Preparing for the Road Ahead
This report reflects on the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative’s vision for building on its successes to help youth and young adults thrive socially, emotionally, financially, intellectually and physically.
Across the nation, 4% of all kids — more than 2.65 million children — are in kinship care. In this arrangement, relatives raise kids when their parents cannot care for them.
There are three general and sometimes overlapping categories of kinship care. These categories are: 1) private or informal care, where families make arrangements with or without legal recognition of a caregiver’s status; 2) diversion kinship care, where children who have come to the attention of child welfare agencies end up living with a relative or close friend of the family. and 3) licensed or unlicensed kinship care, where kids live with relatives but remain in legal custody of the state.
This report reflects on the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative’s vision for building on its successes to help youth and young adults thrive socially, emotionally, financially, intellectually and physically.
In 2014, 12% of the 238,230 kids who transitioned out of foster care did so without the benefit of a permanent connection to family.
In this episode of CaseyCast, the Foundation’s Lisa Hamilton and Delaware’s Division of Family Services director, Shirley Roberts, strike up an inspiring conversation about the state’s evolving child welfare system.
The most effective child welfare agencies establish practice models that describe how they partner with families and the community and keep them focused on their goals. In its child welfare leader's desk guide, the Casey Foundation outlines how these practice models create high-performing agencies.
In 2011, Delaware’s child welfare system wasn’t just in trouble — it was in crisis, with too many teens entering out-of-home care and later exiting foster care disconnected from family. To fix this broken system, the state launched a sweeping, data-driven reform effort called Outcomes Matter. The initiative boosted morale among caseworkers and gave kids and families a critical voice in the decision-making process. But the best part? The effort helped improve the well-being of Delaware’s children and families.
A return to their social work roots. That’s how caseworkers in Delaware’s state-run child welfare agency describe the results of a three-year improvement effort presented in Crisis and Opportunity in Delaware — a new Casey Foundation case study.
In February, the Child Welfare Strategy Group launched a three-part webinar series devoted to building high-performance child welfare agencies.
Child welfare agencies around the nation aspire not only to help children in their care but also to end racial disparities that too often plague large systems. One challenge to addressing racial disparities is understanding where disparities exist — and finding the right tool for measuring change.
Want to really help children and families through public agency reform? Getting attention from the state's governor can electrify the child welfare improvement process in state agencies.
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