Permanency Tip of the Week: “Too Old” for Permanency?
Permanency efforts for older youth is just as critically important as it is for young children. Often these older youth are tracked into “Independent Living Programs” to help prepare them to live on their own as adults. This is exactly the opposite of what these and in fact all young adults need. To be successful in life, we need to learn to be inter-dependent. This is exactly where the critical importance of Permanency efforts come into play. Remember, that no one is ever too old for Permanency!
Permanency Story of the Week: Dreams Realized Through Adoption
“My mom is my angel. Because she adopted me, the life and opportunities I have today became possible.” When Michael Davis discovered AdoptUSKids, he knew that he wanted to share his story and take the opportunity to thank his mom. An adoption through the foster care system changed everything for Michael and his sister Ashlea. “My father was a drug addict and my birth mother wasn’t around,” he explains. When Michael was five, he and his three-year-old sister were removed from their father’s custody and placed in foster care. A year later, the children met their future mom and her nine-year-old son Marcus over pizza at their home in Florida. Soon after, that home became theirs too.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
California Former Foster Youth to Take Charge as Statewide Ombudsman
As a foster child overmedicated with psychiatric drugs, Rochelle Trochtenberg endured the trauma of life growing up in California’s child welfare system. Now, she will draw on that deeply personal experience as California’s foster care ombudsperson. Rochelle Trochtenberg — whose story was told in this newspaper’s investigative series “Drugging Our Kids” — was appointed this week to the influential post that investigates complaints and flags system failures in the nation’s largest child welfare system. Trochtenberg, 33, is the first former foster youth to hold the office representing 62,600 abused and neglected children here, and is possibly the first in the nation.
Kinship Is More Than Just Blood
Chronicle for Social Change – One of the major goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 was to speed up the achievement of permanency so that children would not have to go through repeated separations or continued limbo. If a child has been in care for 15 out of the last 22 months, the state is required to file for termination of parental rights. But there is no such deadline for relatives to come forward. Even if the state files for termination of parental rights after a year, it may take as long as another year for an adoption to be concluded. If a relative comes forward during that time period, the child may be moved after two years or more with the foster/adoptive family.
Why is Impulsive Aggression in Children so Difficult to Treat?
Maladaptive and impulsive aggression is explosive, triggered by routine environmental cues, and intended to harm another person, making it a significant challenge for clinicians, family members, and others who interact with affected children and adolescents.
Annie E Casey Foundation Launches $5.4 Million Youth Success Initiative
Through its Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) initiative, the Annie E Casey foundation aims to increase educational and employment opportunities for young people between the ages of 14 and 25 who are in foster care, the juvenile justice system, or homeless. To that end, over the next three to five years local partnerships in Alaska, Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New York will adapt a pair of evidence-based models to meet the needs of these youth, including providing support to address the personal life traumas they may have experienced.
Giving Foster Youth a Chance at College
Nearly one-half of the nation’s 500,000 kids in foster care leave high school without a diploma, and only about 3 percent ever obtain a college degree, according to the San Francisco-based Stuart Foundation. Its report, “The Invisible Achievement Gap Report,” shares that overall, foster youth have the lowest educational attainment of any cross-section of the population, including low-income families, English language learners and racial minorities.
10 Things About Childhood Trauma Every Teacher Needs to Know
| With grief, sadness is obvious. With trauma, the symptoms can go largely unrecognized because it shows up looking like other problems: frustration, acting out, difficulty concentrating, following directions or working in a group. Often students are misdiagnosed with anxiety, behavior disorders or attention disorders, rather than understanding the trauma that’s driving those symptoms and reactions. |