The recent advisory by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy highlights the significant stress faced by parents, impacting family stability and child welfare. This stress, often overlooked, stems from the challenges of balancing work, caregiving and navigating environmental demands. As … Read More
Families
The Critical Role of Parent Partner Programs: Policy and Practice Considerations
INTRODUCTION Maintaining a secure relationship with a trusted caregiver is critical for the health and well-being of infants and toddlers. When very young children are placed in out-of-home care, including foster and kinship care, problems can be compounded if the … Read More
Children’s Coalition for Northeast Louisiana to Relaunch Youth Services Planning Board
[Monroe, LA]— The Children’s Coalition of Northeast Louisiana is relaunching the 4th Judicial District Youth Services Planning Board (YSPB), a member-led board of leaders from across Morehouse and Ouachita Parishes dedicated to improving young people’s outcomes. The Board’s mission is … Read More
Capacity Building Center for Tribes Releases New Prevention Resources
The Capacity Building Center for Tribes released two new prevention resources: a brief on family-strengthening prevention practices and definitions and a guide highlighting culturally relevant services and supports for child welfare programs. The Capacity Building Center for Tribes Prevention Brief defines each stage of … Read More
The Importance of Father Engagement in Family-Centered Reunification
In January 2024, the National Quality Improvement Center on Family-Centered Reunification (QIC-R) presented a webinar, “Building a Culture of Father Engagement to Enrich Family-Centered Reunification,” which focused on the importance of including fathers in the child welfare system. The webinar reviews the … Read More
WHAT YOUNG LEADERS WANT — AND DON’T WANT —FROM OLDER ALLIES
America today is one of the most age-diverse societies in history. Sadly, it is also one of the most age segregated, with older and younger people’s paths rarely crossing outside of families. The combination of age diversity and age segregation … Read More
2023 State of Grandfamilies Report Release Event
Over 2.4 million children in the United States are living in grandfamilies. These are families where grandparents, other relatives, or close family friends are raising children because the children’s parents are unable to do so. The report aims to bring … Read More
Adoption and Guardianship for Children in Kinship Foster Care
The laws dictating how adoption and guardianship are granted, by which court, and what those options entail are developed at the state and tribal levels, so the intricacies for obtaining these legal relationships differ. The Brief The brief provides general … Read More
Thriving Families Safer Children Supportive Communities
Today in America, some 377,000 children are living in foster care, each child removed from their home, family and the network of caregivers, educators and other caring adults in their lives. This staggering number is also a measure of how we as a nation are faring in our responsibility to ensure that every child in every community has the opportunity to grow up in their own family connected to the people, places and cultures that will help them thrive. This report shares examples of how communities are actively partnering with families to build the foundation of a better approach, how they are using new tools and approaches to better address the needs of families and children, and how they are investing effectively to ensure thriving families, safer children and supportive communities. Engaging effectively with lived experiences. The growing movement of Thriving Families, Safer Children Broadening our lens from a focus solely on child protection to one of child and family well-being will require more than just improving our current approach to investigating and addressing maltreatment. It will require designing and building a new approach, one that draws on the commitment and talents of people across all five sectors of society: government, business, philanthropic, nonprofit and faithbased, and, critically, the families and children themselves. The voices of those children and families, especially those whose lives have been shaped by their involvement with the child welfare system, have too often been left out of the discussions about how communities can improve, and ultimately transform, their approach to child and family well-being. That is beginning to change. More and more, the voices of young adults who experienced foster care and the parents and families who overcame challenges and obstacles to stay connected to and raise their children are not only being heard in the discussion, they are being valued. They are moving into leadership positions to help other children and families draw on resilience, hope and support to heal and move forward toward a better future. Read More
Investing in Families Prevents Child Welfare Involvement
The path forward is clear: strengthening household financial security can reduce child abuse and neglect by improving the opportunity for parents to meet their children’s basic needs, provide developmentally appropriate child care, and reduce parental stress and depression, both risk … Read More