Category Archives: CA&N Resources

Improving the Economic Security of Children in Foster Care

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Improving the Economic Security of Children in Foster Care and Young People Who are Transitioning from Foster Care: A Guide to Eligibility and Access to Food Assistance, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid.

This guide discusses ways to help foster children and youth who age out of foster care to access critical public benefits including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program (SNAP), the School Lunch Program, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). This guide is written for state and local child welfare advocates and human services staff. Link to pdf Guide

Innovative Foster Child Education Project Goes Statewide in Indiana

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April – June 2012, Youth Law News: A bold NCYL initiative to improve the educational prospects of foster youth in one Indiana county has done so well that it’s been expanded to cover the entire state. The Foster Youth Education Initiative, or FosterEd, will go statewide in time for the 2012-13 school year. FosterEd was created just three years ago by the National Center for Youth Law. The program, created in response to national statistics highlighting the bleak educational outcomes of foster youth, was launched as a pilot project in Marion County, Indiana. FosterEd serves as a bridge between schools, families, and DCS. Its main objective is to create and mobilize a team of people advocating for foster youth at school. Education specialists provide family case managers, teachers, school administrators, foster parents, biological parents, relative caregivers, and others the skills and knowledge to identify foster youth’s educational strengths and to ensure that their educational needs are being met. FosterEd requires that education case plans be prepared and implemented for every foster youth. The program supports these youth as they progress through school; from children in Early Head Start to teens planning for college. Link to Article

Can Antipsychotic Medications for Foster Children Be Better Regulated?

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April – June 2012, Youth Law News: Foster children are medicated with antipsychotic and other psychotropic medications far more often than other children in the United States. The long-term effects on the developing brains of children and adolescents are unknown. The side effects include significant health risks that in some cases are life-threatening, but the rationale for medicating tens of thousands of foster children is unclear, as few foster children are psychotic. Certainly the drugs’ sedative effects may make life easier for foster parents and group home attendants. An adolescent who is passive or even lethargic demands less attention than an active, obstreperous, and rebellious one. Concern that antipsychotic drugs in the foster care context often benefit caretakers at the expense of their foster children has led to many calls for better regulation. “Better regulation” generally means “less use” in the minds of those who have expressed concern. Link to Article

How AdoptUSKids Uses Social Media

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AdoptUSKids uses social media to accomplish two primary goals.

1.  We use social media as a tool for raising awareness – awareness about the need for foster and adoptive families, about free resources available to them, workshops or webinars, and more. This use of social media is directed both to families and to child welfare professionals.

2.  The second is child-specific recruitment on behalf of various public agencies. We feature one individual child and one sibling group on our website each week, and when the caseworker has granted permission, we also feature those children through our social media channels. Link to PowerPoint Presentation

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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NCTSN is a federally funded network of independent grantees, not a national membership organization. The NCTSN is intended to serve as a resource on child traumatic stress for other professionals and the public. Link to NCTSN Home

For Example:

What is a Trauma-Informed Child- and Family-Service System?

A trauma-informed child- and family-service system is one in which all parties involved recognize and respond to the impact of traumatic stress on those who have contact with the system including children, caregivers, and service providers. Programs and agencies within such a system infuse and sustain trauma awareness, knowledge, and skills into their organizational cultures, practices, and policies. They act in collaboration with all those who are involved with the child, using the best available science, to facilitate and support the recovery and resiliency of the child and family. Link to NCTSN Trauma Informed Services Web Site

The National Center for Trauma-Informed Care on SAMHSA

SAMHSA’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care (NCTIC) is a technical assistance center dedicated to building awareness of trauma-informed care and promoting the implementation of trauma-informed practices in programs and services. Trauma-informed care is an approach to engaging people with histories of trauma that recognizes the presence of trauma symptoms and acknowledges the role that trauma has played in their lives. NCTIC seeks to change the paradigm from one that asks, “What’s wrong with you?” to one that asks, “What has happened to you?” Link to SAMHSA NCTIC Web Site

Additional Resources for Trauma Informed Care

Creating Trauma-Informed Services: A Guide for Sexual Assault Programs and Their System Partners. http://www.wcsap.org/sites/wcsap.huang.radicaldesigns.org/files/uploads/resources_publications/special_editions/Trauma-Informed-Advocacy.pdf

Breaking the Silence: Trauma-Informed Behavioral Healthcare. National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare. http://www.thenationalcouncil.org/galleries/NCMagazine-gallery/NC%20 Mag%20Trauma%20Web-Email.pdf

The High Cost of Adverse Childhood Experiences. Washington State Family Policy Council. http://www.fpc.wa.gov/publications/ace_impact.pdf

Trauma-Informed Care 101 by Kathleen Guarino, Homeless Resource Center [Link…]

Trauma-Informed Organizational Toolkit. National Center on Family Homelessness. http://www.familyhomelessness.org/media/90.pdf

Widening Our Scope: Meeting The Long-Term Health Care Needs of Survivors. Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. http://www.wcsap.org/meeting-long-term-health-care-needs

Adverse Childhood Experiences Website: Response Goals

CA&N Resources

Through a partnership between the University at Albany School of Social Welfare and Prevent Child Abuse America, this website was developed to bridge the gap between ACE research data and its potential for real world application to prevent ACEs and ACE consequences through policy and program leadership, community development, and direct practice. From a policy perspective, an important reason for preventing ACEs and ACE consequences is cost-savings. A goal of this site is to connect policymakers and leaders to information about ACE-informed policies and cost-savings studies that have been developed or proposed. Link to ACE Web Site