A recent study validates past claims that Asian Americans, as a whole, constitute relatively lower risk for reports of child maltreatment. However, the study also found that within this group, patterns of child maltreatment exist among different Asian and Pacific Islander ethnic groups.

Two years of child maltreatment referrals for Asian and Pacific Islander families in Washington State were analyzed. Data were recorded for 1,263 families from 12 Asian and Pacific Islander groups: Asian Indian, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Samoan, and Guamanian.

Researchers found certain variations among the different ethnic groups. Samoan, Cambodian, Thai, Lao, and Vietnamese families were overrepresented in CPS reports, compared with their representation in the State’s Asian and Pacific Islander population. For example, Samoan families make up only 1.7 percent of the Asian American population in Washington but had the largest proportion of CPS referrals. The overrepresented groups tended to be those that have experienced higher levels of social and economic stress. On the other hand, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Filipino families were underrepresented.

These findings highlight the importance of culturally sensitive child welfare practices. As Asian and Pacific Islanders continue to be one of the fastest growing racial groups in the United States, the need for culturally competent services for this community also will expand. Service providers should be aware of the differences among the ethnic groups within the Asian and Pacific Islander population, including differences in their social and economic backgrounds, immigration history, and parenting practices.

This article, "Patterns of Child Maltreatment Referrals Among Asian and Pacific Islander Families," by Y. Pelczarski and S. P. Kemp, appeared in the January/February 2006 issue of Child Welfare Journal, which is published by the Child Welfare League of America (http://www.cwla.org/child-welfare-journal/).

Caseworkers who place children across State lines for foster care, kinship care, or adoption face a number of barriers. Recent developments at the national level reflect the efforts of stakeholders and the Federal Government to address these challenges.

New Interstate Compact

A new Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC) has been written to address many of the barriers that States face when they attempt to place children across State lines. Currently, all States and the District of Columbia are members of the original ICPC, which was written in 1960 and later approved by the individual State legislatures. Despite its unanimous adoption by States, many policymakers, caseworkers, and casework supervisors have noted problems with the current ICPC, especially as it relates to timeliness for adoption.

The new compact attempts to eliminate some of the ambiguities in the original compact, as well as narrow the scope of applicability, provide for enforcement, and comply with Federal regulations for the timely placement of children. A task force of stakeholders from State social services, national organizations, the private sector, and the Federal Government has been working on the revision for 2 years, convened by the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA).

Among its highlights, this new charter:

• Narrows the applicability of the ICPC, such that it does not apply to intercountry adoptions or to most placements of children made by their parents; the focus of the new ICPC is on children involved with the child welfare system
• Clarifies the authority of the courts and judicial officers in the retention of jurisdiction
• Provides a child-centered definition of the assessment of a prospective placement (home study)
• Specifies the responsibilities of the sending and receiving States
• Creates an Interstate Commission, including rules for its operation, authority, and funding

As with the original ICPC, each State’s legislature will need to approve this new compact before it can be applied in that State.

The full text of the proposed ICPC and a document that lists highlights are available on the APHSA website:

www.aphsa.org/Home/Doc/Interstate-Compact-for-the-Placement-of-Children.pdf (PDF - 123 KB)

www.aphsa.org/Home/Doc/Highlights-of-New-ICPC.pdf (PDF - 102 KB)

(Editor's note: The above links are no longer active. For more information about ICPC, visit the website for the Association of Administrators of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, an affiliate of APHSA, at

.)

Federal Leadership in Interjurisdictional Placement

The Federal Government has provided leadership in interjurisdictional placement through Children's Bureau initiatives. In 2004, the Bureau commissioned a survey of States to identify promising practices for the placement of children across State lines. The purpose of the survey, conducted in 2005, was to inform and guide the Children’s Bureau’s technical assistance strategy to the States in the area of interjurisdictional placement. Information about promising interjurisdictional practices gathered from survey respondents has been shared with State foster care and adoption managers in regional round tables and with the ICPC Administrators at their annual conference. Additional activities based on the recommendations developed by the survey workgroup are planned for the future, including a cross-State website for State-specific information on home approval practices and child placement procedures. Following up on this survey, a Report to Congress was drafted to inform lawmakers about these issues and the ways in which Federal agencies and State governments have addressed interjurisdictional placement.

