based foster...
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Reimbursement for Parenting Education and Support Services
Unfortunately, regardless of training received and degrees earned, parenting educators can't serve families and get reimbursed by public and private insurers for their services. In an effort to bring light to this issue, I wrote the attached paper with two colleagues at NC State. Our (unpublished) paper outlines research supporting parenting education services and their efficacy to improve individual and family health and long term wellbeing and community prosperity. We highlight the fact...
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Report: Extended Foster Care in California Boosts Wealth, Stability [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
California foster youth who remain in extended foster care after they turn 18 have more savings and are more educated than their peers who exit foster care at 18, according to a report released late last year by the University of Chicago-based research group Chapin Hall. In 2012, Assembly Bill 12 extended foster care from age 18 to age 21 for eligible California foster youth. University of Chicago professor Mark Courtney and his team found that each additional year that a foster youth was in...
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Report Reveals Foster Youth’s Top Priorities (socialjusticesolutions.org)
In an effort to highlight the most important issues identified by foster youth, advocacy organization Foster Youth in Action conducted a poll last October of more than 500 foster youth. Results indicated that sibling visitation, homelessness prevention, college access and success, and opportunities for independent living are the top priorities among current and former foster youth. The current and former foster youth polled ranged in age from the early teens to the early 30s, and priorities...
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Resource List - Research
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Psychosocial Well-Being of Women Who Were in Foster Care as Children Research has shown that many children in foster care later have psychosocial problems as adults; this is often attributed to cumulative adversities and a lack of supportive caregivers. The risk factors associated with foster care, such as maternal separation and multiple placements, often counteract many protective factors that can ameliorate the effects of childhood adversities. This study...
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Resource List - Trauma Informed Approaches and Autism Spectrum and Other Developmental Disabilities
Resources for individuals, organizations, and communities moving along trauma and hope-informed pathways in order to: Prevent and mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Promote resilience and safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. Promote equity and racial justice. Prevent substance abuse and promote mental health. … so that all children, youth, families and communities have equal opportunity for educational success, economic stability, health, and well-being.
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Resource List - Trauma Informed Approaches and Autism Spectrum and Other Developmental Disabilities
Resources for individuals, organizations, and communities moving along trauma and hope-informed pathways in order to: Prevent and mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Promote resilience and safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. Promote equity and racial justice. Prevent substance abuse and promote mental health. … so that all children, youth, families and communities have equal opportunity for educational success, economic stability, health, and well-being.
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Role of Pre-existing Adversity and Child Maltreatment on Mental Health Outcomes for Children Involved in Child Protection: Population-based Data Linkage Study [bmjopen.bmj.com]
By Miriam Jennifer Maclean, Scott Anthony Sims, Melissa O'Donnell, BMJ Journals, July 29, 2019 It is established that children who experience child abuse and neglect are at an increased risk of poorer mental health outcomes. The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child states that chronic stress to which maltreated children may be exposed, in the absence of consistent and supportive relationships with adult caregivers, has negative impacts on children’s developing brain.
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Sand Diego County's Answer to School Stability for Students in Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
It seems obvious that keeping kids in their home school with their peer group – a concept known as “school stability”– is a key ingredient in the recipe for academic success for students in foster care. Research shows that on average, children lose four to six months of learning each time they change schools. This is especially acute for high school students, who run into issues obtaining the credits they need to graduate or may have to re-take classes due to coursework alignment issues. For...
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Sesame Street Resources for Families Coping After Natural Disasters
In the aftermath of recent hurricanes and wildfires, the Sesame Street in Communities team wanted to reach out to provide information on our available resources to help families cope in the aftermath of natural disasters, and other traumatic experiences. Bilingual videos, articles, printables and more, are all available for free on our website at www.sesamestreetincommunities.org . Here are the links to a few topic pages that may be most useful to you as you work with families in the...
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Sharing Data to Benefit Kids: A Guide for Child Welfare and Education Systems [aecf.org]
Re-sharing this blog post from the Annie E. Casey Foundation where they shared a guide for data sharing linkages between child welfare and education - the Roadmap for Foster Care and K-12 Data Linkages . ...Successful data linkages mean agencies are able to draw on all the publicly collected information to create a more complete picture of individual students in foster care, helping inform interventions that are more effective. “Data sharing between foster care and educational agencies is...
