permanency

Readers are introduced to the complexities often present when working with adolescents in foster care. Solutions and innovations for improving practice are provided.

Stability is often elusive for children and youth in out-of-home care. This issue presents a variety of research findings and perspectives in order to address this need.

Articles include research and federal policy related to placement stability, ways in which workers, advocates, and agencies can help youth achieve stability, and perspectives of individuals directly and indirectly involved in helping youth attain stability.

This issue of CW360° explores permanency and supporting transitions to adulthood for youth in foster care. The issue provides updates to our 2009 issue, titled Permanency or Aging Out: Adolescents in the Child Welfare System. The current issue highlights ways in which our knowledge has grown and evolved over the past decade while also identifying areas still requiring our attention and continued examination.

The focus of this issue of CW360 is supporting birth and foster parent partnerships and fostering collaboration among caregivers for children in care. In this issue, we explore the history and dynamics of these relationships, promising programs to promote birth and foster parent connections, and hear from many folks with lived child welfare experience.

The aim of the study was to identify potential links between out-of-home placement characteristics and the likelihood and timing of initial contact with the juvenile justice system for Minnesota youth.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a law school clinic that provides free legal representation to parents who have had their children removed from their care. Specifically, we examined the quality of (1) legal representation provided by a student- and faculty-run law clinic to parents involved in the foster care system, and (2) education received by student attorneys.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the educational outcomes of youth involved in Child Protective Services (CPS) at varying levels, including involvement in an accepted case of child protection (CP) and involvement in out-of-home placement (OHP). This study focused on analyzing the achievement gap associated with involvement in CPS, and determined whether more extensive involvement in CPS yielded increasingly negative academic outcomes.