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Georgia has a crisis on its hands. It’s the slow-growing kind: one where kids grow up with family and neighborhood violence, drop out of school and struggle as adults to support themselves and their own family. And while far too many policymakers neglect the issues that impact kids and families, organizations like CHRIS 180 are working to shift the trajectories of families dealing with the trauma of violence and poverty. Click here to read more and learn about this organization's impact on...

“Imagine a community where all children are happy and healthy.” The beginning of the New Year provides the perfect opportunity to dream big dreams like this — when virtually anything is possible. A recent series of meetings convened by “BRICK,” a group of Louisville leaders committed to B uilding R esilience I n our C ommunity’s K ids, invited participants to imagine how to make this wish come true for Louisville by exploring new ways of approaching historically vexing problems. The result...

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...

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...

The number of children in foster care has increased for the third straight year. Foster parent shortages have been reported in at least 24 states , with children staying in offices and hotels. The move by some states to close residential programs will only exacerbate these shortages. At the same time, many current foster homes are failing to provide the nurturing and attention that their wards so desperately need. Yet child welfare leaders are surprisingly devoid of bold and creative ideas...

The Chadwick Center for Children & Families at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego has just released a set of trauma-informed guidelines with concrete strategies for approaching secondary traumatic stress (STS). While these guidelines were created for intended use within child welfare systems, they may be easily adapted into other child-and family-serving organizations. These guidelines were created as part of the Chadwick Trauma-Informed Systems Dissemination and Implementation Project...

While many families encounter child welfare and never become involved in the legal system, a large majority of open child welfare cases are court involved. This means that most of the major decisions being made about children and families are occurring the court room. Lately, we've all seen a lot of news, discussion and stories about trauma-informed judges and trauma-informed courts. Trauma-informed courts are important everywhere, but especially in child welfare. As a child welfare worker,...

There is an urgency to ensure each child’s needs are addressed when he or she enters foster care. Children in this system have greater health needs and frequently suffer from higher rates of behavioral and learning problems that are often misdiagnosed as ADHD. Fortunately, we now have a guide on how to get these children in foster care the care they need. Recently, at a meeting sponsored by CMS Health Care Payment and Learning Action Network on how to pay for quality health care, reports...

“Sometimes he would choke me until I passed out,” -- 16-year-old Alina said

In May, a couple hundred technologists, child welfare experts and foster youth gathered on the grounds of the White House for the first foster care hackathon to reach such national prominence. During the last hour of the two-day event , Rafael López, who leads President Obama’s Administration for Children, Youth and Families , offered a chance for participants to share their commitments in regards to fomenting increased use of technology in child welfare. One of the hands that went up was...

A commission released its recommendations to fix Washington state’s faulty system that delivers services to children and families by breaking up the agency out of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and creating a new, independent department addressing the needs of children 21 years old and younger. The proposal would dramatically realign the current system, including the state’s foster care system, by taking the Children’s Administration out of DSHS and combining it with the...

“I didn’t know how to be a mom,” Lisa Galvan said. “I was used to being by myself. It was really hard for me to adjust and even for the kids to adjust because I never was around. So when I came back out [of rehab] they gave them back to me, and within a month I started using again.” By the time Galvan was 20, she had three children and had been using meth for seven years. She had been a drug addict for far longer than she’d been a mother, and when she tried to get sober, she found out she...