mamendez

About Melissa Mendez

Melissa Batalden Mendez, MSW, LICSW is the Title IV-E Field Coordinator at CASCW. She coordinates the field placements for MSW students who are receiving the Title IV-E child welfare stipend through CASCW. She leads a special Title IV-E field placement program at Hennepin County.

May 2016

Foster Youth Perceptions on Educational Well-Being

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00May 2nd, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Today's Guest Blogger is Micheline Mutombo Floyd Harris. I extracted my article entitled Foster Youth Perceptions on Educational Well-Being from the Families in Society Journal. The article was published in 2015, and focuses on the educational disparities between foster care youth and youth in kinship care in the state of Vermont. The article highlights school [...]

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Adopted Children Left Homeless, While Parents Still Get Money to Care for Them

By |2016-05-02T11:10:59-05:00May 2nd, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , |

Today's Guest Blogger is Mary Laderer. This article follows the stories of three adopted youth who ended up homeless and later found out that their adoptive parents were still receiving money from the government to care for them. The article asserts that there are loopholes in many states for adoptive parents to continue to receive [...]

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April 2016

Muslim Orphans Caught between Islam and the West

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00April 27th, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , , , |

Today's guest blogger is Asha Islaw. My blog post is based off an article written by Rachel Zoll for The Washington Post, which was printed on Sunday January 2, 2011. The article is titled Muslim Orphans Caught between Islam and the West. I chose to write about this article and topic because it’s a topic [...]

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Gillibrand Seeks to Modernize Foster Care System, Get Children into Homes

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00April 27th, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , , , , |

Today's guest blogger is Matt Roesler. This article discusses a new bi-partisan U.S. Senate Bill S.2574 titled “Modernizing the Interstate Placement of Children in Foster Care Act”. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Grassley, Gillibrand, Franken, Peters and Blumenthal. The bill aims to streamline placement of children into foster homes regardless of state lines. Currently [...]

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Adoption Agencies in Need of Volunteers

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00April 21st, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , , |

Today's Guest Blogger is Lea Stucci. The article that I chose was from ABC News, which aired on February 13, 2016, and was written by Joi Marie Mckenzie. It is titled, Adoption Agencies Don't Just Need Parents, They Need Volunteers. This article talks specifically about an organization in New York that needs volunteers to care [...]

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By Virtue or Design? Higher Placement Stability in Kinship Foster Care

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00April 21st, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , , , |

Today's guest blogger is Shea Gregory This 2015 study, conducted by Sarah A. Font of the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center, examines the circumstances surrounding stability of kinship placements. Using data from the state of Wisconsin, this study goes beyond exploring whether kinship care placements (KC) are more stable than non-relative foster [...]

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Taking Another Look at the Case of a Stalled Adoption: a response to Brandon Stahl’s Article “After adoption stalls, would-be mother speaks out”

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00April 13th, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , , , |

Today's Guest Blogger is Krysta Sather The child welfare system in Minnesota has been under scrutiny since the tragic death of a young boy. Those in the child welfare system and individuals following the changes to the child welfare system in response to the media attention likely know the watchdog reporter from the Star Tribune, [...]

“Is she happy? Is she loved? Remembering the girl who was almost my daughter”

By |2016-12-01T19:32:51-06:00April 13th, 2016|Categories: Stability, Permanency, and Adoption|Tags: , , , |

Today's Guest Blogger is Bethany Janson. The article I chose for our Blog Post Assignment was from The Washington Post in the “On Parenting” section on the topic of International Adoption. The article, “Is she happy? Is she loved? Remembering the girl who was almost my daughter,” written by Sharon Van Epps on November 25, 2015, [...]

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