Related Items

Children’s Bureau Express covered the ICPC in the following articles:

• "Placing Children Across States" (February 2006)
• "Newly Modified APHSA Database to Assist With ICPC" (November/December 2001)

A comparison of outcomes for 14 programs that used intensive family preservation services (IFPS) found that 4 programs that adhered closely to the Homebuilders® model significantly reduced out-of-home placement and subsequent abuse and neglect. On the other hand, the non-Homebuilders programs produced no significant effect on either outcome.

The Homebuilders program is designed to provide intensive services to families at imminent risk of removal of their children. Families in the program are assigned to a single therapist who has a caseload of no more than two or three families and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a period of 4 to 6 weeks. The services usually take place in the home and include parenting and other skills to empower the family to solve their problems and provide a safe home environment.

This study, Intensive Family Preservation Programs: Program Fidelity Influences Effectiveness, is available on the Washington State Institute for Public Policy website:

www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/06-02-3901.pdf (PDF - 44 KB)

Related Item

An earlier report on this topic was presented in Children's Bureau Express in "Evaluation of Family Preservation and Reunification" (August 2003).

An innovative parent training program for foster and birth parents resulted in gains in positive parenting and showed promise for improving overall child and family welfare for families with children in foster care. The unique aspect of this program was a co-parenting component, in which foster parents and birth parents were paired for their participation. The training included positive discipline practices, collaborative parenting, and family systems strategies.

One hundred and twenty-eight parents (64 biological and foster pairs) of maltreated children placed in short-term foster care underwent the 12-week intervention or received usual care (the control condition). Outcomes at completion and at a 3-month follow-up were compared for the two groups in terms of parenting practices and child behavior.

Findings of this study indicate that biological and foster parents in the intervention group showed improvements in positive parenting practices, parental expectations, and collaborative co-parenting more often than those in the usual care condition. In addition, there was a trend for fewer child externalizing problems in the intervention group.

This study, "A Promising Parenting Intervention in Foster Care," by L. O. Linares, D. Montalto, M. Li, and V. S. Oza, was published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 74(1), and is available on the website of the American Psychological Association at http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/74/1/32/.

Family reunification can be delayed for families involved with child welfare when parents with substance abuse are slow to access treatment. A recent study found that substance-abusing parents who worked with "recovery coaches" accessed treatment and achieved family reunification faster than parents who received standard treatment.

Using Federal money under a title IV-E waiver, Illinois conducted a demonstration in which they used recovery coaches to engage and retain parents in treatment to improve reunification and other family permanency and safety outcomes for foster children from drug-involved families. In 4 years, 943 parents received help from recovery coaches in addition to other services; 366 parents received standard services. Both groups of parents received an assessment through the Juvenile Court Assessment Program, as well as a referral and intake appointment for substance abuse treatment with an appropriate program. In addition to traditional substance abuse treatment and child welfare services, parents in the experimental or "waiver" group were assigned a recovery coach. Recovery coaches worked with parents, caseworkers, and drug treatment agencies to remove barriers to treatment, engage parents, and provide ongoing support. An evaluation found a number of differences in outcomes for the two groups:

• Parents who worked with recovery coaches accessed drug treatment more quickly and were more likely to complete at least one level of care than parents receiving standard services.
• Parents who worked with recovery coaches were less likely to have a subsequent allegation of maltreatment.
• Families in the recovery coach group were more likely to achieve reunification and to achieve it more quickly.

In addition, the evaluation showed that the use of recovery coaches saved Illinois more than $5 million, which the State could then reinvest in child welfare services.

