Source: MN DHS Child Welfare Continuous Improvement Brief 1 A little over a week ago this Star Tribune article reported that Minnesota's high foster care re-entry rate may cause the state to incur a large federal financial penalty for failing to meet the national standard. According to the article, the national standard is 9.9 percent while Minnesota [...]
This blog post was written by Joan Riebel, LICSW, Executive Director of Family Alternatives in Minnesota. Family Alternatives is a licensed foster care and adoption agency. Andrea Brubaker's blog post on San Pasqual Academy caused me to share our experiences as well. For any child, being removed from her family is a traumatic experience, regardless [...]
This post is written by the Stability, Permanency, and Adoption MSW Intern, Andrea Brubaker. As an alternative design to placing children in foster care in permanent families, the non-profit group home San Pasqual Academy near San Diego, CA offers a place for youth in foster care to live, attend high school, learn job skills, and [...]
November is only a few weeks away and to herald the beginning of National Adpotion Month, Minnesota Adoption Resource Network (MARN) is celebrating families that have adopted Minnesota Waiting Children with its annual Circus of the Heart on November 3rd. Funded by the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Circus of the Heart has fun activities [...]
The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition in St. Louis, Missouri got inspired by the show Extreme Makeovers and thought, why not "extreme recruitment" for youth in foster care? Thus, Extreme Recruitment was created. In Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a house is build in a week through the efforts of professionals and volunteers working together to [...]
[Photo by Samantha Sais for Reuters] A few weeks ago, Reuters journalist Megan Twohey's in-depth investigative report about rehoming in adoption was big news in the adoption world, particularly for those interested in intercountry adoption. The five part series included: Part 1: The NetworkPart 2: The DangersPart 3: The MiddlemenPart 4: The FailuresPart 5: The [...]
Last week the Donaldson Adoption Institute released its newest policy perspective titled, "A Need To Know: Enhancing Adoption Competency Among Mental Health Professionals. The report highlights the difficulty that adoptive families face when seeking clinical therapeutic services in finding practitioners who have a deep level understanding and training in permanency and adoption. While many therapists [...]
According to a study by researcher Alice Home, from the University of Ottawa School of Social Work, the major challenges for Canadian adoptive parents are finding and accessing post-adoption support and services, and getting a diagnosis and then understanding what that means for a child with special needs. Particularly challenging for parents who adopt internationally [...]
