Time for Reform: Investing in Prevention: Keeping Children Safe at Home

Describes the prevention and reunification services needed in child welfare programs to reduce abuse and help families stay together. Recommends changes to the child welfare financing structure to allow states to lower the need for foster care

Time for Reform: Aging Out and On Their Own

This report describes how the current foster care system fails to provide a permanent family for every child and the difficulty children have staying connected to family and friends while in foster care. The report also presents the state-by-state data on the number of youth who have aged out of foster care and describes the problems young adults have when they have to face the future without a permanent family to support them

Chafee Plus Ten: A Vision For the Next Decade

On the tenth anniversary of the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, this paper takes a close look at what has been learned since the law's enactment. It discusses the data and research findings, implications for society, a gives a vision for the next decade on an effective service system and strong policies that support youth in successfully transitioning to adulthood

Strengthening Families Through Guardianship

Describes the limitations of current legal guardianship programs, and argues for a federal subsidized guardian benefit to help place children with relatives when neither adoption nor reunification is possible, thereby minimizing their time in foster care

Post-Permanency: An Assessment for Families’ Needs for Services and Supports

This article reports the results of a qualitative study that sought the perspectives of birth parents and adoptive parents following reunification or adoption of children from foster care. Using a participatory action design that actively involved young adults formerly in foster care and parents in the design and implementation of the study, the study focused on the consumers’ perspectives on several issues related to permanency. The article reports findings from interviews with a subset of 27 birth and adoptive families in New York City who were asked about their post-permanency experiences and from interviews with 38 child welfare professionals who were asked to respond to the parents’ perspectives. The article offers directions for child welfare practice and program development

The Use of Expressive Therapies and Social Support with Youth in Foster Care: The Performing Arts Troupe

The Performing Arts Troupe is a program that provides youth in foster care and youth from low income neighborhoods with expressive therapies and social support. The program is designed to assist youth in addressing the effects of trauma and developing competencies as they prepare to transition to adulthood. The article discusses the literature base for the program, the program activities and describes the impact of the program on youth through preliminary evaluations and case studies. The program offers an innovative combination of expressive therapies and social supports that has effectively met the needs of vulnerable youth

Broadening the array of services: Integrating legal and social work services for youth and families

The Community Justice and Legal Assistance Clinic (CJLA) is a unique community-based legal clinic developed through a partnership between a law school and a child and family service agency embedded within a low-income community. This article describes the development of this clinic through a community assessment process; its unique multidisciplinary features; the services provided to clients in three of the agency\u27s service areas; the benefits of the partnership for clients, the social service agency, the participating law students, and the law school; and lessons learned for replication of this type of clinic in other communities. © 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved