Living in Chaos is a High Risk Factor for Losing Parental Custody

Source cited in a presentatio by:Bryan Samuels, Commissioner
Administration on Children, Youth and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Source of graph:
Simmel, C. (2010. Why do adolescents become involved in with the child welfare system? Exploring risk factors that affect young adolescents. School of Social Work, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ.

The Link Between Relationships and Resilience

Source:
Bryan Samuels, Commissioner
Administration on Children, Youth and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services


* * *
Speaking as a former foster youth, another way to express this truth might be that:

• Pain came into our lives through relationships
• Healing can enter our lives that way, too

Lisa

Safety, Permanence and Well-Being

Child welfare agencies are rated by the CSFR on how well they provide foster care youth with Safety, Permanency and Well-Being.

Currently, the federal government is thoughtfully considering: 

• What exactly does "Well Being" look like? 

•  How can it be measured?

Source:
Bryan Samuels
Commissioner, Administration on Children Youth and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The Difference Between Physical And Emotional Safety

Tips for Foster Parents:

• Limit stimulation - be patient and take a slower pace in introducing newness ("welcome to your new foster home, there are all the rules, now let's meet everybody in the household"), because this speed of incoming data can be cognitively understood, but is emotionally overwhelming.
• Follow the lead of the child. 
• Follow the pace of the child.

Tips for Caseworkers:

• Be aware that Transition Points are emotional hot spots
• The internal alarm goes off, signaling danger
• Child welfare has a tendency to try to make moves as quick as possible -- this is not in the best interest of the child, in terms of making them feel safe

Goal:

• To create a place of safety for the child / teenager
• To avoid re-traumatizing the child through further abrupt disruption
• To create a place of order, rather than chaos.
• To create a sense of control, rather than instability.
• To teach the child self-regulation.

Source:
Bryan Samuels, Commissioner
Administration on Children, Youth and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Overmedication of foster youth continues....

A new study, Antipsychotic Treatment Among Youth in Foster Care, examined concomitant antipsychotic use among Medicaid-enrolled youth in foster care, compared with disabled or low-income Medicaid-enrolled youth.

They found that:

• More than a third of youth in foster care without disabilities had multiple anit-psychotic prescriptions lasting longer than 90 days
• Children who were not adopted had the highest rates of prescriptions, representing 38 out of every 100 children in foster care.

In comparison, 26 out of every 100 children who were on public assistance but not in foster care had more than one antipsychotic prescription.

In recent years, doctors and policy makers have grown concerned about high rates of overall psychiatric drug use in the foster care system. Previous studies have found that children in foster care receive psychiatric medications at about twice the rate among children outside the system. 

In 2008, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held a hearing on the utilization of psychotropic medication for children in foster care.

In 2010, Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the prevalence of prescribed psychotropic medications for children in foster care.

New Federal Requirements for States re: Foster Children, Trauma and Monitoring Medications

President Obama recently signed the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act (H.R. 2883) into law.

Among other stipulations, this new law:

• Requires States to address emotional trauma in foster children, adopt protocols for using and monitoring psychotropic medications, and describe how they both address the developmental needs of young children in the child welfare system and reduce their length of stay in foster care.

Adapting CBITS and SSET to Support Foster Care Youth

Toolkit for Adapting Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) or Supporting Students Exposed to Trauma (SSET) for Implementation with Youth in Foster Care  (Dana Schultz, Dionne Barnes-Proby, Anita Chandra, Lisa H. Jaycox, Erin Maher, Peter Pecora)

The purpose of this toolkit is to assist school-based mental health professionals, school personnel, and child welfare social workers in adapting these interventions for use with youth aged 10-15 who are in foster care:

• CBITS was developed for use by school-based mental health professionals for any student with symptoms of distress following exposure to trauma. 
• SSET was adapted from CBITS for use by any school personnel with the time and interest to work with students affected by trauma.

The authors note that delivering a school-based mental health program to youth in foster care has many challenges, including collaboration between the child welfare and education systems, confidentiality and information sharing policies regarding youth in foster care, and identification of these youth.

The toolkit was designed to help understand these challenges and provide strategies for addressing them. It is made up of three parts:

• Background Section
• Overview of CBITS and SSET
• Step-By-Step Guide to Implementing and Adapting CBITS/SSET for Foster Care Youth

Whose Permanency Is It, Anyway?

