Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Administration for Community Living (ACL) value collaborative efforts that support and stabilize families, broadly defined, and achieve safety and well-being for children.

The Children’s Bureau (CB) within the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) and the ACL have released a joint letter on their collaboration and coordinated efforts around their shared goal of supporting grandfamilies and kinship families, both to prevent unnecessary involvement in the child welfare system and to maintain connection to kin when child welfare intervention is necessary.

Dear Colleague Letter on Supporting Kinship Caregivers The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Administration for Community Living (ACL) value collaborative efforts that support and stabilize families, broadly defined, and achieve safety and well-being for children.

It may be summer, but our team is still busy tracking policy updates affecting child welfare in Minnesota. ☀️

We recapped some of the season's key changes and developments in a new blog post on the CASCW website - including coverage on the launch of DCYF, summaries of recent reports, and other highlights.

Read more in the full blog post: https://cascw.umn.edu/policy/summer-updates-from-cascw-at-the-capitol/

In case you missed it, the federal government released a new report this week tallying the historic harms of Native American boarding schools.

The Interior Department expanded the number of children known to have died in the repressive boarding school system that, for more than a century, pulled Native American children from their homes and communities. The Interior Department also called for billions in federal funding to begin a “healing” process.

The report concludes a three-year investigation that saw, for the first time, the federal government accepting responsibility for its role in creating the system, which included more than 400 schools across 37 states.

Nearly a thousand children died at Indian boarding schools funded by the U.S. The investigation into abuse and mistreatment of Native children at the boarding schools for more than a century proposes $23 billion in funding aimed at healing.

Our Executive Director Jim Davnie and EdAllies Policy Director Matt Shaver discussing chronic absenteeism and the work at the legislature this session to find and fund solutions at the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare Be@School Conference today!

Learn more about chronic absenteeism and our work to support students at www.mnyouth.net

The 2024 Be@School Conference is here! Today is all about “From Awareness to Action: Uniting Efforts to Address the Attendance Crisis,” and we’re so grateful for all the partners, speakers, and attendees who joined us today. ⚖️☀️

Foster parents, parents and caregivers can learn about effective care for youth experiencing a behavioral health crisis and youth with lived experiences of trauma and adversity. Two free webinar-based trainings will be offered in August.

Crisis De-escalation: Learn this model of intervention to help guide a child experiencing dysregulation.
• Wednesday, Aug. 14
• 1 to 2:30 p.m.
• Register: https://bit.ly/3zYxARA

Environmental Assessments: Create a safe and nurturing environment for a more successful transition into the home.
• Tuesday, Aug. 27
• 9 to 10:30 a.m.
• Register: https://bit.ly/3WIHrE4

We are partnering with the Training Institute at People Incorporated to provide the live trainings. Recorded versions will be available for later viewing.

A team of more than two dozen members is working to better protect foster youth in the Land of 10,000 Lakes by granting them a tailor-made bill of rights.

The youth advocates, law school students, foster parent representatives and state officials have hosted public meetings in the Minneapolis area since April as part of the endeavor, sifting through reams of feedback from young people statewide who have grown up in government custody. So far, there are seven pages of proposed rights to draw from — everything from a fair complaint procedure to cellular communication rights.

A Foster Youth ‘Bill of Rights’ Now Being Drafted in Minnesota | The Imprint A team of more than two dozen members is working to better protect foster youth in the Land of 10,000 Lakes by granting them a tailor-made bill of rights. The […]

Brought to you by the Center for Practice Transformation at the University of Minnesota, CEs on a Stick is back at Peters Hall on the St. Paul campus – a stone’s throw from the Minnesota State Fair grounds. There's only one week left to register for these valuable training opportunities, so get ready to transform your professional skill set with over 30 CE hours of impactful workshops. Topics include Clinical Supervision, Cannabis Use for Adolescents, Sexuality and Sexual Health, an in-depth study of the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and a wealth of additional topics! All workshops will take place between August 12-16.

Learn more & get registered at: https://practicetransformation.umn.edu/continuing-education/ces-on-a-stick-2024/

A great article to follow up Heewon Lee's presentation at the ICAR International Conference on Adoption Research!

"As a genetic counselor and assistant director of the Genetic Counseling Program at the University of Minnesota, Lee understands better than most that adoption is itself a health-risk factor. 'It’s a real disadvantage right away,' Lee explained during a conference presentation. 'With no health records, we have no access to targeted health screenings. We’re relegated to the average risk level, potentially barred from life-saving interventions.'"

