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Maintaining Families When Parents Have Disabilities
by Ella Callow
A child whose parent has a disability faces a serious threat of
removal by child welfare authorities. Parents’ attorneys and children’s representatives must have information and knowledge about the special challenges these families face in child welfare cases. Disability-aware advocacy can help prevent unnecessary traumatic removals of children from parents with disabilities.
More » Four Strategies to Implement the
Fostering Connections Act’s Education Provisions
The Fostering Connections Act
contains education provisions that are essential to breaking the cycle of poor education outcomes for children in foster care. The Act requires the child welfare agency to coordinate with local education agencies to ensure children remain in their same school even if their living placement changes. If it is not in the child’s best interest to remain, the agencies must coordinate to ensure immediate and appropriate enrollment in a new school. The Act also clarifies that federal child welfare funds can be used by states for reasonable travel costs to allow children in foster care eligible for IV-E reimbursement to stay in the same school. More »
To Terminate Parental Rights or Not?
Study Uncovers Judges’ Views on Terminating Parental Rights and Adoption
Judges who must decide whether to terminate parental rights
(TPR) of a child with no known permanent placement are often conflicted. The swift timelines of the Adoption and Safe Families of 1997 (ASFA) ensure children don’t linger unnecessarily in foster care and support freeing them for adoptive placements. But freeing a child with nowhere to go has benefits and risks. More »
New Housing Resources for Child Welfare Families and Aging-Out Youth
On Wednesday September 30,
2009, Deputy Secretary Ron Sims of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) invited public housing authorities (PHAs) nationwide to apply for $15 million for new Section 8 vouchers to provide permanent housing and services to families who are separated from their children because of home- lessness or inadequate housing.More »
Study Ranks States’ Legal Representation of Children
Most U.S. states do not
adequately protect the rights of abused and neglected children, according to a state-by-state study conducted by two national child advocacy organizations, First Star and the Children’s Advocacy Institute (CAI).More »
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