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On September 28, 2023, the U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF) issued a final rule that explicitly gives all Title IV-E child welfare agencies the option to use kin-specific foster care licensing or approval standards and encourages them to limit those standards to federal safety requirements. This change will allow more children to be cared for by those they know…
The United States Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law that has protected American Indian and Alaska Native children, their families and their communities for nearly 50 years. In the interests of vulnerable children — and in light of the cruel history that this law was written to redress — it is vital that the Indian…
In 2016, when the number of children removed from their families in the state of Arizona, USA peaked at more than 18,000, the Arizona Community Foundation gave The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com a three-year grant to support in-depth research on the topic. This report is part of that initiative and explores the racial and ethnic makeup of children in foster care, versus that of the advisory boards (Foster Care Review Boards) which are designed to "help decide the fates of children in foster care" and are meant to "mirror the races, ethnicities and income levels of…
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America’s foster care population has swelled to 428,000 children — its largest size since 2008, according to the KIDS COUNT Data Center. More children in foster care means that more families are crossing paths with the country’s child welfare system.
It’s a system that Rafael López — the managing director of Accenture’s health and public services practice — knows extremely well. Prior to working at…
This opinion piece from the Washington Post discusses how working to keep children with their families is a better option than placing them in foster homes. The article further notes that when foster children return home, they struggle to deal with their experiences. Many children end up encountering the juvenile detention center or incarceration.
The article emphasizes the importance of strengthening families, and mentions that in June, the senate introduced the bipartisan, bicameral Family First Prevention Services Act to strengthen families by doing more to keep children…
According to the advocacy organization, First Focus, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee is planning to consider new legislation known as the Family First Act in January 2016. The legislation would direct investments at keeping children safe and supported at home and in family-like settings. The Act addresses longstanding barriers in federal child welfare financing by providing targeted new investments in evidence-based prevention, intervention and post-permanency services and supports. The legislation is significant because it would allow states, for the first time, to…
This new radio report from National Public Radio (NPR) challenges some of the misconceptions about fostering, including that people foster for the money or that foster parents “must be saints to take in other people’s children”. Two main speakers, a foster parent for over 15 years to more than 40 children, and a Professor at the University of Richmond School of Law share their insight and experiences about fostering in the US context.
The two speakers highlight through personal anecdotes the many positive impacts foster parents and families can leave on…
There are over 5,400 children in the Virginia foster care system, according to the state Department of Social Services’ website. Roughly 30% of children in foster care nationally identify as LGBTQ and are often kicked out of their biological homes, ending up in foster care because their biological parents didn’t accept their sexual identity.
There are currently more than 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. While the pandemic has made life more difficult for these vulnerable kids, many say the foster care system itself has been putting them at risk for decades. Special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault sat down with one former foster child who is now on a mission to fix the system by helping families stay together.
It would take years before Molly and Heaven would learn that neither of them was ever in the foster system. Instead, caseworkers had diverted them to what some scholars call “hidden foster care” or “shadow foster care,” in which the legal protections of the formal system disappear. In the traditional child-welfare system, caseworkers investigate reports of mistreatment to make sure a child is safe. The department must try to keep children at home, but if staff members find that the danger is too great, they file for legal custody.