Tagged With "Georgia State University"
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Is There A Foster-Care-To-Prison Pipeline? If So, This New LA-Based Program Aims To Break It (witnessla.com)
“Everyone talks about the school-to-prison pipeline,” said Loyola Law School professor Sean Kennedy. “But doing this work you see that there’s a group-home-to-prison. Kennedy is the Director of Loyola’s respected Center for Juvenile Law and Policy (CJLP), which was founded in 2004 to “tackle the injustices of the Los Angeles County juvenile court system” by providing pro bono advocacy for youth who find themselves caught up in that system. Thanks to a highly competitive $1 million grant from...
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Join Feb. 18th webinar on addressing ACEs in public policy
Please join this ACEs Connection co-sponsored webinar "Making Meaningful Change: Addressing ACEs through Public Policy" on Feb. 18 (11:30 am-1:00 pm ET) presented by the Health Federation of Philadelphia and MARC (Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities). In this webinar, three nationally recognized experts will discuss policy and advocacy strategies on a local, state, and national level using evidence from studies they have conducted with legislators and the general public. Speakers...
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Kids of Color Often Shut Out of High-Quality State Preschool, Research Says [blogs.edweek.org]
By Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week, November 6, 2019 A study of 26 states and their preschool programs finds that as of roughly two years ago, a mere 1 percent of Latino children and just 4 percent of black children in those states were enrolled in "high-quality" state-backed early-learning opportunities. That's one main conclusion from a new report from the Education Trust, an education civil rights advocacy group. "Young Learners, Missed Opportunities: Ensuring That Black and Latino...
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L.A. County to Implement State Plan to Prevent Unintended Pregnancies Among Youth (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
The state plan, “ California’s Plan for the Prevention of Unintended Pregnancies for Youth and Non-Minor Dependents ,” aims to address the fact that by age 21 over 1 in 3 girls in foster care will have given birth, according to a report by the Children’s Data Network. Representatives from all three departments, the child welfare advocacy community and at least one former foster youth will participate in developing the strategy. “What’s important here is to make sure we’re catering to the...
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La Crosse County aims to tackle childhood trauma within foster care system [www.wxow.com]
Building on the momentum of sharing her message during Gov. Scott Walker's 2017 State of the State Address, first lady Tonnette Walker is continuing to promote her initiative "Fostering Futures." The idea behind the program is to aim to understand the effects of trauma in childhood and ask what happened to a child rather than what's wrong with them. "We started in 2013 really taking a closer look at training our foster care providers, adoptive parents and birth parents who have kids that...
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LA Foster Families Suffer As Stipends Get Stuck In State’s Reform Bottleneck (witnessla.com)
In an effort to streamline the evaluation of a household’s fitness to take in a foster or adoptive child, California implemented a pilot project called Resource Family Approval (RFA) as a pillar of its reforms. On the surface this is a good thing, since it means that rather than putting a candidate through multiple processes of varying thoroughness for potential caregivers, the new process would offer a single, comprehensive standard that includes mandated foster parent training,...
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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Questioning, and/or Gender Nonconforming and Transgender Girls and Boys in the California Juvenile Justice System: A Practice Guide [nclrights.org]
If you are a child welfare professional working with youth in California, chances are this practice guide may be a useful resource! Developed by Impact Justice and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and published in January 2017, this practice guide is designed to provide probation department practice guidelines, and policy recommendations for working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning, and/or gender nonconforming and transgender girls and boys who interface with the California...
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LGBTQ, Traumatized Homeless Youth More Vulnerable to Being Trafficked, Report Finds [jjie.org]
By Stell Simonton, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 21, 2019 Understanding how homeless youth are trafficked is important information for the organizations offering them services. That’s the conclusion of a report released today based on a 2018 count of homeless and runaway young people ages 14-25 in Atlanta. “Clearly, talking about trafficking is critically important,” said Eric Wright, chairman of the sociology department at Georgia State University, who led the survey and...
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Lois Henry: Upping the bar for foster children [bakersfield.com]
A new law in California, effective this year, is reducing the number of groups home and congregate care facilities. This law is part of a larger framework called the Continuum of Care Reform (Assembly Bill 403). This editorial by Lois Henry sheds light on the plans of one California community, Bakersfield, to reduce group-care and increase the number of foster homes. Including efforts to level the playing field for relative caregivers and streamline the permanent plan of adoption.Zachary...
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Los Angeles County caregivers working to get foster kids off psychiatric drugs
Psychiatric drugs like lithium, Depakote and Prozac remain a popular choice for care providers trying to calm angry, depressed or anxious children in the Los Angeles County foster care system, but the pills are losing fans amid concerns about side...
