Safety Permanency & Wellbeing

The What, Why, and How of Collecting and Analyzing Demographic Data to Improve Equity in Child Welfare

Introduction This brief summarizes practices related to collecting detailed demographic data—such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression—and other data to measure equity in child welfare. We compiled these data practices from an environmental scan of academic … Read More

Trauma-Informed Housing: A Toolkit for Advancing Equity and Economic Opportunity in Affordable Housing

We know that when life hits us with stressful, overwhelming, or traumatic experiences, we’re more likely to bounce back – be resilient – when we have healthy ways to cope and a supportive environment. A safe, affordable place to call home … Read More

Birth and Foster Parent Partnership: Directory of Strategies and Resources

The Birth and Foster Parent Partnership (BFPP) was formed in 2016 to support birth parents, foster families and kinship care providers in building connections and using their voices to transform systems, policies, and practices to improve permanency outcomes for children … Read More

Transracial Adoption Conversations (T.R.A.C.) Coaching: Engaging Transracial Adoptive Caregivers in Conversations on Race and Meeting Children’s Racial Identity Needs Over the Lifespan

Transracial adoptions continue to grow in the United States, and transracial adoptions have outpaced the growth of same race adoptions. Between 2005-2007 and 2017-2019, the number of transracial adoptions increased by 58% while the number of same race adoptions increased … Read More

Building and Sustaining Data Analytics Capacity

INTRODUCTION U.S. states, tribes, and territories regularly send the administrative data they collect from human services programs to federal agencies to meet compliance requirements. Administrative data, however, can be leveraged beyond reporting to gain a deeper understanding of program operations, … Read More

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

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

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