The Center for the Advancement of Mentoring & USDOJ, OJJDP: Everyone benefits when mentoring programs engage mentees’ parents and caregivers—youth, mentors, and the program as a whole. Parents and caregivers have important roles to play in many aspects of the mentoring relationship: enrolling their child in the program, communicating concerns and questions to program staff, and helping to create a positive match closure experience for their child. Mentoring programs that succeed in involving parents and caregivers are more likely to reach their program goals. Reaching out to parents and caregivers throughout their child’s mentoring experience and enabling them to connect with each other and with needed community services can help programs achieve positive outcomes for youth, families, and the community at large. Link to Tip Sheet
Category Archives: CA&N Resources
Nursing Notes Newsletter
Nursing Notes is a newsletter developed by Illinois Department of Children’s and Family Services, DCFS Child Welfare Nurse Specialists (CWNS) for DCFS and POS agency staff.
Each issue of this newsletter will provide helpful health-related information that you can use to help the families you serve maintain a safe and positive home environment, ensuring safety, well-being and permanency for their children. You may click on the links below to access the newsletter by month issued. July 2012; June 2012; May 2012; April 2012; March 2012; February 2012; January 2012; December 2011; November 2011
Religious Attendance of Child Welfare-Involved Caregivers and Youth.
Children and Family Research Center: Conclusion: Children are more likely to attend religious services when their caregivers attend religious services. This is true in the general population, and it is true for maltreated children who remain with their parents following an investigation and for children in foster care placements. Maltreating parents are less likely to attend religious services than foster parents, so it is likely that in addition to changes in their home and school, children entering foster care will also be experiencing changes in how often they attend religious services. Not enough is known about religious attendance and its meaning among children in substitute care to know if this type of change will have a positive or negative effect on the well-being of children entering foster care. Additional research that examines the effects of religious attendance on youth well-being outcomes, including youth in foster care, is needed. Link to Research Brief
Information Packet: LGBTQ Youth Permanency.
National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections: Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or questioning (LGBTQ) youth fear that their families will reject them if they disclose their sexual identity. LGBTQ youth continue to suffer from the effects of discrimination within the child welfare system. They can find themselves in group homes where they endure peer bullying that is often tacitly or expressly condoned by staff. Foster parents may pressure LGBTQ youth to somehow change or suppress their sexual identities or may send them back to their agencies. Eventually, such foster parents become known to their agencies, which accommodate them by not sending them LGBTQ youth. Unsurprisingly, permanency is rarely considered an option for these youth. Link to Information Packet Contains a Fact Sheet, Best Practice Tips and a long list of links to additional resources to help with this population.
Disproportionality Rates for Children of Color in Foster Care
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, USDOJ, OJJDP: Children of color are disproportionately represented in the United States foster care system. In most states, there are higher proportions of African American/Black and Native American children in foster care than in the general child population. In some states, Hispanic/Latino children are disproportionately represented. This Technical Assistance Bulletin presents disproportionality rates for all 50 states. Starting in 1997, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (P.L. 105-89) required child welfare agencies to submit data regarding children in foster care to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). Released annually, the AFCARS data include the number of children who have entered foster care, the number who have exited foster care, and the number who are still in foster care at the end of the year. The dataset also contains the race of each child. The 2007 Government Accountability Office report identified every state’s disproportionality index using 2004 population estimates from the U.S. Census and 2004 AFCARS data. We have duplicated these calculations using the same sources for 2000 and have included 2010 data for comparison. Some states have substantially reduced their disproportionality. Other states show slight increases or decreases, or have remained consistent in the ten-year time span. Link to TA Bulletin Michigan is said to have disproportionality about average for African Americans, better than average for Latinos and no disproportionality for Native Americans.
What Every Parent Should Know About Social Security
Parents play a critical role in the success of the Social Security program. The program is designed to ensure continuing income to families when a worker retires, dies or becomes disabled. To get the most of Social Security’s family protection features, it’s important that you as a parent are aware of such things as who can get benefits on your Social Security record, how to build Social Security credits over your working life, and how to obtain and use Social Security information in planning family financial security. Link to Social Security Administration Web Site
Related Information
- Social Security Numbers For Children
- Popular Baby Names
- Understanding The Benefits
- Benefits For Children
- Benefits For Children With Disabilities
- Apply for Disability Benefits – Child (Under Age 18)
- Supplemental Security Income (SSI) booklet
- Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Provides free or low-cost health coverage for more than 7 million children up to age 19.