The study was also useful in bringing to light some other factors that affect whether parents will be able to complete treatment successfully. The two issues associated with limiting reunification were (1) co-occurring problems—including domestic violence, mental health issues, and housing—and (2) a lack of progress in these problem areas, including the area of drug treatment recovery.

The study, Illinois Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) Waiver Demonstration: Final Evaluation Report, by J. P. Ryan, is available on the website of the Children and Family Research Center of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Social Work:

http://cfrcwww.social.uiuc.edu/pubs/Pdf.files/AODA.01.06.pdf (Editor's note: Link no longer active)

A comprehensive prevention program targeted at low-income parents and their young children helped parents increase their parenting skills and improve their chances of finding and maintaining employment. The Balancing Employment and Parenting (BEAP) project was developed by the Center for Child Protection and Family Support and conducted in a Washington, DC, neighborhood that had a high rate of substantiated child abuse and neglect cases, as well as high levels of poverty, unemployment, and enrollment in TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). The premise of BEAP was that reducing parenting stress and increasing service use and support would reduce the risk of child maltreatment. TANF recipients with young children enrolled in Head Start or similar preschool programs were targeted for participation.

There were four major components to the BEAP project:

• Parenting education classes, based on a culturally competent curriculum known as "Riding the Parenthood Wave," which addressed parenting skills as well as stress management, substance abuse, and employment
• An interactive primary prevention program for preschoolers that included structured learning opportunities to promote safety, coping skills, and self-esteem
• Strengthening the capacity of the welfare reform system and childcare providers to identify the factors that contribute to child maltreatment
• A process and outcome evaluation

While the evaluation is ongoing, preliminary data from 230 parents who participated identified increases in:

• Parents' knowledge regarding parenting skills, substance abuse, child abuse, childhood development, dealing with children's behavior problems, and talking and playing with their children
• Seeking services
• Finding and maintaining employment
• Overcoming feelings of apathy

In addition to parent gains in skills, childcare staff at Head Start and other programs learned to apply many of the techniques they learned through the BEAP project and, in so doing, became role models for parents. They were also able to reinforce the skills that parents were learning in the parent education sessions.

For more information about how the BEAP project was able to impact families and those who provide services to them, contact:

Joyce Thomas
The Center for Child Protection and Family Support
714 G Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
202.544.6192
beap@centerchildprotection.org

The Balancing Employment and Parenting project was funded by the Children's Bureau, Grant 90-CO-1696, under the Children's Bureau Priority Area: Field-Initiated Demonstration Projects Advancing the State of the Art in the Child Abuse and Neglect Field. This article is part of a series highlighting successful Children's Bureau Grant-funded projects around the country, emerging from official Children's Bureau site visits.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs (OJJDP) at the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking applicants for its Field-Initiated Research and Evaluation Program. The program supports original scientific research and evaluation studies to inform the disciplines of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and child maltreatment prevention and intervention.

The application deadline is June 19, 2006, but applicants must register with Grants.gov by June 8. More information is available on the OJJDP website:

http://www.ojjdp.gov

A new website has been launched by Foster Care Alumni of America (FCAA) to provide a forum for information sharing and public policy advocacy for alumni of the foster care system. FCAA believes that being connected and having a say are important needs of individuals who share the foster care experience.

Their vision is to provide a high quality of life for those in foster care and to improve outcomes for alumni of foster care through opportunities to connect with each other, thereby reducing isolation and increasing the likelihood of permanent family and community.

The nonprofit FCAA is an outgrowth of the National Alumni Study conducted by Casey Family Programs in 1999 that consisted of extensive interviews with more than 1,800 alumni of the foster care system from across the country. Recognizing the value of the insight and expertise of these foster care alumni, Casey Family Programs created the Alumni Relations department in 2000. FCAA became an independent organization in November 2002.

www.fostercarealumni.org/welcome_int.jsp

The National Mentoring Partnership has produced a new toolkit, "How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program Using the Elements of Effective Practice™." The toolkit provides step-by-step guidance, starting with a basic definition of the types of mentoring and covering all the elements of program development, including funding, recruitment, staff training and development, matching of mentors to mentees, ongoing support and supervision, and program evaluation.

