Author Archives: Jamar Little

2024 Race for Results Report

The U.S. child welfare system has historically performed poorly when it comes to supporting children and youth of color. In 2014, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a report, Race for Results, detailing racial disparities and disproportionality using 12 well-being indicators. … Read More

Leveraging Technology to Empower Families: Supporting Foster Parents’ Essential Role in Child Welfare

Within the world of child welfare, foster parents (including those providing kinship and relative foster care) are often the unsung heroes in the lives of many children and young adults. Sometimes, with little advance notice or under challenging circumstances, these … Read More

Analysis From a State-by-State Survey of Kinship Care Policies

A recent survey conducted by Child Trends for the Annie E. Casey Foundation sheds light on the evolving landscape of kinship care policies across states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To be released in a five-part series of … Read More

The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Anxiety Disorders

Introduction As the global issue of mental health conditions has grown in prominence, mental health is no longer a foreign concept. Among the many mental health conditions identified by professionals, anxiety disorders are considered to be one of the most … Read More

Tackling the Rising Incidence of Financial Sexual Extortion

Introduction The fight against financial sexual extortion requires collaboration, technological awareness, legislative support, adaptive strategies, and a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced to protect victims and prevent harm. On 31 January 2024 CEOs from social media giants Meta (the parent … Read More

Promoting Anti-racist Child Welfare Practice

Study authors interviewed 16 regional- and state-level public child welfare agency administrators representing 13 states on the inequities they see in the child welfare system, the major challenges they’ve experienced advancing antiracist practice, and strategies they believe will be successful … Read More

Report Uses Strategic Foresight to Explore the Future Conditions of Young Adults Exiting Foster Care

On the Threshold of Change: Forces That Could Transform Future Conditions for Youth in Extended Foster Care (EFC), a report by the Institute for the Future, the Youth Law Center, and the California Youth Connection, uses strategic foresight to present … Read More

Preferred Practices to Retain Black Female Case Workers Employed in Child Welfare

The problem addressed by this study was that the turnover rate among social workers has been highest for Black female child-welfare caseworkers. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of Black female child-welfare caseworkers and … Read More

Meeting Family Needs: A Multi-System Policy Framework for Child and Family Well-Being

INTRODUCTION Across the social service sector and in communities nationwide, a consensus is emerging: there is a need to create a family and child well-being system that buoys families facing adversity and helps them thrive. This system must be designed … Read More

From Foster Care to Secure Housing: How Vouchers Help Young Adults Build Self-Sufficiency

The number of adults living at home is at an all-time high, with about 45% of people ages 18 to 29 reporting they stay at their parents’ home largely because the nationwide affordable housing shortage makes it too expensive for many young … Read More