In February 2005, National Parent Leadership Month will once again provide the opportunity for parents to be recognized by a broad spectrum of organizations and communities for their leadership to improve families and neighborhoods. Parents Anonymous® Inc. is seeking public and private organizations working in the areas of social services, education, juvenile justice, child care, mental health, and health, as well as businesses and public officials at the national, State, or local level to join as co-sponsors to promote this initiative.

The purpose of National Parent Leadership Month is to:

• Raise public awareness about the important roles parents play in shaping the lives of children and families
• Expand opportunities for parent leaders to participate in meaningful leadership activities
• Recognize individual parent leaders whose contributions make a positive difference to their families and communities
• Build successful partnerships between parent leaders and professionals to strengthen and support families and communities
• Highlight how parent leadership is a vital child abuse prevention strategy.

The first National Parent Leadership Month was launched in February 2004. Governors, mayors, and boards of supervisors all across the country signed proclamations and resolutions declaring February to be National Parent Leadership Month. In addition to generating news coverage on radio and television, many co-sponsors recognized parents at special events or conferences and in feature stories published in newsletters and on websites.

To help partners organize activities and outreach opportunities this year, Parents Anonymous® Inc. has developed an extensive online toolkit. The toolkit, designed for use by both professionals and parent leaders, contains resources to assist organizations in educating neighbors, colleagues, the media, and public officials about National Parent Leadership Month. The toolkit includes:

• An overview of parent leadership
• Key campaign messages for National Parent Leadership Month
• Tips for identifying potential partners
• Suggestions for community activities
• Guidelines for selecting and preparing parent leaders to be spokespersons
• Tips and tools for requesting proclamations
• Tips and tools for working with the media
• Sample newsletter articles and web copy

Copies of the toolkit can be accessed on the Parents Anonymous® Inc. website at http://parentsanonymous.org/assets/NPLM_TK_All.pdf (PDF - 866 KB). If you are planning to celebrate National Parent Leadership Month or if you have any questions, please contact Meryl Levine, MSSA, at (909) 621-6184, ext. 220 or by email at mlevine@parentsanonymous.org.

A new tool for measuring strengths-based service delivery may help workers evaluate early childhood and family support programs to determine whether the programs reflect a true strengths-based perspective.

Two studies were conducted with parents who had children enrolled in Early Head Start programs. The first study resulted in the development of the Strengths-Based Practices Inventory (SBPI), a 16-item inventory based on measuring four factors: Empowerment Approach, Cultural Competency, Staff Sensitivity-Knowledge, and Relationship-Supportive.

The second study examined whether strengths-based practices, as measured by the SBPI, were associated with specific parent outcomes. Parents with children in Early Head Start completed the SBPI when their children were 14 and 24 months old; parents were also assessed for engagement, participation, efficacy, empowerment, and parenting competence. Results showed that certain SBPI factors were related to family engagement, frequency of services, empowerment, competency, and the home environment. Some of the correlations were stronger at 24 months than at 14 months.

The authors suggest that the SBPI is a reliable and valid measure of strengths-based practices in voluntary early childhood and family support settings. It also may be used to assess whether staff practices are congruent with a strengths-based philosophy. The SBPI has not been tested in nonvoluntary settings such as child protective services.

"The Strengths-Based Practices Inventory: A Tool for Measuring Strengths-Based Service Delivery in Early Childhood and Family Support Programs" was published in the July-September 2004 issue of Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services. Information about subscriptions can be found at http://alliance1.org/fis.

Children adopted from child welfare show some differences in their adjustment when compared to the adjustment of children adopted domestically as infants and those adopted in intercountry adoptions. In addition, all adopted groups show some differences in their adjustment when compared to birth children. These are some of the findings of a study designed to increase the available data about children adopted from child welfare and their needs.

Parents of 1,340 children adopted from child welfare, 89 from intercountry adoptions, 481 from domestic infant adoptions, and 175 birth children completed extensive surveys to assess their children's adjustment at home, in school, and in the wider community, as well as their children's mental and physical health. All children were age 6 years and older at the time of the survey.

The overall findings reflected much of the previous adoption literature in showing both the positive experience of adoptive families across all adoption types, as well as the challenges faced by many adoptive families when compared to birth families. On almost every measure, adoptive families reported higher percentages of problems than did birth families, and the highest level was found in children adopted from child welfare. However, parental satisfaction among all adoptive groups was high, and 93 to 95 percent of parents indicated they would adopt their child again.

