Families in the foster care system are assigned case workers. These are social workers whose job it is to work closely with everyone involved.
For years, the percentage of Native Hawaiians in the state’s foster care system has significantly exceeded their share of the overall population of the state’s children. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser delves into the underlying causes and potential solutions to the problem.
Rhode Island doesn’t have enough foster families to meet a growing need. That’s one reason the state's child welfare agency places a higher percentage of kids in group homes than almost any other state. Officials acknowledge the problem, but recruiting new foster families has been tough.
Social workers at Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families say they have too many cases to really make a difference in children’s lives. The agency is already facing criticism for other problems, including one of the nation’s highest percentages of foster children in group homes.
Children who experience abuse or neglect–or even the stress of poverty—can have serious health problems later in life. That’s one of many challenges for children in Rhode Island’s child welfare system.
Earlier this year, an expert panel called for the closure of L.A. County's Welcome Centers for kids awaiting foster placements. But the real problems have more to do with a lack of foster homes and chronic underinvestment in programs that can keep kids from needing foster care in the first place.
Three-and-a-half-year-old Dylan was tiny, feisty and freckled with tousled blond hair. His mom brought him to the pediatric clinic because he had tried to smother his 2-week-old sister. She didn’t know what to do with him, and frankly neither did we. It was 5 p.m. and the clinic was closing.
Sacramento County is suddenly flush with millions to spend on the area's neediest kids after federal entitlement program is rejiggered.
Matt, 14, Terrick, 12, and Joseph, 11 pretended to go to church that day in 2006, but in secret they had planned to run away and never come back. No more living with an angry grandmother who drank. No more beatings with the belt.
For children who've suffered trauma and abuse, positive relationships can be elusive. In L.A., an innovative children's center and an alternative all-girls high school are helping kids and teens forge trusting relationships and meaningful narratives out of a traumatic past.
