Achieving Permanency for Adolescents in Foster Care

Achieving Permanency for Adolescents in Foster Care PDF Author: Andrea Khoury
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Achieving Permanency for Adolescents in Foster Care

Achieving Permanency for Adolescents in Foster Care PDF Author: Andrea Khoury
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description


Achieving Permanence for Older Children and Youth in Foster Care

Achieving Permanence for Older Children and Youth in Foster Care PDF Author: Benjamin Kerman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231146884
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Through a novel integration of child welfare data, policy analysis, and evidence-informed youth permanency practice, the essays in this volume show how to achieve and sustain family permanence for older children and youth in foster care. Researchers examine what is known about permanency outcomes for youth in foster care, how the existing knowledge base can be applied to improve these outcomes, and the directions that future research should take to strengthen youth permanence practice and policy. Part 1 examines child welfare data concerning reunification, adoption, and relative custody and guardianship and the implications for practice and policy. Part 2 addresses law, regulation, court reform, and resource allocation as vital components in achieving and sustaining family permanence. Contributors examine the impact of policy change created by court reform and propose new federal and state policy directions. Part 3 outlines a range of practices designed to achieve family permanence for youth in foster care: preserving families through community-based services, reunification, adoption, and custody and guardianship arrangements with relatives. As growing numbers of youth continue to "age out" of foster care without permanent families, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have increasingly focused on developing evidence-informed policies, practices, services and supports to improve outcomes for youth. Edited by leading professionals in the field, this text recommends the most relevant and effective methods for improving family permanency outcomes for older youth in foster care.

Achieving Permanency in Public Agency Adoptions

Achieving Permanency in Public Agency Adoptions PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
This exploratory study examined child, family, and environmental factors in order to identify possible patterns or interactions that related to or were predictive of the achievement of adoptive permanency for children in long term foster care. When the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) was legislated, permanency outcome became one of its tripartite goals. Concerns about children lingering in foster care without a permanent and secure parental relationship, the long-term effects that traumatic experiences and unstable environmental contexts have on children's development, and the need to comply with ASFA mandates have directed attention to the need to better understand how permanency via adoption can be achieved. A long term foster care sample (N = 727) from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a longitudinal study, was used to examine the achievement of permanency via adoption for children who were not reunified with their biological families. Even though special needs adoptions now constitute the majority of adoptions completed via the public-agency foster care system, this study did not find children's overall health issues to be significantly related to achieving the goal of adoption. Rather, a combination of child, family and environmental factors influenced the achievement of adoption. While some single factors had greater influence than others, no one factor was found to have such a great influence that it could be focused on as a means of accomplishing adoptive permanency. Three variables, child age, family income, and neighborhood environment, were consistently associated with the achievement of adoptive permanency. Of these, child age had significant relationships and interactions with more variables than any other single factor. In addition, only child age, and specifically older child age, meets the categorical criteria of a special needs adoption. Results of this study suggest training and education for those involved with child welfare or adoption work should incorporate a bio-ecological model that addresses environmental factors as well as individual and family characteristics. Implications for program and policy development that would better promote adoptive permanency include screening and intervention for the presence of trauma in young foster care children, addressing child functioning as an effect of multiple ecological and environmental variables, understanding the need for and striving to attain stability of place and persons in a child's life, and expanding assessments of potential adoptive parents to include their community environments as well as their home environments. Following and building on this exploratory study, future research should examine the ability of families to maintain adoptive permanency once it has been achieved and assess the role environmental variables might have in preventing adoptive disengagement.

Achieving Permanence for Older Children and Youth in Foster Care

Achieving Permanence for Older Children and Youth in Foster Care PDF Author: Benjamin Kerman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023151932X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Through a novel integration of child welfare data, policy analysis, and evidence-informed youth permanency practice, the essays in this volume show how to achieve and sustain family permanence for older children and youth in foster care. Researchers examine what is known about permanency outcomes for youth in foster care, how the existing knowledge base can be applied to improve these outcomes, and the directions that future research should take to strengthen youth permanence practice and policy. Part 1 examines child welfare data concerning reunification, adoption, and relative custody and guardianship and the implications for practice and policy. Part 2 addresses law, regulation, court reform, and resource allocation as vital components in achieving and sustaining family permanence. Contributors examine the impact of policy change created by court reform and propose new federal and state policy directions. Part 3 outlines a range of practices designed to achieve family permanence for youth in foster care: preserving families through community-based services, reunification, adoption, and custody and guardianship arrangements with relatives. As growing numbers of youth continue to "age out" of foster care without permanent families, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have increasingly focused on developing evidence-informed policies, practices, services and supports to improve outcomes for youth. Edited by leading professionals in the field, this text recommends the most relevant and effective methods for improving family permanency outcomes for older youth in foster care.

