In this June 10, 2020 opening session scheduled from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. hosted by the National Partnership for Community Leadership during the online 22nd Annual International Fatherhood Conference, presenters will discuss programs supporting responsible fatherhood, effective parenting approaches, and strengthening family dynamics in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This virtual Fatherhood Conference brings together parents, policy makers, researchers, and practitioners working with low-income parents and youth to empower them and provide strategies and resources to strengthen family supports. (Please note that registration fees are required to attend the Conference.)

Featured speakers include: Scott M. Lekan, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and the Acting Commissioner of the Office of Child Support Enforcement in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF); Clarence H. Carter, Director of the Office of Family Assistance and the Acting Director of the Office of Community Services in ACF; Kimberly Dent, Executive Director of the Ohio Commission on Fatherhood/Ohio Department of Job and Family Services; Ronald Mincy, Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice and Director of the Center for Research on Fathers, Children, and Family Well-Being; Debra Pontisso, Chair of the National Responsible Fatherhood Roundtable and Visiting Scholar with the Strong Families Commission, Inc. of Pennsylvania; and Jeffrey Johnson, President and CEO of the National Partnership for Community Leadership.

In honor of May’s National Foster Care Month, the Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau writes in this blogpost that incorporating family voice into the permanency-planning process and encouraging collaboration between parents and resource parents can help the community, the courts, and related professionals inform a highly supportive child welfare agency culture. The blogpost provides a link to the updated National Foster Care Month website, which includes new resources and outreach tools showing how partnerships between parents and children, agencies, community organizations, and the courts can help support reunification and strengthen family and community connections.

The Aspen Institute’s Ascend initiative has launched a webinar series to cover 2Gen approaches that support the health, economic opportunity, and education of low-income families as they recover and move forward from the COVID-19 pandemic. Upcoming webinar topics are Child Support: Implications and Useful Lessons around Child Support, Parent Voice During COVID-19: Maintaining Feedback Loops, Stopping Behavioral Health and Substance Use Disorders Where They Start: Prevention and Treatment in Adolescence, and State Leadership During COVID-19 and Beyond. Recordings of previously held webinars on Telehealth and 2Gen, State Opportunities and Challenges in Advancing Child Care Innovation, and New Frames for a New Time are available.

The National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics is hosting a series of virtual workshops that address research on topics of interest to human service professionals throughout the summer. Future workshops will cover Machine Learning in Human Services Contexts, Cross-System Collaboration to Serve Justice-Involved Clients, and the Family First Prevention Services Act. Recordings of previously held workshops on TANF Responses to COVID-19 and Domestic Violence during COVID-19 are available.

Fathers faced with child care responsibilities while trying to work or look for work find it challenging to participate in Responsible Fatherhood programs. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report features the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) study, which strives to help sustain program engagement by examining factors inside and outside programs, as well as considerations regarding learning over time. The report overviews study results on these three factors (for example, creating a positive and comfortable environment, addressing barriers to accessing services, or considering participant perspectives) in the form of a tip sheet which programs can consider when trying to encourage father engagement.

This fact sheet offers tips, guidance, and resources on how grandfamilies can stay healthy, informed, and connected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics include practicing excellent hygiene, accessing food and medicine, accessing technology, staying connected, talking with kids about coronavirus, managing anxiety and stress, resources and activities for children at home, and back-up planning.

This blogpost examines the likelihood of children’s risk to returning to foster care if they are infants, in their early teens, or have experienced a group placement before reunification with their birth families. The blogpost summarizes research on more than 600,000 children in 20 states over a seven-year period, from 2003 to 2010, with follow-up analysis concluding in 2017. Variables assessing the risk of foster care reentry included: children’s race, ethnicity, gender, and age; children’s placement history; and the social and economic context of the placement. Additionally, the blogpost covers how child welfare agencies could identify children who might benefit from Family First Prevention Services Act interventions.

This blogpost summarizes two articles by Annie E. Casey Foundation staffers who focus on two critical facets for youth in foster care. The first article explores adolescent brain science and how child welfare professionals can support and engage these youth in planning their futures. The second article covers entry prevention programs and how they keep families together and reduce removal in cases other than child neglect or abuse.

This brief describes a project highlighting the development and implementation of policies and practices aimed at reducing the impact of Illinois mothers’ incarceration on their children. From interviews with incarcerated mothers, researchers learned how incarceration creates barriers to parenting, and through interviews with program administrators and others, they discovered how programs across the U.S. are addressing these barriers. Ways to help incarcerated mothers maintain relationships with their children included supporting communication between mothers and children via mail or phone, improving visitation policies, and increasing support services’ availability.

This blogpost profiles the Louisiana Department of Child and Family Services’ efforts to connect birth families with resource families following child removal, with the hopes of improving child welfare and the likelihood and timeliness of reunification. This shared parenting reflects the Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI), a Youth Law Center strategy to pave a new approach toward increasing reunification outcomes for families. This approach calls for a fundamental culture shift away from an “us-them” adversarial relationship between birth and resource families.