This research-to-practice brief identifies use of kinship diversion practices at child welfare agencies. Kinship diversion, used as an alternative to foster care, places children with relatives when there are allegations of child abuse and neglect. The brief describes interviews with agency administrators and child welfare advocates and draws upon estimates of kinship diversion using the Kinship Diversion Estimation Tool, an online survey of child welfare workers.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation literature survey identifies research conducted by the Division of Child and Family Development in fiscal year 2018. It covers projects that examine early childhood research, child care, Head Start and Early Head Start, child welfare, human trafficking, and cultural diversity.

This Annie E. Casey Foundation-recorded webinar, as part of its Leading with Evidence series, assesses the role of culture in providing programs to prevent child welfare involvement. It highlights how the Family First Prevention Services Act created opportunities to expand use of prevention programs that are culturally relevant to parents and children and utilizes an evidence-based approach for engaging Native American families.

This Administration for Children and Families blogpost, authored by the Director of the Office of Head Start and Early Childhood Development, identifies the reach of Head Start programs to serve children within families that experience homelessness and the links between Head Start and other human service agencies. Additionally, the blogpost links to Head Start training opportunities that include eight interactive learning modules that lead to receiving professional development certificates, and notes three forthcoming webinars that share effective practices for building organizational readiness, developing partnerships, and addressing service challenges in local Head Start communities.

This Chapin Hall issue brief reviews: child welfare workers’ perceptions of county-level availability of training and the range of services available for transition-age foster youth; workers’ views about the collaboration between child welfare departments and other service delivery systems; and the correlation between foster youth satisfaction with training and services and outcomes in education, homelessness, employment and health. The analysis relies on longitudinal studies from the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH) conducted in 2013 and 2015. Report findings point to the need for increased collaboration among child welfare and other systems, as well as connection of foster youths’ satisfaction with offered services to support service delivery.

More than half the caseload of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program consists of child-only cases, in which a child receives TANF cash assistance but the parent or caregiver does not. The most common type of child-only case is a nonparent caregiver case, consisting of children being cared for by someone other than their parents, often a grandparent. Research suggests that nonparent caregiver cases are often vulnerable with many unmet needs and that the children in these cases share characteristics with children living in foster care: mental health conditions, school-related problems, and experience with trauma. Kinship navigator programs can be an important tool for supporting these families. Most states are developing or expanding these programs, and the federal government has provided funding in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to state and eligible tribal child welfare agencies to develop, enhance, or evaluate kinship navigator programs. The Family First Prevention Services Act amended the Social Security Act to allow title IV-E agencies to receive funding for kinship navigator programs that meet certain evidence-based criteria; see ACYF-CB-PI-18-11 for program requirements.

On July 16, 2019, the Office of Family Assistance, in collaboration with the Children’s Bureau, sponsored a webinar that featured kinship navigator programs operating in three states and the services they offer to nonparent caregivers. Arizona Kinship Support Services connects kinship families to government benefits, links them to legal services, and helps them navigate existing community support systems. California’s UWCA-211-iFoster Kinship Navigator Collaborative provides an online, self-service resource portal for kinship families that coordinates public and private resources based on the families’ individual needs and preferences. The New York State Kinship Navigator provides an information and referral network for kinship caregivers statewide. In addition to these three states, the webinar featured a representative from the Children’s Bureau who discussed the federal funding available for kinship navigator programs and a representative from the Assisting Special Populations to Improve Readiness and Engagement (ASPIRE) study team who shared information on TANF child-only cases.

This dataset from the Annie E. Casey Foundation is the 30th annual report that follows and ranks states on metrics related to child well-being. Particular focus is on four larger categories of trend analysis: economic well-being, education, family and community, and health. Additionally, there are individual state profiles with relevant data that are presented as user-friendly fact sheets.

This Casey Family Programs issue brief looks at the use of peer mentors (“parent partners”) who work with parents entering in and engaging with the child welfare system. These parent partners have already encountered and worked with the child welfare system themselves, and the mentoring that they offer can encourage and instill hope for parents initially interacting with the system. The brief outlines these parent partner programs’ benefits and program research evaluation findings, and provides guidance on how these programs are structured and funded. It also provides brief summaries of three parent partner programs: Parents Anonymous^®, the Kentucky Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team (START) Program, and Iowa’s Parent Partner Program.

This Administration for Children and Families (ACF) blogpost, co-authored by the Associate Commissioner at the Children’s Bureau and the Commissioner of Administration for Native Americans, highlights ACF resources that can assist tribes and Native Americans in strengthening their children and family systems. These highlighted resources include the Children’s Bureau’s Capacity Building Center for tribes, Diligent Recruitment Plans to help tribes create and enhance their Recruitment and Foster Care programs, and competitive grants for innovative, locally-driven program design.

This Casey Family Programs brief offers background information and a summary of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). The brief also offers data on funding levels at national and state-by-state levels, while framing CAPTA in the context of other Federal child welfare financing and programs.