Displaying 11 - 20 of 92
This paper asks the questions: What can we learn from the pandemic—and federal, state, and local governmental responses— about the cracks in the child welfare system? What lessons can be carried forward post-pandemic? It presents recommendations for protecting children through the pandemic and beyond.
Abstract
This policy analysis examines the impact of COVID-19 policy guidance on the role of workers who provide outreach to transition-age care leavers. The comparison focuses on four countries (US, England, Canada, Australia) and addresses the question: How do policy changes impact street-level bureaucracy (SLB) discretion, activities, resources, and constraints? A review of policy guidance identifies similar actions across the four countries focused on: public health measures, extension and flexibility of services, prioritization of cases, and enhanced use of technology. Extension and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe how a sense of normalcy for young people in foster care can be critical to their well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports on policy and practice efforts in the USA to promote normalcy for youth in care. The authors review policy that promotes normalcy and report on one organization's efforts to support these goals.
Findings
COVID-19 has offered profound challenges to the goal of normalcy. Rise Above has adapted to meet the challenges.
Originality/value
The authors argue that COVID may also offer…
Abstract
Purpose
The overarching purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how foster parents’ parenting-related stress levels have changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the role of sociodemographic characteristics in exacerbating risk for increased stress.
Method
Participants were electronically surveyed about their pre- and post-pandemic parenting-related stress, using an adapted version of the parenting stress scale.
Results
Nine-hundred and ninety foster parents (N = 990) participated in the study. Overall, foster parents reported…
Abstract
The COVID‐19 pandemic has thrust the world into a crisis – and the child welfare system is particularly susceptible to its effects. This pandemic has exacerbated some of the most problematic aspects of the system, and its impacts will reverberate long after the immediate crisis ends. As COVID‐19 spread, families were instantly impacted – in‐person family time was cancelled, youth and families were unable to access basic resources, services, and technology, and access to the courts was curtailed. Those short‐term effects may give way to long‐term harms such as disrupted attachments…
Abstract
There is an urgent need to strengthen early childhood development and education in emergencies (ECDEiE) globally. Colombia has faced protracted and acute crises for decades. Also, the country has applied a unique approach to holistic and integrated ECDE policy formulation. We argue that these characteristics offer a valuable country‐case to identify barriers and levers to the operationalization of ECDEiE. We applied a sector‐wide analysis protocol that harmonized components of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle by the Inter‐Agency Standing Committee and of a framework to…
Although COVID-19 mercifully seems to affect children less severely than adults, children are far from immune from the impacts of the virus. Public health orders closing schools and businesses, cancelling events, and keeping children at home have been disruptive and distressing to many children and families. But for children who rely on government entities for protection, care, custody, and services, the effects of the public health orders can be devastating. COVID-19 and the response to it has serious implications for the safety, well-being, and development of these vulnerable children…
Introduction
Out-of-home care, especially treatment residential care programs (TRC) are often described in the media, and even in some professional studies, as obsolete social structures (Consensus Statement, 2014). Residential care settings are out-of-home facilities such as educational youth villages and educational, therapeutic, or rehabilitation residential treatment centers (Grupper, 2013). Their aim is to provide education, treatment, rehabilitation or protection for children and youth, including those at risk and others, to protect these young people and work toward making a…
Focusing on three critical facets of the U.S. child welfare system — reporting and investigating maltreatment, placement and other system metrics, and permanency — this Essay explores how the pandemic impacts the child welfare system and how the system should respond. Analyzing Florida’s public data and emergency policies, this Essay provides a more data-driven picture of the pandemic’s impact on the child welfare system during the first six months after states imposed stay-at-home policies. This Essay also contextualizes recommendations for how the system should respond within an analysis of…
Introduction
Even under normal circumstances, child welfare systems can be a fraught environment for LGBTQ+ youth. Like all young people in these systems, they must cope with the abuse and neglect they may have suffered at the hands of their caregivers. But LGBTQ+ youth are at higher risk of additional harms, including discrimination, institutionalization, and even abuse within the system. They are more likely to age out without ever achieving permanency. LGBTQ+ young people in out-of-home care are disproportionately people of color and are therefore exposed…