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The child welfare system — like other powerful institutions, including law enforcement and the incarceration system — is under attack. The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic along with a reckoning with systemic racism and inequality over the past year are shining a harsh spotlight on child protective services (CPS), the nation’s system for protecting children from abuse and neglect. Similar to the movement to defund the police, long-standing concerns about racism and other gross inequities...

“ Our fingerprints don't fade from the lives we touch.” - Judy Blume Hope, healing & help for trauma, abuse & mental health. The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php & here's the PDF - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2021-02-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_February_2021.pdf “ Our brains developed along with music and singing as a survival mechanism.” - Tania De Jong To sign up for...

By Tom Morton and Jess McDonald, The Imprint, February 15, 2021 The child welfare system plays a conflicted role in our society’s history. It exists in a world of competing values and basic societal assumptions. Was it developed as a way to “save” children from abuse and neglect or as a means to “control families?” We chose to serve in this system to help children live safely with their families in safer communities. We believed it was possible to make a positive difference for children and...

This Sunday evening's "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" Radio Show LIVE at 8:00 pm CST will be discussing an amazing new tool to bring the latest level of technology to help in the placement of foster children in the system. The experts in the field that will be special guests on this week's radio programs are Jennifer Jacobs and Jessica Stern, Co-Founders of Connect Our Kids. Jennifer Jacobs is the chief executive officer and a co-founder of Connect Our Kids, a non-profit...

By Jerry Milner, The Imprint, February 11, 2021 As a child welfare social worker for a few decades now, serving as the leader of the U.S. Children’s Bureau was the greatest honor of my career, perhaps my life. In my field, there is no comparable position to lead the country in shaping a vision, if one chooses, that can affect the lives of vulnerable children, youth and parents in such profound ways. It is also a place where the reigning political ideology can affect actions, drive priorities...

By Sarah Malik, Chalkbeat, February 4, 2021 My family has always emphasized the importance of education. All three of my aunts are teachers, and my father has helped me with my schoolwork throughout my life. My dad enrolled me in a prep course for Hunter College High School’s admission test. The school, which is run by New York City’s university system and whose seats are highly sought after, serves students in grades 7-12. When I was 12 years old, I passed the admissions test and entered...

By Michael Fitzgerald, The Imprint, January 26, 2021 The leader of a prominent foster care reform group – who spent time as a child in foster care herself, a searing experience that she’s said shaped her work as a congressional policy adviser – has been appointed to a senior role in President Joe Biden’s administration, according to tweets and website updates today from her organization, Foster America. Sherry Lachman will become associate director for education, income maintenance and labor...

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...

By Center for the Study of Social Policy, January 26, 2021 Healthy Teen Network is currently seeking 18-26 year-old parents, who were in foster care around age 17, or have "aged-out" of the system, to participate in a new research projects centering and understanding the needs of young parents during the pandemic. Participants will receive compensation of $50 or $95, depending on how they choose to engage with the project. View the complete flyer here. For those interested, please email...

By First Focus on Children, January 26, 2021 Join us for a conversation with First Focus for Children and the Center for the Study of Social Policy to examine the history of racism within the child welfare system on Friday, January 29th at 12:00pm EST. This is the first in a series of public conversations on child welfare and race equity. You can tune in to the conversation on Facebook Live on January 29th — and we invite you to join us using # FosterUnderstanding . [ Please click here to...

By Megan Conn, The Imprint, January 13, 2021 Ten months into a deadly pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on society and the economy, a federal relief package bundled extra child welfare money to states with a new rule: You can’t let foster youth age out into adulthood during the ongoing coronavirus emergency. The news was welcomed by New York child welfare advocates, who had spent much of the past year appealing to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for a statewide moratorium on aging out of foster...