This blogpost by the Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau highlights the celebration of National Foster Care Month 2019. This year’s theme is that foster care supports birth families when they most need it and provides care for children until their safe return home. The blogpost identifies resources and tips on building relationships among child welfare professionals, birth parents, and foster parents to support development of healthy and thriving children, as well as targeted supportive services implementation.

The blogpost, co-authored by the Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau at the Administration for Children and Families and the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) at the U.S. Department of Justice, highlights the partnering efforts between both federal agencies to reduce the frequency and impact of child abuse and neglect. Key highlights in this post are the Children’s Bureau’s and OJJDP’s resources, including an information memorandum, resource guides and tip sheets, and toolkits, as well as collaborative efforts to engage child welfare and law enforcement professionals.

This Chapin Hall report reviews the implementation of a “housing first” approach that addresses the needs of families in the child welfare system. The case study of supportive housing in Connecticut was a demonstration project, funded by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Researchers used a randomized controlled trial to identify the impact of supportive housing on child and family outcomes to include family reunification, as well as removal from and placement into foster care.

This report, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and other organizations, suggests how state policy makers in Maine could reform the child welfare or juvenile justice system for youth. It presents national research that identifies how a full continuum approach – covering prevention to reintegration – could help youth successfully transition to adulthood.

The Administration for Children and Families developed the Prevention Services Clearinghouse to implement the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) of 2018 funded under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. The Clearinghouse evaluates programs and services intended to provide enhanced support to children and families and prevent foster care placements. The Clearinghouse rates programs and services in the areas of mental health prevention and treatment options, substance abuse prevention and treatment services, in-home parenting programs, and kinship navigator programs. Their Handbook of Standards and Procedures describes the standards used to identify and review the programs and services, as well as the procedures followed by the Prevention Services Clearinghouse staff.

This National Conference of State Legislatures blogpost identifies state initiatives and model programs that support early education and child care. Highlighted are initiatives on parental leave programs; home visiting; improving infant and toddler child care supply and quality; well-being and developmental physical and mental health screenings for 9-, 18-, and 30-month-olds; and child care funding and early education subsidies.

The Children's Bureau Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, its Child Welfare Information Gateway, and the FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention developed this Resource Guide to help service providers prevent child abuse and neglect and promote child and family well-being. Content includes protective factors to strengthen individuals, families and communities; model programs that can be implemented when working with families and using the protective factor framework; ways the framework can build community partnerships; and how to protect children from abuse. The Resource Guide also provides parents and caregivers with English and Spanish tip sheets on building and sustaining a healthy home environment for children.

This blog post from the Children's Bureau Office on Child Abuse and Neglect identifies programs and resources that foster safe and stable environments for children and their families. The post highlights an initiative funded under the Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention program, as well as the 2019 Prevention Resource Guide that includes six protective factors promoting child well-being.

This MDRC article highlights promising practices for interagency coordination between the criminal justice and child support enforcement systems. It identifies types of collaboration between these programs, suggests how to target program populations, and addresses institutional constraints that hinder implementation of reforms between the two systems. For additional information on reentry, OFA hosted a webinar entitled “Providing Effective Employment and Supportive Services to Low-Income Women with Criminal Records,” which can be found here.