Child Well-Being

The Racial Justice Organization Assessment Tools for Court

Final Report – February 2023 Executive Summary In July of 2020, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) resolved to “intensify efforts to combat racial prejudice within the justice system, both explicit and … Read More

Highlights from a special issue of Family Court Review

Vivek Sankaran and Christopher Church turn the current “master narrative” about securing “permanency” for children on its head.  That false narrative, pushed hardest by those who hate birth parents (and yes, that’s the right word) claims that only adoption guarantees a … Read More

Federal and State Resources for Students Experiencing Homelessness

Daniel Espinoza, Michael Griffith, Dion Burns, and Patrick M. Shields Executive Summary Approximately 1.3 million public school students in the United States were identified as experiencing some form of homelessness in 2019–20. Due to their unstable living situations, students experiencing … Read More

Child Exploitation Resources for the K-12 Community

Protect children from exploitation by recognizing the risk factors and warning signs, knowing how to respond, and supporting students who have been victimized. Child exploitation can take many forms and affect young people of any background, demographic, or geographic location. … Read More

Four Ways That Courts Can Actively Engage Children and Youth Involved in Child Welfare Proceedings.

Children and youth are experts on their own lives, but often they are not engaged meaningfully in their own child welfare cases by court professionals. They frequently have little or no power over important aspects of their lives that are … Read More

Transforming Experience Through HOPE

Grounded in the work of the HOPE National Resource Center, this module builds understanding of how positive early experiences can set us on trajectories that promote health and well-being and result in good outcomes later in life. READ MORE

Tools That Teach: What is Human Trafficking?

The Blue Campaign infographic resources will help you to answer the question, “What is Human Trafficking?”  Please help to bring this crime out of the shadows by sharing these materials on social media. WATCH VIDEO

Barriers to Authentic Youth Engagement in Permanency Planning

The Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency (QIC-EY) is a cooperative agreement, funded by the Children’s Bureau, which is charged with advancing child welfare programs and practice to ensure that children and youth in the child welfare … Read More

Webinar Features Intentional Approaches for Partnering With Individuals With Lived Experience in an Agency Setting

AdoptUSKids hosted a webinar, “Peer Support Matters: Strategies to Incorporate and Elevate Those With Lived Experience in Your Support of Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Families,” that provides strategies for agencies to intentionally include those with lived experience into their support programs. The … Read More

Gender Differences in Sexual Well-Being and Sexual Identity Development among Youth Formerly in the Foster Care System in the United States

Abstract Little research has heretofore examined differences in the sexual well-being and sexual health outcomes between female and male youth in the foster care system. This cross-sectional study examined these differences and as well as how sexual identity development impacts … Read More