The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative has created an infographic aimed at educating the public on the costs of "doing nothing" to prevent youth from aging out of foster care. In an op-ed in the Huffington Post, Executive Director Gary Stangler wrote, "for every young person who ages out of foster care, taxpayers and communities [...]
When an adoption is finalized, it is the promise of a new chapter in the lives of children and parents. And while the majority of adoptive families thrive, there are some that don't fulfill the promise of a "forever family" for a child. The National Council for Adoption (NCFA)'s August issue of the Adoption Advocate [...]
Camp To Belong is a special summer camp. Along with swimming, hiking, and other fun summer activities, the children who attend get to participate in something many of us take for granted - they get to do these activities with their brothers and sisters who live in other foster or adoptive homes. Camp To Belong [...]
As of last Thursday, August 1 2013, the Family Reunification Act went into effect. This law allows foster youth 15 and older who were never adopted to have the option to reunite with their birth parents. The law stipulates that the birth parents must be able to demonstrate that they have resolved or addressed the [...]
For those of you interested in all things permanency and adoption related, the Child Welfare Information Gateway has some terrific materials. Last week I learned about the Enhancing Permanency For Youth in Out Of Home Care publication. You can download a pdf of this guide at the CWIG website. This guide discusses: The importance of [...]
A couple of weeks ago, the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare held its annual spring conference and the subject of this year's conference was the intersection of disabilities and child welfare. One of our speakers was Lupe Ortiz-Tovar, who along with her colleague Clay Fink, presented information on the National Resource Center for [...]
We had a terrific series of guest posts written by MSW students in the SW5905 Permanency in Child Welfare courses this spring. Thank you for thought-provoking blog posts! We hope everyone enjoyed the series.
This guest blog post was written by Amanda Talan. Article: Is there a (transracial) adoption achievement gap? A national longitudinal analysis of adopted children's educational performance A recent article published in Children and Youth Services Review by Elizabeth Raleigh and Grace Kao seeks to determine whether there are differences in educational attainment between adopted and [...]