The researchers note that there are many emotional issues that may be associated with behavior problems in children in all types of adoptions. While the level of problems was found to be highest in those adopted from child welfare, followed by those in intercountry adoptions, there is a need for early intervention and postadoption services for all of these families, addressing the full range of child and family needs. Differentiating the problems that are more common in each group may help in the planning of postadoption services.

The full text of this article, " A Comparative Study of Child Welfare Adoptions with Other Types of Adopted Children and Birth Children," can be found in Volume 7(3) of Adoption Quarterly. Information on subscribing can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wado20#.U2lE2c6tKyc.

Related Item

Another article about comparing different adoption groups, "Study Explores Use, Helpfulness of Post-Adoption Services," appeared in the June/July 2003 issue of Children's Bureau Express.

Permanence could be established for many children currently in long-term foster care with grandparents or other relatives if States established subsidized guardianship programs for these children, according to a new report from Fostering Results.

The report uses data from the 2002 Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) to show that approximately 19,250 children currently live with relatives in long-term foster care, and a court has determined that neither adoption nor reunification are options for these children. The underutilized option of legal guardianship with their relative caregivers would seem to provide the permanence that these children need while reducing the need for the child welfare system and court to monitor the placement. Unfortunately, guardianship is not an option for children in these cases if their relatives cannot afford to raise them without foster care subsidies. According to the report, establishing subsidized guardianship programs for these children would meet their permanence needs, as well as the needs of the caregivers for financial support.

Seven States have been given waivers by the Federal Government to experiment with using some of their Title IV-E funds for subsidized guardianship programs. In these programs, the States provide a monthly stipend to relatives who become guardians of children who had been in foster care; the amount of the stipend is equal to or less than the foster care payment, and approximately half of the amount comes from Federal funds. In addition, 17 States have established subsidized guardianship programs using TANF or other State funds.

Preliminary results from these programs show that the amount of the stipend impacts permanency rates. In programs that paid legal guardians at the same rate as foster parents, there was a much higher rate of guardianship establishment than in programs that paid guardians significantly less than foster parents. For instance, Illinois, which subsidized guardians at the same rate as foster parents, saw a 42 percent decrease in children in long-term foster kinship care from 1999 to 2001. In comparison, Maryland, which reimbursed guardians at half the rate of foster parents, saw only a 24 percent decrease. In addition, the Illinois program found an overall increase in permanency achievement through adoption, guarianship, or reunification (78 percent in the experimental group compared to 72 percent in the control group); in Maryland the permanency difference was negligible. Programs that were able to use Title IV-E funds were more successful as a whole than the State-funded programs.

The Administration's proposed Child Welfare Program Option would allow States the option to receive their Title IV-E foster care funding as a flexible grant for a period of 5 years. States choosing this option would be able to use the funds for a wider range of child welfare activities, including subsidized guardianships, while continuing to meet child protection standards. Read more about the Child Welfare Program Option in "HHS Assistant Secretary Testifies Before Congress on the President's Child Welfare Proposal" from the August 2003 issue of Children's Bureau Express.

The recommendations of Fostering Results for the Federal Government to provide funds for subsidized guardianship echo those made in May 2004 by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care. These recommendations are accompanied by suggestions for eligibility limitations and other restrictions that focus on ensuring the safety and well-being of the children involved.

Fostering Results is a public education and outreach campaign established by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to the Children and Family Research Center at the School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This report, "Family Ties: Supporting Permanence for Children in Safe and Stable Foster Care With Relatives and Other Caregivers," can be found at www.fosteringresults.org/results/reports/pewreports_10-13-04_alreadyhome.pdf. (Editor's note: Link no longer active)

Related Items

Read more about funding for kinship care in the following Children's Bureau Express articles:

• "More Flexible Child Welfare Funding May Improve Child Outcomes" (June 2004)
• "New Research Sheds Light on Kinship Care Issues" (August 2003)

Substance-abusing parents have different needs from other CPS-involved families. In order to meet these unique needs, Miami's Dependency Drug Court (DDC) has instituted a comprehensive approach to service provision that includes an interdisciplinary plan to help the whole family, as well as a parenting program, intensive case management and monitoring, communication across systems facilitated by a DDC caseworker, a high level of involvement on the part of the judge, and continual assessment. This program provides a promising model of holistic comprehensive services for substance-abusing parents.

