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This bulletin outlines the importance of disaster planning in child welfare and discusses how caseworkers, with the help of their supervisors, can prepare themselves and the children, youth, and families on their caseloads for emergencies. It also provides direction for child welfare staff on response and recovery strategies they can use should disasters occur in their communities.
Abstract
Youth in child welfare often experience emergency shelter care, a type of congregate setting, while a permanent placement is arranged. The present longitudinal study explored the impact of initial emergency shelter placement on long-term externalizing behavior (i.e., aggression, delinquency) and internalizing symptom (i.e., anxiety, depression) trajectories, and whether kinship involvement moderated the effect of shelter placement on behavioral outcomes. The sample consisted of 282 youths (55.3% male) with an average age of 9.90 years (SD = 2.37); 36.9% experienced…
The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (The Alliance) is an interagency coalition of nearly 100 member organizations that work together to protect children facing adversity. The Better Care Network (BCN) is an international network of organizations committed to supporting children without adequate family care. To reduce the impact of family separation on children, we are calling for the prompt reunification…
Abstract
As violence, inequity and poverty pervade El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the number of children, family units and adults seeking refuge in the United States (US) continues to increase. Upon apprehension by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE), children enter a labyrinthine immigration system that can be further traumatizing and threatening to their health and well-being. The purpose of this article is to describe the impact of current and evolving immigration policy on the health of…
This resource from the U.S. National Child Traumatic Stress Network provides tips for current caregivers and others to help address the needs of immigrant and refugee children who have experienced traumatic separation. The relationship with a parent is critical to a child’s sense of self, safety, and trust. Separations from parents and siblings— especially under sudden, chaotic, or unpredictable circumstances such as those related to war, refugee, immigration, or detention experiences—may lead children to develop depression, anxiety, or separation-related traumatic stress symptoms. This…
Abstract
Tougher immigration enforcement has been responsible for approximately 1.8 million deportations between 2009 and 2013 alone. Children enter the foster care system when their parents are apprehended, deported and unable to care for them. We find that the average increase in interior immigration enforcement over the 2001 through 2015 period contributed to raising the share of Hispanic children in foster care anywhere between 15 and 21 percent. The effects appear to be driven by the implementation of police-based local initiatives linked to deportations, as in the case of the Secure…
This document reports on the status of children who remain in psychiatric hospitals, emergency shelters, and detention facilities in Illinois, US. In 2015, there were approximately 168 children who were hospitalized beyond medical necessity; 380 children who remained in emergency shelter beyond 30 days, and the audit reported “no available data” on children who remained in a detention facility solely because placement cannot be located.
The audit examined samples of the different populations and found that children in the populations examined had issues in their past that made…
This report is published in light of the recent “large-scale flight of unaccompanied children from Central America” to the United States, which reached its peak in the summer of 2014. The report evolved out of, and is informed by, a series of three “Roundtable” meetings convened by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) in 2014 to consider current and ideal practice with unaccompanied children in the US.
The report presents policy and practice recommendations for the care and protection of unaccompanied children, based on the wisdom and learning shared by the participants in these…
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
By the end of 2011, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began to see a steady rise in the number of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) from Central America, particularly from the Northern Triangle countries—El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—arriving to the US-Mexico border. The number of children entering the United States from these countries more than doubled during fiscal year (FY) 2012 and continued to grow through FY 2014. In FY 2013, CBP apprehended over 35,000 children. That number almost doubled to 66,127 in FY 2014, with Central American…
This report, issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, examines the situation and needs of unaccompanied children who emigrate from Central America and Mexico to the United States, and offers recommendations based on those needs. The report also features demographic information, including the age, gender, family structure, language, education, and country/region of origin of these unaccompanied migrant children.
Four hundred and four children were interviewed in this study and asked to share their reasons for leaving their countries of origin. The most common responses…