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African American Grandfamilies: Helping Children Thrive Through Connection to Family and Culture

Both inside and outside the child welfare system, the probability that African American children will live in grandfamilies is more than double that of the overall population, with one in five African American children living in grandfamilies at some point during their childhood. Over the last few decades, drug epidemics, hurricanes and other tragedies have both created African American grandfamilies and challenged existing ones. The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest such crisis. As of mid-May...

Supporting the First 1,000 Days of A Child’s Life: An Anti-Racist Blueprint for Early Childhood Well-Being and Child Welfare Prevention

To support the health and well-being of children and families of color, we must implement comprehensive strategies that address systemic and institutional racism. This report offers a blueprint for creating equity-centered, anti-racist policies that support the health and well-being of children and families of color. Download the report from the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) here. Watch a webinar on the Blueprint here.

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.

Major Child Welfare Bills Pass in New York, Texas, Oregon [fosteringmediaconnections.org]

The early summer has seen a slew of high-impact state legislation on child welfare and youth justice. Last week, New York lawmakers moved several landmark bills while punting a few to next year’s legislative session. Among the biggest moves: The state will now give parents whose rights have been terminated a path to court-ordered contact with their children, even those who have been adopted from foster care. Children below the age of 12 can no longer be arrested and processed in New York’s...

COVID prolonged foster care stays for thousands (apnews.com)

SEATTLE (AP) — Leroy Pascubillo missed his daughter’s first step, her first word and countless other precious milestones. After being born addicted to heroin, she had been placed with a foster family, and he anxiously counted the days between their visits as he tried to regain custody. But because of the pandemic, the visits dwindled and went virtual, and all he could do was watch his daughter — too young to engage via computer — try to crawl through the screen. They are among thousands of...

Minnesota Bill Would Remove Financial Burden of College for State's Foster Youth [imprintnews.org]

By Colleen Connolly, The Imprint, June 3, 2021 Abbe Desai wants to be a teacher or maybe a flight attendant someday. At age 19, she’s still trying to figure it out. But while her future career is undecided, her path to get there, starting at Ridgewater College in central Minnesota, is all mapped out, and — as is the case for many of her peers raised in foster care — it’s a long and difficult journey. Desai takes classes in both global studies and liberal arts to keep her options open. She...

Minneapolis Lawyers Rely on 'Gold Standard' Law to Keep Native American Families Together [imprintnews.org]

By Elizabeth Amon, The Imprint, May 17, 2021 A federal law enacted 43 years ago designed to protect Native American families from separation is now under threat like no time in recent history. Last month, the Indian Child Welfare Act, widely considered to be the “gold standard” of the field, was found to be constitutional by a federal appeals court. But the justices nevertheless chipped away at key provisions that make the law known as ICWA successful. The lengthy, complicated decision could...

Research Brief: LGBTQ Youth with a History of Foster Care [thetrevorproject.org]

From The Trevor Project, May 12, 2021 Summary LGBTQ youth are at elevated risk for suicide compared with their straight/cisgender peers (Johns et al, 2019; Johns et al., 2020). This risk stems from experiences of minority stress including victimization and rejection rather than something inherent about being LGBTQ (Meyer, 2003). Victimization and rejection from caregivers can also result in LGBTQ youth involvement in the foster care system (Newcomb et al., 2019), which is strongly associated...

Welcoming, Affirming, Supporting: Child Welfare Systems Must Honor the WHOLE Child [cssp.org]

From Center for the Study of Social Policy, May 2021 This report summarizes the lessons learned and resources from six years of work with the getREAL initiative. Understanding and acting on these lessons can help changemakers to create a welcoming and affirming child welfare system to support these youth and their families. We detail critical components to supporting system change and provide an extensive list of resources from the getREAL initiative and our partners in the field. [ Please...

NCTSN May 2021 Spotlight [nctsn.org]

Positive mental health is essential to a child's healthy development from birth. It promotes positive youth development, resiliency during difficult times, and recovery. Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, children have faced unprecedented challenges, including making sudden and significant changes to their daily routines and dealing with the separation or sudden death of a loved one from afar. The NCTSN has resources to help parents, caregivers, child welfare workers, and providers support the...

It Takes a Multigenerational Village to Raise Foster Kids [ssir.org]

By Derenda Schubert, Renee Moseley, Lindsay Magnuson & Sarah Feldman, Stanford Social Innovation Review, May 3, 2021 On any given day in the United States, about 400,000 children are in foster care, living with and cared for by people who aren’t their biological parents. Many have suffered abuse, neglect, and other serious traumas, which frequent moves and separation from siblings can compound. While most of these children eventually return to their nuclear families, about 70,000 won’t.

MICHELLE DANIELS, CHARLES D. ELDRIDGE, RYAN E. JONES and the Office of Public and Indian Housing Foster Youth to Independence team [servicetoamericamedals.org]

By Samuel J. Heyman, Service to America Medals, May 2021 Each year, more than 20,000 foster children in the U.S. are sent into the world on their own when they turn 18. Within four years, nearly a quarter of them experience homelessness, often setting the stage for a lifetime of personal and financial struggle. Ryan Jones of the Department of Housing and Urban Development was struck by the urgency and depth of the problem in 2019 as he listened to former foster care youth from Ohio describe...

As New York Legalizes Marijuana, Parent Advocates Push Child Welfare Agencies to Adapt [imprintnews.org]

By Megan Conn, The Imprint, May 11, 2021 For generations of New York parents, smoking a joint on the stoop or tucking some weed into a pocket has always come with the risk of not only a criminal charge, but the threat of being reported to child protective services. People of color and families living in poverty have long been the overwhelming majority of those tested for marijuana use, arrested and reported to child welfare agencies. But at the end of March, New York became the 16th state to...

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...

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