Measuring progress is essential to successful quality improvement (QI) initiatives. There are three types of measures in quality improvement QI: outcome measures, process measures, and balancing measures. Taken together, these three measure types make up a family of measures. Below … Read More
Foster Care
Timely Health Care for Children and Youth in Foster Care: Getting Started on Quality Improvement
This video provides an overview of how Medicaid and child welfare agencies can start a QI project to improve timeliness of health services for children and youth entering foster care. The Model for Improvement is built on small tests of … Read More
Rethinking Peer Influence and Risk Taking: A Strengths-based Approach to Adolescence in a New Era
The past twenty-five years have witnessed two dramatic changes in adolescent mental health in the United States.The first, a dramatic decrease in a wide range of adolescent externalizing behaviors, has been fortuitous. Rates of adolescent rule- and norm-breaking behaviors have … 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
The Cycle of Violence: Effects of Violence Experience, Behavior, and Attitudes on Adolescents’ Peer Rejection Networks
Introduction In the early lifespan, children’s socio-emotional development is largely influenced by their parents or guardians (Halle and Darling-Churchill, 2016). New social relationships are established when children are at school, which is why the school peer group is of particular … Read More
Clearinghouse Approves New Mental Health, Substance Abuse Programs for Family First Act Funding
Last month, the clearinghouse that greenlights foster care prevention services approved several iterations of a mental intervention known as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, as well as a positive reinforcement approach to treating substance abuse. The clearinghouse was established in relation to … Read More
Child Welfare Law Career Guide
Introduction From the moment a child is removed from their parents and placed in foster care, everything is at stake — their home, school, community, and relationships with family and friends . Although the child welfare system was designed to … Read More
Reunification From Foster Care: A Guide for Parents
For many parents, the process of reuniting with their children who are in foster care can be overwhelming. A recently updated factsheet from Child Welfare Information Gateway provides parents with guidance for the reunification process. Reunification From Foster Care: A Guide … Read More
Children in Residential Treatment Facilities Face Multiple Risks: Senate Report
Children who are in residential treatment facilities are at risk for sexual and emotional abuse, physical restraint and overmedication, a new Senate report found. The report, conducted by the Senate Committee on Finance and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, … Read More
Children Missing From Care
Sound Policy and Practice Recommendations Key Definitions It is important for any agency drafting or implementing policies for responding to a missing child to avoid overly complicated or overly restrictive definitions. Care should be taken to ensure that each term … Read More