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Medicaid to 26 for Former Foster Youth: An Update on the State Option and State Efforts to Ensure Coverage for All Young People Irrespective of Where They Aged Out of Care (October 2014)
Shadi Houshyar State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center October 2014 Signed into law on March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes notable improvements to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)...
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Millions sought to stem arrests at California foster care shelters (sfchronicle.com)
A California lawmaker is calling for $22.7 million in state funding to help prevent unwarranted arrests of abused and neglected children in the state’s residential foster-care facilities — a disturbing practice exposed in a Chronicle investigation last year. The three-year budget proposal, to be introduced next week by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson (Los Angeles County), comes as arrests continue across the state at county children’s shelters, despite pledges of reform. While the total...
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Missed Opportunities: Pathways from Foster Care to Youth Homelessness in America [voicesofyouthcount.org]
By Voices of Youth Count. Voices of Youth: Alanna’s Story Alanna is a 23-year-old woman living in Philadelphia. 1 She was placed in foster care at the age of three, along with three siblings, because her mother was using drugs. Alanna and her siblings spent 7 years in foster care. They were initially placed together in a foster home that Alanna described as abusive. According to Alanna, the child welfare agency “did nothing” the first time Alanna reported the abuse. After she reported the...
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National Survey Finds Expanding Number of College Programs for Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The number of college assistance programs for current and former foster youth is growing, but there are still major gaps in helping students access them, according to a national survey of state-run colleges. The goal of the survey, produced by the First Star Institute’s Foster Youth Success in College Project, is “to provide a more detailed current look at what these programs look like, how extensive they are throughout the country, and to detail best practices in place in different parts of...
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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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State, University researchers seek solutions to disproportionate foster placements among Native kids [wakemag.org]
Minnesota has put more Native American children in foster care than any other state in the nation. Despite being one of the least-represented minorities in Minnesota, nearly one in every 10 Native children is in the foster system, compared to only one in every 100 white children. One of key individuals who has spearheaded research into this issue is Professor Priscilla Day, director of the Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Day has focused on...
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Nebraska Supreme Court rules in favor of gay couple in foster care case [www.rawstory.com]
A former state policy that banned gay couples from becoming foster parents was the same as a “whites only” employment sign, the Nebraska Supreme Court wrote in a ruling released on Friday that affirmed a lower court’s decision. The ruling comes four years after three same-sex couples filed a lawsuit against Nebraska, arguing that a 1995 state policy prohibiting gay couples from being foster care parents and adopting wards of the state is unconstitutional. Follow here for the full article.
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New California Laws May Prevent the Overmedication of Foster Kids (elevaterehab.org)
In the past, lawmakers didn’t think twice about how doctors treated foster children suffering from emotional traumas such as abandonment and abuse. Nobody controlled how often practitioners prescribed psychiatric drugs that had serious potential for doing more harm than good. Today, investigations into California’s foster care system shed light on the doctors who fuel medication problems by inappropriately prescribing narcotics to the state’s most vulnerable children – ultimately leading to...
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New Mexico Agrees to Revamp Its 'Broken' Foster Care System [nytimes.com]
By Dan Levin, The New York Times, March 26, 2020 Kevin S., a teenage victim of sexual abuse, has spent most of his life cycling in and out of nearly a dozen foster homes in New Mexico and treatment centers across the West, including one where he claimed he was restrained and “repeatedly harmed” by staff members and other residents. Diana D., a teenager with severe mental health disorders, entered the New Mexico foster care system when she was 14, and over the next 12 months was prescribed...
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New Tool Kit Helps Child Welfare Leaders Utilize Data to Support Expectant and Parenting Youth [CSSP.org]
Being a parent is hard at any age, but it can be even harder for younger moms and dads. And harder yet for young parents in foster care. To support these young parents and their families, systems leaders—ranging from child welfare to education to juvenile justice—need reliable data to guide policies and practices. Yet, according to Tammi Fleming, senior associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative : “Data on expectant and parenting youth in foster...
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No Foster Home…Then What? [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Is there a shortage of foster homes in the United States? If so, is the shortage widespread or localized? To find answers to these questions, I looked at federal data, research by the Casey Foundation, information from state program directors and evidence from hundreds of recent news reports documenting critical local shortages throughout our nation. The overwhelming message is that we have fewer foster homes than in the past and recruitment is becoming quite difficult. The foster home...
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No More Missed Goodbyes: Promoting Greater Placement Stability for California Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
On February 12 , 200 California Youth Connection (CYC) members, allies and community members gathered to celebrate 30 years of the organization’s youth-led advocacy in California, and to continue the fight with a new bill to prevent unnecessary placement changes for foster youth in the state. That day, the steps of California State Capitol in Sacramento resonated with the voices of current and former foster youth, who chanted “C’mon, c’mon, join the fight! Stability is our right!” and “CYC...