The toolkit is available for download in English and Spanish, respectively, on the National Mentoring Partnership website:

www.mentoring.org/downloads/mentoring_413.pdf (PDF - 1080 KB)
www.mentoring.org/downloads/mentoring_414.pdf (PDF - 2880 KB)

The National Network of Youth Ministries, with support from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, has released a Mentor Recruitment Kit. The free kit may be ordered online and includes a DVD, a recruitment resource guide, and other resources, such as postcards and public service announcements. Complete information can be found on the coalition's website:

www.mentoryouth.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.view

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation awards grants for research on aggression, including family aggression and child abuse and neglect. Grants are made to individuals rather than to institutions, and the awards usually range from $15,000 to $30,000 a year for 1 or 2 years. There is an August 1 deadline for awards made in December.

For more information and an online application, visit the Foundation website:

http://hfg.org/rg/guidelines.htm

Ten programs from across the country funded by the Children’s Bureau to address the needs of neglected children and their families reported on their best practices, challenges, and lessons learned in conducting their program evaluation. Their results are synthesized in a report from Child Welfare Information Gateway.

While the programs differed in many aspects, they faced common challenges in their program evaluations, including identifying appropriate instruments, establishing comparison groups, collecting data, and analyzing service impact. Some of the strategies that helped them conduct useful evaluations included using detailed plans, allowing enough time and money, addressing staff turnover, and taking advantage of technical assistance.

Program Evaluation: A Synthesis of Lessons Learned by Child Neglect Demonstration Projects is available on the Information Gateway website:

www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/focus/evaldemo/index.cfm

The California Center for Families, Children, and the Courts has published an activity book, What’s Happening in Court? to help prepare children for what to expect when they are required to appear in court. The book uses simple language and games, puzzles, quizzes, and other activities to explain the various reasons a child may have to be in court, including dependency, adoption, or emancipation. It describes the roles of court personnel, such as judges, attorneys, witnesses, and others. It also explains the proper behavior expected while in court.

The book is presented in an interactive version that can be used while online or as a downloadable PDF, and it is available in both English and Spanish:

www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/children.htm

Child Welfare Information Gateway recently made several of its more popular factsheets available in Spanish. Adoption and child welfare professionals may find these useful to share with adoptive families, birth families, and kinship caregivers involved with child welfare:

• Paquete de información general sobre la adopción 3: Buscando a parientes biológicos (General Information Packet 3: Searching for Birth Parents). This packet includes three papers: Buscando a parientes biológicos (Searching for Birth Parents), El impacto de la adopción en las personas adoptadas (The Impact of Adoption on Adopted Persons), and El impacto de la adopción en los padres biológicos (The Impact of Adoption on Birth Parents).
  www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/spanish_gip_three.cfm
• Cuidadores familiares y el sistema de bienestar infantil (Kinship Caregivers and the Child Welfare System)
  www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/cuidadoresfam/index.cfm

These papers join many other resources in Spanish already on the Clearinghouse websites, including:

• Paquete de información general sobre la adopción 1 : Empezando el proceso (Adoption General Information Packet 1: Getting Started)
  www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/spanish_gip_one.cfm
• Paquete de información general sobre la Adopción 2: Financiando la adopción (Adoption General Information Packet 2: Funding Adoption)
  www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/spanish_gip_two.cfm
• Paquete de información general sobre el maltrato y descuido de menores (General Information Packet on Child Abuse and Neglect)
  www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/sp_can_info_packet.cfm

A number of States have formed court commissions or task forces to implement reforms to their foster care systems and to court systems that impact foster care. These reforms center on recommendations made by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, including:

• Ensuring that children's rights to safety, permanency, and well-being are met in a timely and complete manner by having courts track cases and by eliminating court barriers to timeliness
• Promoting collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies
• Identifying ways for children and families to have effective representation in courts
• Encouraging chief justices and State court leadership to act as champions for children in their court