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Shortage of foster families for teens, older kids
There are enough foster parents in Shasta County for the county’s children, and more. So why are some children and youths housed in other care programs waiting for a foster family? The answer is in the age group most foster parents want to foster. “Shasta County is a receiving county because we have more foster youth coming… from other counties for placement than we send out…,” said Dianna Wagner, branch director of children’s services at Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency...
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So you know about ACEs...Turn your AHA! into Action!
Spring is the time for rebirth and new beginnings! As we look around, we can observe nature around us awakening after a long winter sleep. A true sign of resilience. At Origins , we have been lucky enough to create a space for growth and learning for both groups and individuals who work towards creating environments of healing and resilience over the winter months. After completing the first round of The Resilience Champion Certificate of 2018, we have 23 graduates putting their action plans...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Stopping School Pushout for: Girls in Foster Care (nwlc.org)
Girls in foster care are among the country’s most disadvantaged students. Disproportionately girls of color, they experience high rates of abuse and sexual violence, are more likely to be young mothers, and are more likely to be involved in the juvenile justice system. They are also at a higher risk for emotional and behavioral problems than their peers who are not in foster care. Girls in foster care experience frequent residential and school changes that affect their ability to stay in...
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Study shows link between foster care, multiple medications and teen pregnancy [trib.com]
Girls in foster care are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health conditions, be prescribed multiple medications and become pregnant as teenagers, according to a report by Wyoming researchers. The study, which was conducted over an 11-year period and followed more than 5,000 15-year-old girls to their 18th birthdays, shows stark disparities in the challenges its subjects face. For instance, nearly 30 percent of 743 foster care girls on Medicaid gave birth by the time they turned 18.
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Study shows links between foster care, multiple medications, and teen pregnancy [trib.com]
Girls in foster care are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health conditions, be prescribed multiple medications and become pregnant as teenagers, according to a report by Wyoming researchers. The study, which was conducted over an 11-year period and followed more than 5,000 15-year-old girls to their 18th birthdays, shows stark disparities in the challenges its subjects face. For instance, nearly 30 percent of 743 foster care girls on Medicaid gave birth by the time they turned 18.
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Supporting Brain Development in Traumatized Children and Youth
This Administration on Children and Families (ACF) bulletin summarizes the effects of early trauma on brain development and looks at steps child welfare professionals can take to screen for developmental delays and identify the trauma-affected children and youth in their care. It also looks at ways to access cross-sector, therapeutic, and evidence-based treatment to encourage healthy recovery for trauma-affected children and youth. HERE TO ACCESS MATERIALS. Document attached.
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Telling a more complete story about child welfare
A new study from Berkeley Media Studies Group found that coverage of the child welfare system omits important context and connections to other issues. Here are four steps practitioners can take to improve the news.
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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The Little Book of ACEs
What this little book tells you This little book has been written by a small group of front line practitioners who have extensive experience in supporting children who are living with trauma and/or experiencing traumatic events. We are all based in the North West of England and work in the education sector and the NHS. We have written this Little Book to inform other practitioners about what ACEs are, what their immediate effects are and how they can affect children both in the short-term...
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The Trauma-Sensitive Parenting Summit & Commentary
"Having a history of trauma or loss does not by itself predispose you to have a child with disorganization. It is the lack of resolution that is the essential risk factor. It is never too late to move toward making sense of your experiences and healing your past. Not only you but also your child will benefit." That's a quote from the book Parenting from the Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, which was published fifteen freaking years ago. It's...
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‘This is not a child safety crisis. It’s a poverty crisis, a racism crisis.’ – A social worker and former foster youth featured in HBO’s ‘Foster’ shares her vision of societal and system change (www.risemagazine.org)
Excerpts from article by Sarah Harris from Rise Magazine . Q: What led you to work in the foster care system? A: I am a former foster youth and I’ve been a social worker at the L.A. Department of Child and Family Services for 5 years. I entered foster care through probation, and I got into probation through survival. I was breaking the law for clothes and food. In foster care, I bounced around a lot. For the most part I was AWOL. I was in group homes but I stayed with family or friends.