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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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Officials discuss strategies to help children through opioid crisis [wmur.com]
The Opioid Crisis – it is an ominous, frightening, pervasive threat with far-reaching feelers, literally taking hold of families across the country. This crisis is often referred to as the paramount issue in communities, cities, and states. An issue worthy of attention, strategy, and community mobilization. State leaders gathered Friday to discuss strategies to protect young people from opioids and the trauma often associated with the dangerous drugs. Tackling the opioid crisis before it can...
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One-Third of California Foster Youth Leave Transitional Housing Involuntarily, Report Finds (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
More than a third of older foster youth in transitional housing placements in California were involuntarily removed, according to a new report. A John Burton Advocates for Youth report looks at how youth in California used the Transitional Housing Placement-Plus (THP-Plus) and THP-Plus Foster Care (THP+FC) programs during the 2016-2017 year and how they fared upon exiting, in addition to other data. The California state legislature created the THP-Plus Program in 2001 in response to high...
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Oregon foster care system targeted in federal lawsuit [Daily Mail]
SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Oregon's foster care system has failed to shield children from abuse and they are sometimes forced to stay in refurbished jail cells and homeless shelters, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The 77-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court details stories of foster children being neglected or harmed while under Department of Human Services care, including a 16-year-old girl sent to a juvenile jail after she had previously tried to kill herself. The agency has...
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Oregon foster youths seek $8.5M to help those aging out of foster care [Street Roots News]
Expansion proposed of Child Welfare’s Independent Living Program and other transition services Whitney Rodgers has spent nearly half her life moving from placement to placement in the foster care system, but it wasn’t until she turned 17 that she began to worry about what came next – after foster care. “I was always expecting there to be another step or two before I turned 18,” she said. “But then, at 17, I thought, the clock’s running out.” Rodgers admitted she had always been a flight risk...
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Oregon psychiatrist testifies before Senate Finance Committee on the impact of childhood adversity and toxic stress on adult health
Appearing before the powerful Senate Finance Committee in Washington, DC, recently, Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Health Share Oregon, devoted a significant portion of her testimony to the role of adversity and toxic stress during childhood on adult health, both physical and emotional. She explained how Health Share Oregon—that state’s largest Medicaid coordinated care organization—examined the people with the costliest health bills and found them to...
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Oregon sends hundreds of foster kids to former jails, institutions, not families
ROSEBURG — A move to improve the care of foster children relegated to living in hotels has resulted in 25 percent more children removed from their families being housed in institutions such as former juvenile jails, The Oregonian/OregonLive has found. The children being sent to cinderblock facilities are often the most traumatized and difficult to care for. Most are teens but the state is looking at expanding institutional programs for children as young as six. A year ago, Oregon child...
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Our Most Vulnerable Population - Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Before the pandemic, grandparents raising grandchildren were already in a precarious situation. They were struggling to meet the needs of children exposed to maltreatment and trauma while also supporting the family financially. But now, we fear, things have made a critical turn for the worse while those grandparents become unemployed, sick, or in the worst-case scenario, die due to Corona Virus.
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Parent Mentoring Program in L.A. County Helps Reunify Families Separated by Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Parent mentors, or parent partners are such a critical component of a successful child welfare system. Families served through L.A. County child welfare are reaping the benefits of their local program. Stephanie Moreno says losing her children to Child Protective Services (CPS) back in 2015 was the hardest thing she’s ever had to deal with. A family member called CPS on Moreno, accusing her of using drugs and knowingly allowing someone to sexually abuse her daughter. As it turned out, it was...
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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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Building Bridges - Center offers safe place for children [arkansasonline.com]
Having worked in child welfare for close to two decades, I've seen my fair share of parent-child visitation take place in cold state or county offices, or a crowded play structure inside a fast food restaurant. The article referenced below aptly describes the limitations to both settings, environments unable to set parents or children up for successful, engaging, interactive visitation. Parent-child visitation is very important in child welfare, this is where relationships, connections, and...
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Building Resilience in Foster Children: The Role of the Child's Advocate [repository.law.umich.edu]
Children who enter the foster care system often suffer from the effects of traumatic stress. The sources of their trauma may vary: they may be the victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect-or they may be exposed to violence in their homes or communities. Similarly, many children who enter the child welfare system have experienced the loss of one or more significant adults in their lives, often through death or abandonment. Although the removal of a child from an abusive or...