Voices From the 2008 National Convening on Youth Permanence

More than 30 youth and alumni from foster care attending the 2008 National Convening on Youth Permanence participated in an impromptu session facilitated by the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Family to Family Youth Engagement Team. Participants shared their experiences and provided recommendations about improving the foster care system.

What concerned these young people the most were issues of trust; they felt unable to trust the concept and the process of permanency planning. Most youth also reported that they had not been included in the process of identifying permanent connections for themselves.

Youth recommended the following important steps in developing a trusting partnership:

• Redefine permanence to include emotional connections.
• Address the disparities in permanency outcomes for older youth and youth of color.
• Continue the permanency search beyond emancipation.
• Involve youth in planning for future Convenings.

To read the full Recommendations of Youth and Young Adults From the 2008 National Convening on Youth Permanence, please visit:

www.youthpermanence.org/_pdf/materials/mat_2008/recommendations-of-youth.pdf

The California Permanency for Youth Project (CPYP) emphasizes the importance of (1) involving youth in their own permanency planning and (2) using technology to help youth find family connections.

They work with California counties to ensure that youth leave foster care with some kind of permanent connection with a caring adult.

The Emancipated Youth Connections Project involved 20 young adults (ages 17-39) who had exited foster care with no permanent connections. Services were provided to help them make those connections.

To learn more, read the Emancipated Youth Connections Project Final Report/Toolkit, available at:

www.cpyp.org/Files/EYCP-ReportToolkit.pdf

The August 2008 Destination Future: National Youth Leadership Development Conference brought together youth leaders in foster care or formerly in care from around the country to discuss their experiences in foster care and their hopes for the future. This conference was sponsored by the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Youth Development (NRCYD) and supported by the Children's Bureau.

The 94 youth and 74 adults in attendance were divided among eight groups, each with a focus topic for discussion:

• Engaging youth in the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) implementation
• Extending the Federal foster care program payments to age 21
• Ensuring youths' success in their academic endeavors
• Meeting youths' cultural needs while in foster care
• Involving youth in the court case review process
• Developing and maintaining youths' connections to family members
• Ensuring that youth who do not go to college can still find a good-paying job
• Ensuring that youths' mental health services needs are met

The conference slogan "Nothing about us without us" reflects the desires of foster youth to take an active role in the decisions that affect their lives and develop ways to influence programs and policies. This theme was raised in all of the small-group discussions.

To read the full report of the conference, Destination Future: National Youth Leadership Conference Report, by Jacqueline Smollar, please visit:

www.nrcys.ou.edu/yd/resources/publications/pdfs/df08rep_w.pdf

Mental Health Practices Toolkit

The REACH Institute, Casey Family Programs and the Annie E. Casey Foundation have worked together to develop a Mental Health Practices in Child Welfare Guidelines Toolkit.

It covers:
* Screening and assessment
* Interventions
* Medication
* Parent support
* Youth empowerment

This toolkit provides suggestions and resources for putting the guidelines into action in child welfare agencies.

Foster Care and PTSD

• Foster Care Alumni and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• PTSD and Children in the Child Welfare System
• How Children and Adolescents React to Trauma
• Responding to a Child's Acute PTSD Reaction
• Effective Treatment for PTSD
• A Child Welfare Response to Traumatized Children
• Strategies for Agencies and Workers
• Preventing PTSD in Children
• Traumatic Stress and Child Welfare Workers
• Assessing Worker Distress
• Ways Supervisors Can Help Caseworkers Deal With Secondary Trauma
• References

Mental Health Needs of Foster Children and Children At-Risk for Removal

A recent issue of Virginia Child Protection Newsletter focused on the mental health needs of children entering foster care and children at risk to enter care.

The article explores:
- The range of mental health needs
- Ways to address those needs using evidence-based practices
- Ways to work with the children
- Methods for parent and foster parent training

http://psychweb.cisat.jmu.edu/graysojh/volume%2085.pdf

Children, foster care and PTSD

Link to articles about how to help and treat children who have PTSD as a result of abuse: http://hubpages.com/profile/krillco

This statement makes no sense

Quote from Erick Nicklas, associate commissioner of the Family Permanency Division: "The whole idea of foster care is not to disrupt children's lives."

Foster Care Alumni and Relational Permanence

http://www.chapinhall.org/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1466

Gina Miranda Samuels interviewed 29 young adults who aged out of foster care in order to understand their existing support networks and how they learned to cope with people coming in and out of their lives.