Tag Archives: research

Meeting the Educational Needs of Students in the Child Welfare System: Lessons Learned from the Field

July 2012, Advocates for Children of New York: Over the last decade, child welfare agencies and advocates have begun to recognize that the students they serve need access to greater educational opportunities, and that education is critically important to child wellbeing, permanency planning and a successful transition to adulthood. In particular, best practices research has consistently identified education advocacy as an effective strategy to improve school stability and educational outcomes for this population of vulnerable youth. This report offers insights from one program, called Project Achieve, which pairs Advocates for Children of New York (“AFC”), a non-profit that provides education advocacy to low-income students in New York City, with local foster care and preventive services agencies. The report explains how Project Achieve works and examines its long-term impact on the children and families served by these agencies, the people who work there and the city’s child welfare system itself. Link to Report

Earlier is Better for Family Care: What Research Tells Us About Young Children and Institutionalization

August 2012, Adoption Advocate: This paper briefly summarizes four distinct sets of research on the impact of institutionalization on children. Three are seminal studies specific to the CEE/CIS1 region, covering a wide range of issues in child development. The fourth is a set of meta-analyses based on thousands of adopted children worldwide. Consistent with these studies are new and important findings on the brain development of children. The findings of these and other similar research studies are many, and can be pursued by further studying the resources highlighted in the appendix to this paper. One inescapable conclusion is clear from the research highlighted here: for the sake of their development, it is of the utmost importance for young children to be in nurturing family-based environments early in their young lives.
Link to pdf Report

Social Media in Child Welfare: Uses, Pitfalls, and Opportunities

July 26-28, NACAC Conference: AdoptUSKids’ mission is two-fold: to raise public awareness about the need for foster and adoptive families for children in the public child welfare system; and to assist U.S. States, Territories and Tribes to recruit and retain foster and adoptive families and connect them with children. The AdoptUSKids website: adoptuskids.org

Geared toward families and child welfare professionals.  Link to Slide Presentation

Grant Opportunity: R40 Maternal and Child Health Research Program (MCHR)

July 30, 2012, Grants.gov: Within the R40 MCH Research Program, funding is available in FY 2013 to support approximately six (6) extramural multi-year research projects. The R40 MCH Research Program supports applied research relating to maternal and child health services including services for children with special health care needs, which show promise of substantial contribution to advancement of the current knowledge pool, and when used in States and communities should result in health and health services improvements. Findings from the research supported by the MCH Research Program are expected to have potential for application in health care delivery programs for mothers and children. Research proposals should address critical MCH questions such as public health systems and infrastructure, health disparities, quality of care, and promoting the health of MCH populations, which also support the goals of the Health Resources and Services Administration. ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: State governments; County governments; City or township governments; Special district governments; Independent school districts; Public and State controlled institutions of higher education; Private institutions of higher education Link to Grant Synopsis

Economically Disconnected Families and the Child Welfare System.

January 2012, University of Washington. West Coast Poverty Center: Families in the child welfare system often face barriers meeting their basic needs as well as being able to retain or regain custody of their children. While some of these barriers, such as substance abuse, mental health problems, or limited income, could be addressed through employment or social service receipt, emerging research suggests that a substantial share of child welfare-involved families seems to be grappling with these issues without any connection to employment or some of the major social service programs. With support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Administration for Children and Families, researchers from Partners for Our Children and the West Coast Poverty Center examined data from a survey of child welfare-involved parents in Washington State to measure the extent and nature of “economic disconnection” among these families and to explore the relationship between disconnection and engagement in child welfare services.

This brief explores their findings. We begin with a brief overview of what is known about economic disconnection. We then present findings from the Washington State survey about how many child welfare involved families are economically disconnected and how these families’ economic circumstances and their patterns of engagement with the child welfare system compare with those of families who are connected to the labor market or social services. We end with a summary of the reactions of policymakers and practitioners to this research as well as their suggestions for extending the work in the future. Link to Brief

The Criminal Justice Response to Child Abuse: Lessons Learned and Future Directions for Research and Practice [Presentation Slides].

2012, Children and Family Research Center.

Importance of research

•  Criminal justice response to child maltreatment is important but complex and not well-understood

•  Need data to understand it and inform policy

•  However, development of policy and practice has not been data driven

•  This presentation reviews a wide range of data relevant to policy and practice

•  Most knowledge and discussion based on sensational cases that may not be representative

Link to pdf Slides