Based on Miami's experience in implementing the DDC, the program identified the following essential components for developing an effective parenting program for substance abusing families:

• Choice of Partner. When choosing a community agency to provide parenting training, look for one that has a track record for serving families affected by substance abuse and is flexible in its scheduling.
• Parenting Curriculums. The curriculums should be based on a needs assessment of the targeted population, piloted, and continually reassessed to ensure they meet participants' needs.
• Staff. Facilitators and support staff for the parenting curriculums should have experience and training in diversity, substance abuse, mental health issues, and behavioral issues. It is also recommended that co-facilitators are used to prevent fatigue and assist in monitoring behavior and participation. Additional staff are needed to provide childcare, often for children with behavioral or emotional problems.
• Monitoring. A process should be developed to monitor parents' progress and report back to the court. Issues of confidentiality regarding progress should be addressed with participants at the beginning of the program.
• Continual Assessment. An evaluation component should be built into the program to determine whether the curriculums are addressing participants' needs and making an impact on parenting issues.
• Group Size. Group size should be limited to between 8 and 10 families. More families would make group activities difficult, while very small groups would not provide enough social interaction. Groups should also be culturally diverse in order to allow for exposure to different cultural norms for parenting and therefore more openness to new parenting practices.

An article on this program, "Parenting in Dependency Drug Court," is available in the Summer 2004 issue of the Juvenile and Family Court Journal. The article is accessible for a fee at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-6988.2004.tb00164.x/abstract.

Learn about all aspects of the fundraising process at the Foundation Center's Grantseeker Training Institute. The training will be held at the Foundation Center in New York City from February 14 to February 18, 2005, and will cover the following topics:

• Developing a fundraising plan
• Nonprofit boards and fundraising
• Using the Foundation Directory Online
• Evaluating prospects
• Proposal writing

The cost of the training is $795, and all participants receive free publications and 2 weeks of complimentary access to the online directory. Space is limited to 25 attendees. Visit the Foundation Center website for more details: http://fdncenter.org/marketplace/catalog/product_training.jhtml?id=prod520001&navCount=1&navAction=push (Editor's note: Link no longer active).

Administrators of child advocacy centers (CACs) have a new resource for evaluating their programs. The National Institute of Justice has recently published a comprehensive manual for program evaluations, focusing on the membership standards of the National Children's Alliance. A Resource for Evaluating Child Advocacy Centers is designed to meet the needs of CAC administrators for tools that specifically address CAC assessment.

Early chapters in the book introduce evaluation concepts and discuss the importance and benefits of program assessment. Separate chapters provide step-by-step guidance for three major types of evaluation:

• Program monitoring evaluation
• Outcome evaluation
• Impact evaluation

There are also chapters on planning an evaluation, recruiting participants, collecting and analyzing data, and preparing the evaluation report.

First developed in the mid-1980s in response to criticism that child sexual abuse investigations were sometimes as harmful to children as the abuse itself, CACs use multidisciplinary teams, child-friendly facilities, and standardized procedures to minimize system-induced trauma to victims. Hundreds of CACs have been established to realize these goals, but whether they are succeeding has not been empirically evaluated. The development of this manual may help to promote more widespread evaluation.

This publication is available through the National Institute of Justice website, as a downloadable PDF document at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/192825.pdf (PDF - 1,812 KB)

The Kresge Foundation offers challenge grants to support the construction or renovation of facilities, purchase of real estate, or purchase of major equipment or an integrated system. These "bricks and mortar" grants are made to tax-exempt, charitable organizations in a wide variety of fields such as human services, health care, higher education, and public affairs. Governmental agencies also are eligible to apply.

In reviewing proposals, the foundation emphasizes:

• Organizational considerations (e.g., financial stability, demand for services, effective leadership, quality programs and services)
• Project considerations (e.g., cost estimates)
• Fundraising considerations (e.g., campaign strategy, pledges)

Competitive proposals typically request grants ranging from one-fifth to one-third of the balance to be raised to complete the capital campaign. In dollars, this often ranges from $150,000 to $600,000. Applications are accepted year-round, with grants approved four times each year in March, June, September, and December.

Visit www.kresge.org for more information.

"Assume nothing and take a fresh look" is the advice offered to agencies struggling with workforce issues in the lead article of Hired for Good, a newsletter that advocates quality human services through innovative human resource management. The lead article suggests that recruitment strategies should focus on getting new workers on the job as quickly as possible and ensuring that these new hires know what to expect. Specifically, the article provides advice for agencies to:

• Establish a recruitment campaign that builds on agency mission and strengths
• Use screening tools that encourage self-selection
• Select candidates most likely to succeed
• Make hiring fast and simple
• Maximize the human resources budget

Other articles in the newsletter address job analysis, interview questions, a quiz on human resource management strategies, supporting new employees, and performance measurement.

