An Instagram Live Conversation: Keeping Kids in Families

Kids deserve to grow up in fam­i­lies — not insti­tu­tions. Yet, across the Unit­ed States today, 55,000 chil­dren are still liv­ing in group place­ment facilities.

What bet­ter alter­na­tives exist?

Dur­ing an Insta­gram Live con­ver­sa­tion, record­ed on June 27, 2022, Casey’s own San­dra Gas­ca-Gon­za­lez, explores the need for child wel­fare sys­tems to iden­ti­fy prac­tices that reduce reliance on group place­ments and short­en young people’s time in care.

Watch the Insta­gram Live

Dur­ing the ses­sion, Gas­ca-Gon­za­lez, who serves as vice pres­i­dent of the Casey Foundation’s Cen­ter for Sys­tems Inno­va­tion, talks with researcher Anto­nio M. Oftelie about his report, Trans­form­ing Con­gre­gate Care.

Released by the Luther­an Ser­vices in Amer­i­ca with sup­port from the Casey Foun­da­tion, the report high­lights promis­ing pro­grams and prac­tices that can serve as guide­posts for future reform. Oftelie is both a board mem­ber of Luther­an Ser­vices and the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Lead­er­ship for a Net­worked World, an applied research ini­tia­tive at Har­vard University.

Over the course of their chat, Gas­ca-Goon­za­lez and Oftelie offer ideas and advice on evolv­ing soci­etal con­di­tions as well as child wel­fare and jus­tice sys­tem prac­tices to keep chil­dren more in their homes.