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California Guidelines for the Use of Psychotropic Medication with Children and Youth in Foster Care
California Department of Social Services and Department of Health Services Care ( The California Department of Health Care Services and Department of Social Services released this guide to best practices for the treatment of mental...
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California has Begun Screening for Early Childhood Trauma, But Critics Urge Caution [sciencemag.org]
By Emily Underwood, Science, January 29, 2020 On 1 January, California became the first U.S. state to screen for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—early life hardships such as abuse, neglect, and poverty, which can have devastating health consequences in later life. The project is not just a public health initiative, but a vast experiment. State officials aim to cut the health impacts of early life adversity by as much as half within a generation. But critics say the health benefits of...
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California Looks to Expand Financial Aid Access for Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
A California legislator is looking to amend the state’s college aid program for foster youth so it covers more students and loses fewer of them to academic problems. The Chafee Education and Training Voucher (ETV) is a federal-state match program that provides up to $5,000 per year to current or former foster youth to help with the costs of college. Introduced by State Sen. Jim Beall (D), Senate Bill 150 would shift the way ETV grant payments are distributed and set unique ground rules for...
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Can a Separate Department Reinvigorate Chid Welfare? [uwcita.org]
Early in December an article from realchangenews.org was shared with the group about Washington State merging children and family services into one Department. As with many States, leaders in Washington State are looking to advances in brain-science, trauma-informed practices, the impacts of ACEs, and focus on the developing child to provide scaffolding for the framework of this new Department. Click here to download the final report and read more about the Blue Ribbon Commission – the group...
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Can We Please Fix the Interstate Placement of Children in Foster Care? [ChronicleOfSocialChange.org]
Consider, for a moment , this story I recently discovered in court transcripts. A paternal grandmother living in New York City learns that her 1-year-old grandson is in Michigan’s foster care system. Days after the child’s removal, she immediately contacts the child’s foster care worker, travels to Michigan, attends the court hearing and requests that the child be placed with her, instead of strangers. It turns out that she raised the child for the first few months of his life, and the...
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Capitol Tracker: Bills hope to help foster youth (times-standard.com)
To assist some of California’s foster youth, there are more than a dozen proposed pieces of legislation working their way through various state Assembly and Senate committees. Several of the bills are hitting committee hearings this week. Activities funding >> Assemblyman Dante Acosta (D-Santa Clarita) introduced AB 754, which provides funding to help foster youth cover activities-related expenses. The funding would help cover costs for field trips, purchase caps and gowns for...
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Caring adult relationships can make the difference for children in trauma [register-herald.com]
CHARLESTON — Social workers, law enforcement officers and other children’s advocates gathered Wednesday for the first day of the West Virginia Children’s Justice “Handle With Care” Conference to learn more about child trauma, intervention and ways to help children become successful. In a state that leads the nation for opioid overdose deaths and babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, West Virginia children are often witnesses to and victims of trauma. The West Virginia Defending...
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Caring adult relationships can make the difference for children in trauma [register-herald.com]
Social workers, law enforcement officers and other children’s advocates gathered Wednesday for the first day of the West Virginia Children’s Justice “Handle With Care” Conference to learn more about child trauma, intervention and ways to help children become successful. In a state that leads the nation for opioid overdose deaths and babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, West Virginia children are often witnesses to and victims of trauma. The West Virginia Defending Childhood...
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Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents [NCTSN Resource]
Many children in foster or kinship care have a history of exposure to trauma. Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents (RPC) is a PowerPoint-based training curriculum designed to be taught by a mental health...
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Changing the Futures of Children and Families State-Level Policy Advocacy for Children Affected by Parental Substance Use
These webinar slides examines the role of substance abuse in child welfare. Sid Gardner, President of Children and Family Futures presented on what state advocates should know about substance use in a child welfare context,...
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Child Welfare and Human Trafficking - Connections Rooted in Trauma
Recently in Washington State, there has been a massive, multi-pronged coordinated effort to address Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) across systems. As this effort made its reach to child welfare, I was reminded of a documentary I watched years ago about two girls who were swept into a life of sexual exploitation, kept from their families and everything familiar. One of the girls was in and out of foster care and group homes, the other had run away from her family home, both...
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Child Welfare Ideas from the Experts #1: Reducing Frequency of Foster Care Placements [SocialJusticeSolutions.org]
The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 12 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Alexis Arambul, a...
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Child Welfare Ideas from the Experts #3: Protecting LGBTQ Rights in Child Welfare [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Terrence Scraggins,...
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Child Welfare Ideas from the Experts #6: Improving Foster Care for Refugee Minors [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Noor Kathem, 23, an...
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Child Welfare Ideas from the Experts #9: Improve Federal Supports for Foster Parents [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Calli Crowder, 25, a...