Toolbox No. 3

Toolbox No. 3 PDF Author: Gerald P. Mallon
Publisher: CWLA Press (Child Welfare League of America)
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
This toolbox reviews the current research on youth permanency issues and provides a framework for understanding the context of youth permanency.

Beyond The Foster Care System

Beyond The Foster Care System PDF Author: Betsy Krebs
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813540153
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Each year tens of thousands of teenagers are released from the foster care system in the United States without high school degrees, homes, or strong family relationships. Two to four years after discharge, half of these young people still do not have either a high school diploma or equivalency degree, and fewer than ten percent enter college. Nearly a third end up on public assistance within fifteen months, and eventually more than a third will be arrested or convicted of a crime. In this richly detailed and often surprising exploration of the foster care system, Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff argue that the existing foster care system sets teens up to fail by inadequately preparing them for adult life. They contend that the primary goal of foster care for teenagers should be preparation for a fully productive adult life, and that current policies and practice are misguided. The authors draw on their fifteen years of experience working with teens and the foster care system to introduce new ways to empower teens to be responsible for themselves and to identify and develop their potential. They also explore what sorts of resources-legal, financial, and human-will need to come from inside and outside the system to ensure that more teens reach successful independence. Ultimately, Krebs and Pitcoff argue that change must include the participation of caring communities of volunteers who want to see disadvantaged youth succeed, as well as the use of creative approaches such as the Socratic Method to help teens to take control of their lives. Bringing together a series of inspiring, real-life accounts, Beyond the Foster Care System introduces readers to a number of dynamic young people who have participated in the Youth Advocacy Center's programs. Their stories demonstrate that alternatives to the standard way of providing foster care are not only imaginable, but possible. With the practical improvements Krebs and Pitcoff outline, teens can learn the skills of effective self-advocacy, become better prepared for the transition to independence, and avoid becoming the statistics that foster care has so often produced in the past.

The Promise of Adolescence

The Promise of Adolescence PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309490111
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

Losing Generations

Losing Generations PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309052343
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
At least 7 million young Americansâ€"fully one-quarter of adolescents 10 to 17 years oldâ€"may be at risk of failing to achieve productive adult lives. They use drugs, engage in unprotected sex, drop out of school, and sometimes commit crimes, effectively closing the door to their own futures. And the costs to society are enormous: school and social services are overwhelmed, and our nation faces the future with a diminished citizenry. This penetrating book argues that the problems of troubled youth cannot be separated from the settings in which those youths liveâ€"settings that have deteriorated significantly in the past two decades. A distinguished panel examines what works and what does not in the effort to support and nurture adolescents and offers models for successful programs. This volume presents an eye-opening look at what millions of the nation's youths confront every day of their lives, addressing: How the decline in economic security for young working parents affects their children's life chances. How dramatic changes in household structure and the possibilities of family and community violence threaten adolescents' development. How the decline of neighborhoods robs children of a safe environment. How adolescents' health needs go unmet in the current system. Losing Generations turns the spotlight on those institutions youths needâ€"the health care system, schools, the criminal justice, and the child welfare and foster home systemsâ€"and how they are functioning. Difficult issues are addressed with study results and insightful analyses: access of poor youths to health insurance coverage, inequities in school funding, how child welfare agencies provide for adolescents in their care, and the high percentage of young black men in the criminal justice system.

The Parental Experience in Midlife

The Parental Experience in Midlife PDF Author: Carol D. Ryff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226732510
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description
Most adults experience parenthood. But the longest period of the parental experience—when children grow into adolescence and young adulthood and parents themselves are not yet elderly—is the least understood. In this groundbreaking volume, distinguished scholars from anthropology, demography, economics, psychology, social work, and sociology explore the uncharted years of midlife parenthood. The authors employ a rich array of theory and methods to address how the parental experience affects the health, well-being, and development of individuals. Collectively, they look at the time when parents watch offspring grow into adulthood and begin to establish adult-to-adult relationships with their children. With a strong emphasis on the diversity of midlife parenting, including sociodemographic variations and specific parent or child characteristics such as single parenting or raising a child with a disability, this volume presents for the first time the complex factors that influence the quality of the midlife parenting experience.

This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids

This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids PDF Author: Dannielle Owens-Reid
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452142424
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Written in an accessible Q&A format, here, finally, is the go-to resource for parents hoping to understand and communicate with their gay child. Through their LGBTQ-oriented site, the authors are uniquely experienced to answer parents' many questions and share insight and guidance on both emotional and practical topics. Filled with real-life experiences from gay kids and parents, this is the book gay kids want their parents to read.