In this piece for the Chronicle of Social Change, Fred Wulczyn - a senior research fellow at Chapin Hall and the director of its Center for State Child Welfare Data - discusses the potential long-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on the U.S. child welfare system.

The Saskatchewan Youth In Care and Custody Network (SYICCN) is calling for assistance for children in government care to be kept in place until services return to pre-coronavirus levels, even if young people "age out" of those services, according to this article from CBC News. 

Child protection experts are worried that school closures and self-isolation efforts in place to hamper the spread of the coronavirus in the US will put children at greater risk for abuse and violence, according to this article from ABC News.

This article from the Huffington Post describes the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on care leavers in Canada.

During a teleconferenced hearing, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles said she wants unaccompanied and separated immigrant children to be moved out of government-contracted facilities and to ensure they are released to suitable sponsors in an orderly fashion and aren’t put in danger, according to this article from the Associated Press.

"Families and children involved with the child welfare system have begun to experience disruptions," says this article from Vox. "Courts are closing, cases are delayed, and in-person contact with social workers is severely limited. As a result, vulnerable children who are already experiencing great instability are being further destabilized."

Sharing Ideas that Strengthen Families and Engage Communities to Promote Child Well-Being will bring together policy, research, and practice professionals from child- and family-serving systems in the United States and other countries, as well as youth, caregivers, and community partners, to share and advance more effective family supports and systems of care for children and families in the 21st century.

This article from the Marshall Project describes some of the detrimental impacts the COVID-19 crisis has had on children in foster care in the U.S.

In this opinion piece for The Hill, Susan N. Dreyfus, president and CEO of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, calls on the U.S. government to provide support to the nation's child welfare system, "which has the critical responsibility of keeping our families strong and intact so that parents can care for their children safely at home."

The coronavirus pandemic and the new restrictions in place to limit the spread of the infection have presented several difficulties for foster families in California, including how to manage visits between foster children and their families.