The American Bar Association (ABA) Center on Children and the Law has launched the Kinship Care Legal Resource Center to address the needs of the significant number of children living in families headed by grandparents or other kin. This Resource Center website is intended to serve as a toolkit for attorneys, judges, and other child-serving practitioners working with kinship families and having difficulty navigating the complex existing and emerging legal issues.

The Resource Center maintains a website that provides access to information and resources on topics such as:

• Financial assistance for kinship care providers, including subsidized guardianship
• Statutory preferences for relative placement
• State policies regarding medical consent, educational consent and school enrollment, and licensing standards

The Resource Center can found on the ABA website:

http://www.grandfamilies.org

FosterClub will select 12 young adults, ages 18 to 24, who have experienced foster care at some point in their lives, to participate in an internship program called the All-Star Program. The interns will start their year-long commitment this summer at Portland State University in Portland, OR. After a week of intense training, the All-Stars will travel the country participating in State Independent Living Conferences, various National Foster Care events, and more.

These interns will help other youth in foster care, earn approximately $3,600 over the summer, and improve their leadership skills. Completed applications are due by March 31, 2007. For more information, go to the FosterClub website:

www.fosterclub.com/

A recent study found that the risk of disruption of adoptions from foster care lessened after passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997. There had been some concern among child welfare professionals that ASFA's required timeframe for termination of parental rights would cause some hasty placements of children that might lead to increased adoption disruptions. This study of almost 16,000 children in the Illinois child welfare system during the 3 years before and the 3 years after the passage of ASFA showed these concerns to be unfounded. In fact, the risk of disruption was 11 percent less for placements occurring after 1997.

Researchers also examined risk and protective factors for adoption disruption. Among the factors associated with higher risk of adoption disruption were:

• Older age of the child
• Placement of two or three siblings together (but not four or more)
• African-American race of the child
• Physical, behavioral, or emotional disability of the child
• Placement with a nonrelative compared to kinship placement

The study's authors discuss the implications of these findings for postadoption services policy and practice.

"Where Are We Now?: A Post-ASFA Examination of Adoption Disruption" was written by Susan Livingston Smith, Jeanne A. Howard, Phillip C. Garnier, and Scott D. Ryan and published in Adoption Quarterly, Vol. 9(4). Information on obtaining a copy of the article can be found online:

http://haworthpress.com/store/ArticleAbstract.asp?ID=89254

A program run by New York City's Administration for Children's Services has succeeded in diverting many troubled teens and their families from Family Court and foster care placement. The voluntary Family Assessment Program (FAP) was begun in 2001 to provide assessment and referral services to families struggling to deal with teens' uncontrollable behavior, drug abuse, mental illness, or truancy.

Before the FAP, many of these parents were referred to the Family Court, which often declared the youths to be "persons in need of supervision" (PINS) and placed them in group home foster care. Since the creation of the FAP, families with these same problems go to the Administration for Children's Services rather than the Department of Probation, and they receive same-day assessment and referrals to individualized services.

A recent report examined the successes and challenges of the FAP, based on 2 years of interviews with teens, parents, administrators, and social workers. The report focuses on the experiences of families in the program, including youth who suffered from severe depression, a history of loss, drug abuse, troubled relationships, and cultural misunderstandings. Working with the FAP allowed these families to receive immediate referrals to mental health clinics, anger management services, family mediation, domestic violence advocacy, substance abuse programs, and more.

Challenges discussed include:

• Approximately one-third of the families who come to the FAP do not return after the initial visit.
• The program's success is dependent on the cooperation of the teens involved.
• There is a lack of sufficient neighborhood services, especially peer counseling and skills training.
• Many families need concrete services, such as help with sufficient food, shelter, and clothing, before they can deal with other family issues.
• There has been a significant increase in the number of juvenile arrests, which may indicate that some of the youth who choose not to continue with the FAP wind up in the court system anyway.

The report offers a series of recommendations for the city government and social services staff, including the creation of respite centers, expanded services, and better coordination among services.