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This New Federal Law Will Change Foster Care As We Know It [pewtrusts.org]
A new federal law, propelled by the belief that children in difficult homes nearly always fare best with their parents, effectively blows up the nation’s troubled foster care system. Few outside child welfare circles paid any mind to the law, which was tucked inside a massive spending bill President Donald Trump signed in February. But it will force states to overhaul their foster care systems by changing the rules for how they can spend their annual $8 billion in federal funds for child...
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Tipping the Scales: The Resilience Game [developingchild.harvard.edu]
Have you been looking for a fun interactive game to illustrate how families and communities build resilience? This tool from the Center on the Developing Child at harvard University is a fun way to engage a team or group in thinking about how communities and systems contribute to resilience building and protective factors for chidlren and families. In this interactive feature, you will learn how the choices we make can help children and the community as a whole become more resilient in the...
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Toolkit to Help Child Welfare Agencies Serve LGBTQ Families [ChronicleOfSocialChange.org]
As a growing number of states pass laws permitting discrimination against LGBTQ people interested in foster care and adoption, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation has released a toolkit to help the child welfare field better serve LGBTQ families. The toolkit is part of HRC’s All Children-All Families program and provides webinars, assessment tools and best practices for professionals and caregivers working with people in the LGBTQ and child welfare communities. Numerous national...
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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...
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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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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...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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Who Cares: A National Count of Foster Homes and Families [fostercarecapacity.com]
By The Chronicle of Social Change, September 11, 2019 There are more than 400,000 children and youth living on foster care today. The questions the Who Cares project endeavors to answer are: Who are the people caring for them, and in what types of settings? Most foster youth live with relatives, in the home of foster parents, or in group homes or residential facilities. But as foster care numbers have crept up in the past six years, and there has been a push towards phasing out group homes,...
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Why Do LA’s Foster Care Facilities Keep Calling The Cops On Traumatized Kids? (witnessla.com)
On March 21, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed an important motion that instructed the Director of the Office of Child Protection, Michael Nash, former presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court, to find out why so many of LA County’s foster children were crossing into the county’s delinquency system, what could be done to prevent that crossing, and how these so-called crossover kids could be helped if and when and if they found themselves in the clutches of both...
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Why Keeping Current Foster Parents Can Be More Important Than Recruiting New Ones [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Foster parents are the primary intervention in the lives of abused and neglected children. In order for children placed into foster care to receive the safety and stability they need to heal and thrive, available and willing high-quality families are needed. In California, finding enough caregivers for the state’s foster children is a key plank of the state’s current child welfare initiative, the Continuum of Care Reform ( CCR ). That reform effort is driven by a need to place more of these...
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Why You Should Write a Letter to Yourself Tonight (Bessel van der Kolk, MD)
Why You Should Write A Letter To Yourself Tonight Writing is one of the most effective ways to access an inner world of feelings that is the key to recovering from ...
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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...
Ask the Community
Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year, group! I have finally come back online after a few weeks off for break. I hope everyone here had a fantastic and rejuvenating holiday, free from trauma and drama! If not, let me know how I can help you and/or your clients deal with...
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Re: How does the general public percieve Foster Children?
January 28, 2014 My Dear Colleague Jeff Bergstrom: The interaction you had with the couple in the restaurant in June 2013 was fascinating, scary and probably an honest summary of some of the mis-information and the biased thinking that dominates segments of this country. I have been told that it is difficult to reason someone out of something that they have not been reasoned into. This may be one of those conversations. But I wonder where the ideas about children in foster care came from? It...
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Re: How does the general public percieve Foster Children?
I think in our society we have a blind spot to why people behave the way they do. We like to assume that we are all playing with the same set of rules, but that leaves us blind to those that do not act in ways we can predict. If we can't predict their behavior, there must be something wrong with them. I believe that actions have meaning. I work with survivors of domestic violence and so often I hear survivors say, "You're going to think I'm crazy, but let me tell you what happened..." and...
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Re: Are Foster Care Children Excessively Medicated?
I would recommend the blog talk radio that I put on the aces in peds group from Dr. Bruce Perry who discusses how to deal with these kid. Also the Foster Care AAP pdf has a section in the last pages about signs/symptoms kids can present with and how to respond to them. With these kids sensitivity is the key. Anything negative - a small look, a tone of voice that suggests even the slightest possibility of disappointment in the child can produce internal feelings of "I am terrible, I should...