Two recently released reports outline strategies that States are using to respond to the Pew Commission's recommendations:

• A national conference in September 2005, Justice for Children—Changing Lives by Changing Systems, co-sponsored by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and other national organizations, focused on the development of State action plans to enact these recommendations. These strategies are detailed in a report of the same name available on the NCSC website:
  www.ncsconline.org/WC/Publications/CallToActionInside.pdf (PDF - 1540 KB)
  
  
• Home At Last, a national, nonpartisan education and outreach project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, has released a brief report, Pursuing Foster Care Reform—State Court Commissions and Task Forces, that summarizes the accomplishments of States' collaborative efforts to date. Some of these efforts include the creation of legislative task forces, blue ribbon commissions, advisory committees, and supreme court task forces. The report is available online:
  http://fostercarehomeatlast.org/docs/files/CollaborationChart.pdf (PDF - 266 KB)

The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (NHMRC) website has been launched to provide States, Indian tribes, and other grantees with technical assistance and to provide the general public with access to resources for building and sustaining healthy marriages. The online resource center is sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in collaboration with six institutions that have played a major role in raising awareness about community efforts and programs that focus on strengthening marriages. These institutions are the University of Minnesota, Syracuse University, Texas Tech University, Brigham Young University, Norfolk State University, and Child Trends research center.

"This online resource center will help millions of Americans who have chosen marriage for themselves gain greater access to information about forming and sustaining a healthy marriage," said HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. "It will help couples interested in marriage education services, educators, practitioners, leaders, organizations, and researchers."

Resources available on the website include laws and policies, research summaries, links to marriage education, and frequently asked questions on a variety of marriage-related topics.

www.healthymarriageinfo.org

Agencies are invited to submit applications for training presented by the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA). Finding Words—Half a Nation by 2010 is an NCPCA initiative to train multidisciplinary teams across the States in the principles of forensic interviewing of children who have been sexually abused. The course follows the Finding Words model developed in collaboration with CornerHouse, a child sexual abuse evaluation and training facility in Minnesota. The goal is to train half of the States by 2010.

The target audience for the training course includes prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and child protective caseworkers who work as teams to develop the capacity for expert forensic interviewing within a State. Details about the content of the course, the training process, and application procedures are presented in a packet that is available online:

http://www.ndaa-apri.org/pdf/half_nation_application_06.pdf (link no longer available)

NCPCA, in conjunction with the National Child Protection Training Center (NCPTC), also offers a number of courses in investigation and prosecution of child abuse:

www.ndaa-apri.org/education/ndaa/child_abuse_training_schedule.html (link no longer available)

Both NCPCA and NCPTC are projects of the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI).

Upcoming national conferences on adoption and child welfare through September 2006 include:

July

• 20th Annual Conference on Treatment Foster Care
  Treatment Foster Care: Withstanding the Test of Time
  Foster Family-Based Treatment Association
  July 16–19, Pittsburgh, PA
• The 9th National Child Welfare Data and Technology Conference
  Making IT Work: Improving Data and Practice in a Time of Change
  The National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology
  July 19–21, Washington, DC
• NACAC 32nd Annual Conference
  North American Council on Adoptable Children
  July 26–29, Long Beach, CA 

August

• COA's 2006 National Conference
  Achieving Excellence Through Accreditation
  Council on Accreditation
  August 6–8, New York, NY
• 18th Annual Crimes Against Children Conference
  Dallas Children's Advocacy Center
  August 21–24, Dallas, TX

September

• XVIth ISPCAN International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect
  Children in a Changing World: Getting It Right
  September 3–6, York, UK
• The 19th Annual National Independent Living Conference
  Growing Pains
  Daniel Memorial Institute
  September 13–16, St. Louis, MO
• Sixth North American Conference on Shaken Baby Syndrome
  National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome
  September 13–16, Park City, UT

Further details about national and regional adoption and child welfare conferences can be found in the "Conference Calendar" on Child Welfare Information Gateway: www.childwelfare.gov/calendar