Promoting Stable Families Through Postadoption Support

Postadoption support services are vitally important to sustain and strengthen adoptive families. Adoptees with histories of abuse, neglect, or lengthy institutionalization may confront significant challenges throughout their childhood. Without ongoing assistance and support for the children and their parents, many of these adoptions are at risk of disruption or dissolution. A new report issued by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute reviews existing postadoption programs and identifies directions for the development of effective models of postadoption practices. The report, Keeping the Promise: The Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services to ...

School Lunches for Children in Foster Care

Signed into law by the President on December 13, 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), for the first time in over 30 years, the chance to make real reforms to the school lunch and breakfast programs by improving the critical nutrition and hunger safety net for millions of children. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 provides categorical eligibility to foster children for free meals served under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. A recent memo from the USDA's Director of Child Nutrition Division provides guidance to Regional Special Nutrition and State Child Nutrition ...

Supporting Higher Education for Students from Foster Care

Casey Family Programs recently updated their Supporting Success framework, a tool to help higher education organizations develop and enhance services to improve outcomes for students from foster care. In addition to the stressors faced by most new students transitioning to a college environment, youth from foster care often have unique needs related to housing, food, transportation, health care, and financial aid. The framework helps colleges improve their existing student support services and develop new programs to address these needs so students can focus on their academic success. The authors of the framework provide guidance on the six elements ...

Strengthening Representation of Parents in Child Welfare

The National Project to Improve Representation for Parents Involved in the Child Welfare System aims to strengthen representation of parents and provide them a voice in the child welfare process. The project website details the project's work in the area of training and technical assistance, assessments, and relevant articles, including standards of practice. To help attorneys who represent parents in child welfare cases, the project maintains a listserv, offers specialized training, and holds an annual conference. The project is a collaboration between the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, Casey Family Programs, the Annie E. ...

Restoring Parental Rights After Termination

Every State has statutes providing for the termination of parental rights by a court. Once parental rights have been terminated, the child is legally free to be placed for adoption. A new factsheet from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) provides an overview of laws in nine States that allow for the reinstatement of parental rights following termination of parental rights. If a permanent placement has not been achieved within a specific timeframe, a petition may be filed with the court requesting reinstatement of the parent’s rights. If the court determines that the parent is now able to provide a safe home for the child, the ...

The Missing Girls of China

This article by law professor David M. Smolin analyzes the causes and possible solutions to the sex ratio imbalance of China, as well as the causes of the diminishing numbers of intercountry adoptions from China. Part I provides statistical, historical, and cultural analysis of China's "missing girls" (sex-ratio imbalance), concluding that sex selective abortion has become the primary cause of China missing approximately ten percent of females at birth. The article focuses on both cultural factors and China's population control policies as causative factors. Part II discusses population control, declining fertility, and the devaluation of girls and ...

CA Family Courts Helping Pedophiles Get Child Custody

According to this article in SF Weekly, Looking out for the children who find themselves in the middle of bitter divorces is the most important function of the state's family courts, and arguably one of the most significant duties of the judiciary as a whole. Yet evidence has mounted in recent years that it is a responsibility in which family court officials are sometimes failing dramatically. Interviews with dozens of parents, activists, lawyers, judges, children, and former family court employees, as well as a review of hundreds of pages of family and criminal court documents, indicate that the system's methods for assessing whether child sexual ...

S
1
…
23
24
25
…
57
s