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When Tenaja Jordan came out to her parents at 17 years old, they kicked her out of their home. As a teenager, she was still considered a child in the eyes of the state, and was immediately placed into New York City's child welfare system. Following the trauma of the situation, one question remained on Jordan's mind: Where was she going to live? Jordan made her needs clear to child welfare workers: She didn't want to live on Staten Island or with a homophobic guardian. But that's exactly...

Earlier this summer , Mark Courtney and his team at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago released the latest installment in his most recent longitudinal study, the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH). Conducted in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the County Welfare Directors Association of California, CalYOUTH is a five-year research project that examining the impact of California’s implementation of the Fostering Connections to...

Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...

State legislatures are an ever-changing landscape. Some states cram in a year of policy into short sessions, and the membership is constantly turning over. It can be a tough environment for child welfare issues to find traction, even with widespread concern over increases in foster youth and shortages in foster homes. One national organization is taking a crack at embedding more state houses with legislators poised to take the lead in this arena. The National Conference of State Legislatures...

The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Calli Crowder, 25, a...

There is mounting evidence that children who experience early adversity are at heightened risk for developing physical and psychological sequelae later in childhood; moreover, such sequelae can be biologically embedded, impacting multiple biological systems (including the epigenome), thereby elevating the risk that these effects will persist into adulthood. Two common forms of adversity that affect tens of millions of children each year are maltreatment and removal from parental care and...

The research is clear on the psychological and physical damage these practices inflict: Parent-child separations lead to increased anxiety and depression, lower IQs, and post-traumatic stress disorder in children. At least in theory, the federal government agrees. In an interview last year in The Chronicle of Social Change , Jerry Milner, associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau, rightly said : “We should consciously avoid inflicting psychological and emotional damage to children in...

The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Noor Kathem, 23, an...

It’s been a little more than five months since the Family First Prevention Services Act, one of the biggest shifts in the history of federal child welfare financing, was shoehorned into a stopgap spending bill. The law’s two main provisions – reimbursement for services aimed at preventing the use of foster care, and limitations on federal funds for congregate care placements – take effect in October of 2019. This week Jerry Milner, associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau (CB) and one...

The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Terrence Scraggins,...

The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Brittney Barros, 20,...

The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Shay House, 22, an...