Hired for Good is published by the Center for the Study of Social Policy and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It can be downloaded at www.cssp.org/uploadFiles/10071_HiredforGood_fnl.pdf (PDF - 105 KB).

Related Items

The topic of recruiting and retaining workers was previously addressed in the following issues of Children's Bureau Express:

• "Addressing the Staffing Crisis in Child and Family Services" (June 2004)
• "Meeting the Challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Quality Staff" (August 2003)

The Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 requires States to have policies and procedures for health-care providers to notify child protective services (CPS) of cases of suspected prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs and to develop a "plan of safe care" for such infants. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), through their Children's Policy Initiative, has released a new publication that looks at how this new Federal requirement may potentially impact States by increasing the number of cases, presenting challenges to service delivery systems, and showing the need for multi-agency cooperation. The publication, Substance-Exposed Newborns: New Federal Law Raises Some Old Issues, describes the Federal requirements and provides an overview of existing State laws for reporting child abuse.

The paper also addresses the role of CPS and the place of prevention in reducing substance-exposed births. The wide range of CPS responses to substance-exposed newborns is noted, and the example of a community-based prevention program is provided. An appendix contains the text of State laws that require reporting of substance-exposed newborns.

This publication is available from the NCSL website at www.ncsl.org/print/cyf/newborns.pdf (PDF - 115 KB).

In an effort to provide guidelines for improving both the quality of child welfare agency legal representation and the uniformity of practice across the country, the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Legal and Judicial Issues has released Standards of Practice for Lawyers Representing Child Welfare Agencies. The standards, written with the help of practicing agency attorneys and child welfare professionals from different jurisdictions, are divided into the following five categories:

• Definitions
• The role of the agency attorney, including a list of basic obligations
• Fulfillment of the obligations
• Ethical and practical considerations
• Administrative responsibilities, including a list of the basic obligations of an agency attorney manager

The 27-page publication is available from the National Resource Center website:

http://apps.americanbar.org/child/rclji/agency-standards.pdf (296 KB)

Upcoming national conferences on adoption and child welfare through April 2005 include:

January 2005

• 19th Annual San Diego Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment (Chadwick Center for Children and Families, Children's Hospital-San Diego; January 24 through 28, San Diego, CA)
• Indian Child Welfare Training Institute (National Indian Child Welfare Association; January 24 through 28, Nashville, TN)

February 2005

• Symposium 2005: Connect. Support. Empower. 30 Years of Reflections and Revelations in Youth Services (National Network for Youth; February 6 through 9, Washington, DC)

March 2005

• A System of Care for Children's Mental Health: Expanding the Research Base (Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health; March 6 through 9, Tampa, FL)
• 21st National Symposium on Child Abuse (National Children's Advocacy Center; March 8 through 11, Huntsville, AL)
• Children 2005: Crossing the Cultural Divide (Child Welfare League of America; March 9 through 11, Washington, DC)

April 2005

• The 24th Annual National CASA Conference "Growing a Better Tomorrow....For Every Child" (April 16 through 19, Atlanta, GA)
• 15th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect "Supporting Promising Practices and Positive Outcomes: A Shared Responsibility" (Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; April 18 through 23, Boston, MA)
• 23rd Annual "Protecting Our Children" Conference (National Indian Child Welfare Association; April 24 through 27, Albuquerque, NM)

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

The first of four free online tutorials on substance abuse and child welfare is now available on the website for the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare (NCSACW). This tutorial, "Understanding Child Welfare and the Dependency Court: A Guide for Substance Abuse Treatment Professionals," is an interactive series of five modules designed to provide comprehensive information on child welfare to professionals who treat substance abuse clients with children.

Over the next few years, three more tutorials will be made available. These will be aimed at providing information to child welfare workers, judicial officers, and legislators and will serve to facilitate cross-systems work in child welfare and substance abuse treatment. Each tutorial is designed to take about 4 hours to complete. Upon completion, a certificate will be available that can be submitted for continuing education units.

For more information about the tutorials and to access the first tutorial, go to the NCSACW website at https://www.ncsacw.samhsa.gov/training/default.aspx.

Related Item

The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention recently produced a fetal alcohol spectrum disorders video package for women in substance abuse treatment programs to raise awareness about the effects of alcohol on pregnancies. The video, "Recovering Hope: Mothers Speak Out About Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders," features mothers whose children were affected by alcohol during their pregnancy, as well as experts who discuss the range of disabilities and intervention services. For information about the video package (Item CR 69), call (800) 729-6686 or visit http://fasdcenter.samhsa.gov/publications/recoveringHopeIntro.aspx.