International adoption leads to family health mysteries Some international adoptees are turning to consumer genetic testing from 23andMe and AncestryDNA to fill in missing family medical histories. But researchers and doctors advise caution.

The Department of Youth, Children, and Families was established earlier this month and so much has happened already! Tasks, programs, and other activities will continue to transfer over the next year, and progress will be tracked in regular reports sent to the Minnesota Legislature, per statute. Here are a few upcoming milestones to be aware of, as noted in DCYF's planning timeline. One of the next key events will be the first-ever commissioner report which is due later this fall.

Our biweekly CASCW Connect newsletter features a regular series called “How I Connect” where we invite partners to share what’s on their mind. In the latest issue, we asked CASCW partner (and professor) Dr. Amy Krentzman to discuss how her work in addiction recovery research intersects with child welfare.

The newsletter also highlights available job openings in the field, useful training links, and more resources for workers. If you’re not already subscribed to CASCW Connect, sign up on our home page at cascw.umn.edu!

On a warm July evening, a group of fewer than a dozen people met at the Minneapolis American Indian Center to share information about how adopted adults can claim personal items left for them at the time of their adoption by their birth parents.

Ann Haines Holy Eagle searched and found her birth family many years ago and now advocates for Native American children and families, including fellow adoptees. "If I would have had something from my mom ... just to know that my mom loved me, you know, or thought enough to send something with me to fight in this world. It would have made a huge difference," said Haines Holy Eagle. For the past several decades activists have pushed for access to birth and adoption records. Last year, the state Legislature answered those calls, making state birth records available to adoptees for the first time.

We recognize the tremendous amount of advocacy work poured into this policy change and are thankful that this might help many Minnesota adoptees in their healing journey.

Personal histories, items can be claimed by adult adoptees from Minnesota’s DHS files Native American adoptees and advocates are asking the Department of Human Services to do more to help all adoptees claim items left in the care of adoption placing agencies by birth parents.

In the United States today, more than 5 million children, or 7% of all children, have a parent who is or has been incarcerated. Minnesota’s model jail practices learning community brings together staff from jail facilities and community partners at the state and local levels to help implement policy, systems, and environmental changes that benefit children of incarcerated parents and their families. Join a conversation with the Children's Bureau and University of Minnesota scholar Rebecca J. Shlafer, PhD, MPH on July 23 at 1:00 pm CST to explore strategies to support families dealing with the stress of the loss of a parent to incarceration.

Sign up for the webinar here: https://kauffmaninc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xe6KZqSATTC6GXPgFNMUAg #/registration

Thank you so much to everyone who made it to this week’s “De-Escalation Through Mindfulness” training! Hosting practical workshops like these is central to CASCW’s mission, and we are grateful for the continued engagement and participation of the child welfare workforce. Keep following our page to be notified of future opportunities!

July is Disability Pride Month! Check out our recent blog post for more relevant information and resources: https://loom.ly/dbzm2yQ

Financial incentives for adoptive and kin guardianship parents might help improve outcomes for children leaving the state's foster system, according to a June study of changed Minnesota policy.

Recent research from the Upjohn Institute focuses on payment equalization policy, which was part of Minnesota's January 2015 Northstar child welfare policy reform. Payment equalization ensures that financial support continues even after a child is adopted or placed in guardianship, whereas previously support often ended at that point. This payment equalization part of the policy increased payments to adopted and kin guardianship families of children 6 years old and up by an average of around $2,000 over three years, according to the study.

This article discusses the complexities related to adoption assistance, extended foster care, possible alternative models, and other important areas of child welfare. It also features CASCW research from a previous MinnLInK Brief!

A look at Minnesota adoption policy change. Is it working? - MinnPost Financial incentives for adoption and kin guardianship parents might help improve outcomes for children leaving the state’s foster system.

Our partners at the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy are a Community Trainer focused on Child Welfare and the Law. This is a short-term, temp casual position that provides high quality, culturally responsive, competency-based training to county and Tribal child welfare professionals.

Learn more about this cool opportunity & share with your network: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Kri35PTqDgPkYUjpn9RSS9fDKefv6b-/edit

CASCW is ! 🔔 We are still looking for an organized, process-driven individual to join our team as Director of Operations. A slight shift was made to give greater emphasis to organizational operations, with continued but more limited budget involvement. The Director of Operations will manage the day-to-day functioning and administration of CASCW and the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy, providing strategic support to leadership while working to align the budget, human resources, data systems, research-related operations, facilities, technology, and other operational areas.

