The Annie E. Casey Foundation has selected 16 leaders from across the country as its 2013-2014 Children and Family Fellows. These accomplished public systems administrators, nonprofit leaders and community development professionals who are committed to helping low-income families succeed will use the 20-month fellowship to work toward specific, measurable improvements for children and families.

The Casey Foundation created the Children and Family Fellowship, now in its 20th year, to increase the pool of leaders with the vision, drive and ability to create and sustain major system reforms and community initiatives that benefit large numbers of children and families.

Using a results-based leadership approach, Fellows work toward their chosen goals for children and families by participating in a series of intensive leadership opportunities, including group seminars and individual coaching that build competencies, site visits to learn about innovative service delivery models and application of learning within their home organizations.

“By giving these talented leaders guidance, tools and learning opportunities tailored specifically to the results they hope to achieve, the Fellowship is a powerful catalyst for measurable improvements in child and family well-being,” said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation. “Over the past 20 years, the Fellowship program has created a dynamic community of leaders who continue to collaborate and challenge themselves to give all children a chance to reach their full potential.”

See who was named a 2013-2014 Children and Family Fellow.

As a senior associate in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Center for Community and Economic Opportunity, Beadsie Woo works on strategies to help vulnerable families build and protect their assets to become more financially stable. Woo coauthored Weathering the Recession: The Financial Crisis and Family Wealth Changes in Low-Income Neighborhoods, a report that explored what happened to assets, debts and home equity for families living in low-income neighborhoods during the Great Recession.

In this installment of Five Questions with Casey, Woo discusses the challenges youth in foster care face in protecting their credit and what professionals can do to help them overcome identity theft.

Read our interview with Beadsie Woo.

Making Connections, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s signature place-based  community change initiative, ran from 1999 through 2010 and focused on firmly developing a family-strengthening framework. The effort led to a range of innovations in the community change field, as well as started and strengthened many local initiatives.

Making Connections’ positive outcomes are still influencing Casey and the broader field. In many notable cases, the programs and partnerships created during the initiative continue to thrive. Assessments of the initiative already have produced a variety of lessons on program development, implementation, evaluation
and other topics, with valuable implications for practitioners, public policymakers, funders and others involved in community development.

This report takes a step back and outlines key findings from the initiative that can provide guidance to those involved with community change efforts in the future. These principles can serve as guideposts at an exciting time in the community development field.

Read Community Change: Lessons Learned from Making Connections

Making Connections, the Annie E. Casey Foundation's signature place-based community change initiative, ran from 1999 through 2010 and focused on firmly developing a family-strengthening framework. The effort led to a range of innovations in the community change field, as well as started and strengthened many local initiatives. This video shares lessons learned and highlights the voices of those instrumental in the initiative.

Read the report: Community Change: Lessons Learned from Making Connections
View the video: Making Connections: Looking Back, Moving Forward

States seeking to strengthen their kinship care policies and practices now have several new tools to guide their work. A new report, The Kinship Diversion Debate: Policy and Practice Implications for Children, Families and Child Welfare Agencies, explores different perspectives on the practice of diverting children from child welfare.

Two additional publications, Kinship Process Mapping: Improving Practice in Kinship Care and a User’s Guide to Essential Kinship Data provide guidance on steps states can take to ensure the safety, stability and permanence for all children who are not able to live with their parents.