A Family For Every Child would like to thank you for believing that every child deserves a family.  Your support has enabled A Family For Every Child to make a difference in the lives of our children in foster care.  Because of your support, all of our programs have been busy serving children in foster care and families going through the adoption process.

As we like to do from time to time, we hope by sharing current situations/stories of children in foster care, or those that have grown up and out, we might shed some light on why your involvement and support is so important.

Educational Success for Children in Foster Care: Identifying Cross-System Barriers on the Ground


Here at A Family For Every Child we are constantly searching for news relating to foster care, adoption, and child welfare.  We greatly enjoy coming across new studies and research, as this allows us to gain better understanding of the foster care system and situation. With new knowledge, we can adjust programs or create new ones to better serve the children in need.


The following information comes from a study seeking to better understand where and what issues exist in the day-to-day operations of foster care.  The study was funded by a grant from the William Penn Foundation and a fellowship to Dr. Rubin from the Stoneleigh Foundation.


“WHAT WE ASKED:


What are the challenges for  individuals working with children in the child welfare system as they try to collaborate to improve these children’s educational outcomes?


The federal Fostering Connections to Success and Adoption Act, passed in 2008, requires child welfare and education systems to collaborate towards improved educational outcomes for children in foster care.   There is now a need to understand what that collaboration has looked.


WHAT WE DID:



Ten focus groups were held with a total of 90 adults involved in the child welfare and education systems in a large, urban area. Separate groups were held for foster parents, foster care caseworkers, teachers, and school counselors.


Participants described the experience of collaborating across the child welfare and education systems in order to achieve positive educational outcomes for children in foster care.   Participant demographics: Of our focus group participants, experience with the child welfare or education systems ranged from 0-2 years (13%) to more than 10 years (46%).


WHAT WE FOUND:


Communication: All groups identified ineffective and limited cross-system communication as a barrier to children’s educational success.


Policy and procedure clarity: Within in each group (teachers, caseworkers, etc.), there was significant variation in knowledge and implementation of policies related to the educational requirements of children in foster care, i.e. school enrollment and transportation.


Behavioral health: All groups shared concerns about child behavioral problems and current practices of behavioral health service provision.




WHAT IT MEANS:


When implementing legislation, it is important to have a plan for ground-level dissemination to ensure role and procedure clarity among all affected parties.


The 2008 Fostering Connections legislation provides an opportunity to develop and implement further policies that can strengthen educational outcomes for children in foster care by relieving some of the day-to-day challenges experienced by adults working in the child welfare and education systems.


Future child welfare policies should seek to increase communication, clarify roles and procedures, and improve behavioral health service delivery across systems that involve children in child welfare.”


A Family For Every Child tries to use studies relating to child welfare to learn about updates and/or needs within the foster care system.  From this new information, we try to better our programs and how we help the kids.


From these results, we can see that we should improve our communication between different departments and agencies.  We also may want to focus on behavioral characteristics of each child as there still seems to be a great issues regarding children’s behavioral health and corrective practices.


The first should be able to be fixed by providing necessary information to all parties involved and keeping a record of the child with updates in multiple categories (education, family, home life, social, etc).  The behavioral problems need to be addressed by health professionals, but building self-confidence and providing kids with positive mentors greatly improves the life of the child.



A Family For Every Child is dedicated to improving the lives of children by finding permanent, loving families for every waiting child. We plan to use this information, and other studies/reports, to improve our services and increase our ability and speed to help these children.


From all of us at A Family For Every Child, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  It is only through the generosity and support of community members like you that we are able to make a real difference in the lives of our children in foster care.  Together we can find a family for every child.

Sincerely,

Christy Obie-Barret
Executive Director
A Family For Every Child
christy@afamilyforeverychild.org