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Our Project
The Legal Center for Foster Care and Education (Legal Center FCE)
is a collaboration between Casey
Family Programs and the
ABA’s Center on Children and the Law, in conjunction with
the Education
Law Center-PA and the Juvenile
Law Center.
The Legal Center FCE serves as a national technical assistance resource
and information clearinghouse on legal and policy matters affecting
the education of children in the foster care system. The Legal Center
FCE provides expertise to states and constituents, facilitates networking
to advance promising practices and reforms, and provides technical
assistance and training to respond to the ever-growing demands for
legal support and guidance.
The Legal Center FCE focuses on supporting direct education advocacy
efforts for children in foster care, as well as promoting federal,
state and local laws and policies that address the education needs
of this population. The Legal Center builds on the ever-increasing
momentum behind meeting the education needs of children in foster
care; an issue that can help establish safety, permanency and well
being for children involved with the child welfare system.
This project was made possible with the support of Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve - and ultimately prevent the need for - foster care.
What's New!
Monthly Fact Sheets
The Legal Center plans to develop monthly Question & Answer Fact Sheets about important issues related to education needs for children in out-of-home care.
The Blueprint for Change: Education Success for Children in Foster Care
The Blueprint for Change is a tool for change. The 8 Goals for Youth and Benchmarks for each goal indicating progress toward achieving education success are a framework for both direct case advocacy and system reform efforts. Following each goal are National, State, and Local Examples of policies, practices, programs, and resources that exist to improve educational outcomes for children in foster care.
Click here
to download the Blueprint!
Click here to download
the Blueprint Insert Card listing all the Goals and Benchmarks.
Click here to
download a Fact Sheet about the Blueprint.
Blueprint Stakeholder Tools
Caseworkers – The Legal Center has developed two tools for caseworkers related to Goals 1 and 2 of the Blueprint: School Stability and School Transitions . Each of these checklists is designed to assist caseworkers about school stability and continuity.
Click
here to download the Blueprint: School Stability.
Click
here to download the Blueprint: School Transitions.
State Legislation Chart - Foster Care and Education
Providing School Stability Outside of the
McKinney Vento Act
This chart outlines existing state laws and policies that provide
rights and protections to children in foster care to assist with school
stability and continuity, separate and apart from those protections
offered under the federal McKinney-Vento Act.
Click here to download chart!
National Working Group on Foster Care and Education
To ensure successful educational outcomes for children and youth in foster care across the country, ten organizations have joined together as the National Working Group on Foster Care and Education. The working group heightens national awareness of the educational needs of children and youth in care, and promotes best and promising practices and reforms across educational, child welfare, and juvenile and family court systems.
»Resource Library
Legal Center Publications: Please click here to access a list of all materials and publications developed by the Legal Center for Foster Care and Education, including the Blueprint for Change, fact sheets, and articles.
ABA Policy Resolutions
Transitioning Youth Services (August 2007)
This policy includes recommendations addressing a wide range of issues related to youth in care, specifically, including definitions in federal law regarding financial aid for current and former youth in care, amending the McKinney-Vento Act to cover all children in out-of-home care, and amending FERPA as it pertains to sharing education information of foster youth with child welfare agencies, foster care providers, and the courts
McKinney-Vento Act (August 2007)
This policy includes recommendations to amend the McKinney-Vento Act to clarify that it applies to all children and youth in foster care, and to significantly increase funding to support the newly eligible population of all students in foster care, with particular focus on improved funding mechanisms to support transportation to keep students in their school of origin when in their best interest to do so.
Conference Calls
The Legal Center FCE sponsors conference calls that focus on important and timely topics of interest to advocates working in the field of foster care and education. All are welcome to participate in the calls. Each will be held at 3pm (EST).
Upcoming dates:
February 13, 2008 (Topic: Credit Transfers and Diplomas) Notes
May 14, 2008 (Topic: Surrogate Parent Programs)
August 13, 2008 (Title I / NCLB)
November 12, 2008 (Special Education)
Conference Dial-in Number:
(641) 715-3300
Participant Access Code:
585463#