Please help us spread the news! More information including salary range, additional job responsibilities, and application instructions can be found here: https://hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/362238

The CASCW team was able to attend several sessions of the ICAR8 Conference last week! It’s always a joy to connect with friends, colleagues, and others in the community ☀️ Friday’s symposium - Lifelong Issues in Adoption: Reframing the Discourse Through Lived Experience - centered the importance of elevating both the professional and personal in the future of adoption research. The day featured presentations and panels led by adoptee scholars - including Shannon Gibney - and a reunion of PACC coordinators past (Harlow's Monkey) and present.

Thank you to the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) for this excellent summary of ICI & CASCW's recent visit to Namibia to kick off efforts to create The Child Research Initiative and Training Center at the University of Namibia!

Namibia: Community-Driven Priorities Namibia: Community-Driven PrioritiesShare this pageShare this page on Facebook.Share this page on Twitter.Share this page on LinkedIn.Share this page via email.Print this page.July 2024Leaders in child welfare and disability from the University of Minnesota worked with stakeholders in Namibia last m...

Every year, more than 50,000 children in foster care across the country are sent to residential treatment facilities - some for mental health services, but some simply because the foster care system is out of room. PBS News covered a recent Senate investigation that found that children in these residential treatment facilities are sometimes subjected to abuse and neglect.

Why children and teens in residential treatment centers are vulnerable to abuse A recent Senate investigation found that children in residential treatment facilities are sometimes subjected to abuse and neglect. We hear from people who lived in these facilities when they were younger, and Ali Rogin speaks with Sixto Cancel, founder and CEO of Think of Us, a nonprofit aimed at i...

With children out of school, July is a great time for parents to make concentrated efforts to rekindle strong, positive, and healthy relationships with their children. It's also a time to emphasize healthy communication skills and support the growing independence of their kids. Positive parent-child relationships set the stage for children's success in school and in life, and they are our most important partners for supporting the development and well-being of young children.

Check out these resources to increase your knowledge about parenting programs that are most likely to be effective with families of young children in the settings where you work: https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/parenting

New coverage on the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act from CBS News: "The measure finally cleared the state legislature this year after years of discussion at the capitol and effort by advocates. A work group tasked with making recommendations to lawmakers found that while African American youth make up 9% of the state population, they consist of 18% of the out-of-home placements in child protection cases. That's barely changed in 25 years."

New law aims to curb racial disparities in child welfare system, keep families together The law sets new standards for when courts can terminate parental rights and orders them to place a child with a willing and able relative before foster care, among other provisions.

Dealing with an unprecedented number of complex child welfare cases, Stearns County decided to bring together staff from schools, law enforcement, the health care system, mental health providers, probation and social services to create a Juvenile Community Action Team to proactively address the kinds of issues that propel families to a breaking point.

The team puts a family at the center of decision-making, restructuring the traditional process that sees child welfare staff stepping in after a family is in crisis. Families tell the team what they need — such as counseling, access to food, childcare or medical care — and the team connects them to those resources and services.

Read on 👇

Child welfare program asks families: ‘What do you need?’ before their breaking point Stearns County, Minn. let families tell the system the support they need and bring together all of the stakeholders to make that possible.

UPDATE: They have been found

UMPD is requesting the public’s assistance in locating a missing child, Amayah Whitefeather, also known as Ray, age 12. Whitefeather is described as 5’2”, 180 lbs, with dark shoulder length hair and brown eyes. Whitefeather was last seen on 07/08/24 at 3:01 pm. Whitefeather was seen exiting the light rail in Minneapolis and walking northbound on Nicollet Mall from 5th St S.

If you have any information on their whereabouts, please call 612-624-COPS.

From the Star Tribune: "A new adoption law that took effect in Minnesota on July 1 simplifies what's normally a very complex process for adoptees to navigate - that of trying to identify their birth parents, if they desire - and grants them the dignity of possessing a significant document to which nonadopted people historically have been entitled. Birth parents retain an ability to express their preferences about being contacted, though previously filed affidavits of nondisclosure are no longer in effect. The change provides for mutual respect among all parties in the adoption process - and relies on that same sense of goodwill going forward."

EDITORIAL | Law change grants older adoptees clarity As of July 1, those adopted before 1982 in Minnesota can access their original birth certificate.