"There's No Such Place": The Family Assessment Program, PINS and the Limits of Support Services for Families With Teens in New York City by Sharon Lerner with Barbara Solow, is available on the Center for New York City Affairs, Milano Graduate School, The New School for Management and Urban Policy website:

www.newschool.edu/milano/nycaffairs/childwelfare/pins.pdf (762 - KB)

As part of the Assessing the New Federalism project, the Urban Institute recently published a study examining the ways families connect to services offered by alternative response (AR) systems in Kentucky and Oklahoma. These States initiated AR systems to meet the needs of families at low risk for child maltreatment. In place of full-scale investigations, families received strengths and needs assessments and referrals for services.

To better understand how families connected to services after referrals were made, researchers interviewed child welfare administrators, caseworkers, community services providers, and families in rural and urban counties in the two States. They focused on the procedures, structures, and relationships that govern the way agency workers assess needs, make referrals, and follow up with clients.

Four findings highlighted the challenges in connecting families to services through AR systems:

• Connecting families to services was complex and not necessarily well planned by agencies; for instance, while guidelines often existed for assessments, there were fewer guidelines for referral and follow-up practices.
• The exchange of information between agencies and service providers was often minimal.
• Service networks had key gaps, and child welfare clients were not necessarily given priority.
• Follow-up to see if families accessed services was rare.

The complete study, Families' Connections to Services in an Alternative Response System, by Erica H. Zielewski, Jennifer Macomber, Roseana Bess, and Julie Murray, is available on the Urban Institute website:

www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311397_Families_Connections.pdf (282 - KB)

Family-strengthening intervention programs in schools and other community-based organizations help increase parents' abilities to guide their children's learning and create a community of support from which parents can draw over time. The Harvard Family Research Project recently examined a sample of 13 well-evaluated family-strengthening intervention programs that provide support to parents and seek to change family behaviors and environments to encourage healthy child development. The research brief, Lessons From Family Strengthening Interventions: Learning From Evidence-Based Practice, sought to determine what outcomes family strengthening programs can successfully target and affect, as well as the most effective practices and evaluation strategies.

The review found that family strengthening programs can promote several positive family outcomes, including improvements in the family environment and parent-child relationships, as well as an increase in parenting skills. Three program practices were found to be effective:

• Providing opportunities for parent-child bonding
• Focusing on family recruitment and retention
• Preparing staff to work with families and implement the program effectively

Because each of the programs in the study used sophisticated evaluation methods to show effectiveness, the study also identified common evaluation practices and made recommendations for improvement.

The full research brief, by Margaret Caspe and M. Elena Lopez, can be downloaded from the Harvard Family Research Project website:

www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/content/projects/fine/resources/research/lessons.pdf (216 - KB)

Studies show that youth involvement in dependency court hearings can benefit both the youth and the court. Youth gain a sense of control over their lives and a better understanding of the judicial process, and the court has an opportunity to learn more about the child than what is presented in reports. However, little guidance exists to help professionals involve children in court proceedings in meaningful ways.

A new article, "Seen and Heard: Involving Children in Dependency Court," provides an overview of national policies of judicial and bar associations addressing children's participation in court and discusses the benefits of such participation. It then offers suggestions for reforming practice, policy, and systems to better engage youth in the court process.

Recommendations include:

• Each jurisdiction should have a clear policy about how and when youth can participate in hearings; policies should take into account such factors as the youth's wishes, age, and the impact of participation.
• State statutes or court rules should state a presumption favoring youth appearing in court but including criteria for exceptions.
• Absent a statute or court rule, courts should implement administrative policies describing when youth should be present in court.
• Practices for youth representatives should encourage youth participation and establish minimum qualifications, meetings, and involvement on the part of the representative.
• Court settings should be youth friendly.
• Agency and school policies should encourage youth participation.

The article was written by Andrea Khoury and published in the December 2006 issue of ABA Child Law Practice, Vol. 25(10). Reprints of the article can be requested online:

www.abanet.org/child/clp/reprints.html

Preventive subsidized guardianship programs are a relatively new type of program designed to support kinship caregivers and keep children from entering the foster care system. A recent report examines programs in six States (Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio) and the District of Columbia that provide assistance to children living with kinship caregivers under subsidized guardianships. The goals of these programs include:

• Avoiding out-of-home placement of children
• Assisting low-income and predominantly female caregivers
• Reducing the number of minority children entering foster care
• Achieving permanency for older youth

The report suggests that one of the primary benefits of the guardianship programs is the monthly subsidy given to kinship caregivers, which comes from child welfare or economic assistance funding, or a combination of both. A few also provide childcare, medical care, "start-up" funding, legal assistance funds, referral services, and/or counseling services. Subsidies vary from State to State and usually are awarded to kinship caregivers who meet certain eligibility requirements.

Although some of these programs face funding and administrative challenges, the report notes that they provide valuable lessons for other kinship guardianship programs. By giving more options to kinship caregivers, child welfare providers, and children, these programs play a preventive role in strengthening community and family bonds.

The report includes an appendix comparing sources of funding, caregiver eligibility requirements, subsidy amounts, program assessments, and the number of participants in each State. To read "Preventive" Subsidized Guardianship Programs: An Emerging Option for Permanent Kinship Care, go to:

www.childfocuspartners.com/images/PSGandtables.pdf (317 - KB)

The National Fatherhood Initiative has announced that it will make 20 annual capacity-building grants, each for $25,000, to organizations wanting to develop responsible fatherhood programs for their communities.

The application deadline is March 6. Awards will be announced April 6. For more information, visit the National Fatherhood Initiative website:

www.fatherhood.org/grant

Child traumatic stress, particularly as experienced by children involved in the child welfare system, is the focus of the Winter 2007 issue of the online journal Focal Point. The articles discuss a range of topics, including causes and definitions of child traumatic stress, the psychological and physiological effects of multiple traumatic stress experiences, evidence-based treatment strategies, and early intervention as prevention.

Focal Point is a publication of the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health at Portland State University. The entire issue or individual articles are available for PDF download:

www.rtc.pdx.edu/pgFPW07TOC.php

A December 2006 webcast about the work of Child Death Review teams around the country in preventing child and adolescent deaths is now available in an online archive. The archive allows users to access video, slides, audio, and transcripts to learn about the challenges that Child Death Review teams face and the strategies they have developed to address these challenges.

The archived webcast is available on the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Maternal and Child Health Bureau:

www.mchcom.com/archivedWebcastDetailNewInterface.asp?aeid=415

Information sharing among juvenile justice and other youth-serving agencies is an essential tool for improving services to at-risk and delinquent youth and their families, but it requires a significant shift in the practices of many agencies. To assist in this process, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has developed Guidelines for Juvenile Information Sharing, a report that suggests a course of action for key agency and organization stakeholders involved in juvenile information sharing (JIS). The guidelines integrate collaboration, confidentiality, and technology into an effective developmental framework in the following areas:

• Establishment and governance of a JIS collaborative
• Planning and procedures to ensure the protection and security of the information
• Recommendations for the implementation of JIS policies and procedures, training, and continuous quality improvement
• Policies for transparency, openness, and public communications

The full report can be downloaded from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service website:

www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/215786.pdf (409 - KB)

These guidelines were developed as part of the Information Sharing to Prevent Juvenile Delinquency National Technical Assistance and Training Project. Learn more about the project:

www.juvenileiis.org

As part of its Creating Parenting-Rich Communities Initiative funded by the Prudential Foundation, the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) recently made available three design guides to help professionals support the parents of children ages 0-5, 6-12, and 13-20. Each guide addressess parent supports in eight key areas:

• Children and after-school activities
• Education
• Employment
• Family structure and support
• Financial security
• Health: Physical and mental health, substance abuse
• Housing
• Safe neighborhoods and environments

For each area, the guides offer a collection of evaluated program and policy listings, research sources, and policies and practices. The guides are available on the CWLA website:

www.cwla.org/parenting/cprcdesignguide.htm#

Agencies and other nonprofits are constantly seeking new sources of funding to support programs that help children and youth. Ten private funding sources that may not come immediately to mind but do provide grants to nonprofits for youth development, safe and healthy children, child abuse prevention, and adoption are listed below:

• Alcoa Foundation
  www.alcoa.com/global/en/community/info_page/foundation.asp
• Charles Lafitte Foundation
  http://charleslafitte.org/programs/childrens-advocacy
• Chatlos Foundation, Inc.
  www.chatlos.org
• Dynegy Foundation
  

[Editor's note: this link no longer exists]