Child Welfare Information Gateway

Successful Title IV-E Prevention Services Programs begin with a determined agency, ready to overcome the challenges of marketing stipend programs and supporting young adults through all levels of their education. Building buy-in for supporting postsecondary education within the workforce not only increases passion for driving title IV-E programs in the short term—it also builds a culture that welcomes lived experts as they begin their own social work careers. Those were the takeaways from the second episode in a two-part series focused on Kentucky's Child Welfare PREP program. The University of Kentucky's College of Social Work developed pathways to careers in social work for young adults in the child welfare system as well as a workforce ready to support them. These innovative approaches market stipend programs to eligible youth and deploy modernized trainings—even a virtual reality investigator simulation—to make sure new staff are well-equipped and well-deployed when they begin their careers.

The University of Kentucky has sought to build the future of the child welfare workforce through the development of its Child Welfare (CW) PREP program—a Title IV-E Prevention Services Program, as amended by the Family First Prevention Services Act, focused on building pathways to careers in social work for young people eligible for Chafee and Education and Training Voucher funding. This episode is the first of a two-part conversation with Justin Miller, D.S.W., dean of the University of Kentucky's College of Social Work. It focuses on how child welfare agencies can strategically market their title IV-E programs to both young people and their families to break down uncertainty around program eligibility and meet youth where they are. The episode emphasizes the importance of advertising to all members of a youth's support group to help clearly show how the agency can support youth's short- and long-term goals.

Restorative justice is an approach that focuses on collaboration between the offender and the community. It requires the offender to accept responsibility for their decisions and the impact of their offenses on the victim and the community. For juvenile offenders who are involved in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, restorative practices often involve teaching skills to live independently and develop healthy relationships. This episode shares how Alternative Family Services provides highly individualized supportive services to help youth as they transition out of the foster care system. The goals of the programs are to improve outcomes for youth in foster care who are involved in the juvenile justice system by placing them in homes with trained resource parents and reducing the placement of youth in detention facilities that may not have the intensive services they need.

Youth can face many challenges as they transition to living independently as adults. For youth in foster care, overcoming obstacles may require additional support and skills to be self-reliant. Caseworkers and child welfare professionals assist youth with securing employment, secondary education, housing, financial literacy, and other needs. However, additional support is needed to provide encouragement and stability as youth transition to adulthood. Support systems consisting of helpful, stable adults reinforce the goal of self-sufficiency and give youth a sense of community. This episode explores how Alternative Family Services (AFS) successfully creates effective support systems for youth in foster care. AFS supports northern Californian families, children, and youth in foster, adoptive, and extended family settings. The AFS clinical model focuses on a highly individualized social support model with a goal of safety, stability, and well-being.

Lived experience means the representation and understanding of an individual’s human experiences, choices, and options and how those factors influence one’s perception of knowledge from one’s own life. Those with lived experience in child welfare have a unique, firsthand perspective on issues that can inform partnerships, policies, and solutions that best meet the needs of children and families.

Child welfare agencies and organizations should prioritize collaborating with individuals who have lived experience to gain a better understanding of how people are affected by the social issue. The ways in which agencies choose to engage in this collaboration must be authentic and intentional in order to prevent harm.

This episode presents a panel discussion from the Capacity Building Center for State’s 2022 Child Welfare Virtual Expo. The panel members provide an array of approaches for organizations to engage people with lived experience.

Lived experience is a representation and understanding of an individual's human experiences, choices, and options and how those factors influence one's perception of knowledge" from one's own life. Those with lived experience in child welfare have a unique, firsthand perspective on issues that can inform partnerships, policies, and solutions that best meet the needs of children and families. This episode provides strategies and examples of how child welfare agencies should respectfully engage individuals with lived experience for assistance. Agencies should prepare their staff to ask appropriate questions of those with lived experience and to create a safe space for them to share their stories. When collaborating with individuals who have lived experience, agencies should be flexible when scheduling times to talk, consider how the person would like to share their story, and provide appropriate compensation. This episode presents a session from the Capacity Building Center for State's 2022 Child Welfare Virtual Expo. The speakers discuss why integrating lived expertise into the workforce is so beneficial to child welfare agencies as well as considerations for integrating people with lived expertise into the workplace.

Kinship caregivers and families may be faced with needs, questions, and constraints that are different than those of resource foster care families. Child welfare agencies continue to address these unique needs through kinship navigator programs that help caregivers manage the foster care licensing process; connect families to available supports and services; and understand legal, medical, or other systems and requirements. As jurisdictions place higher emphasis on placing children and youth in relative or familiar settings, some are expanding and advancing the support provided to kinship caregivers. The podcast series, Advances in Supporting Kinship Caregivers, comprises of episodes featuring the advances created and implemented by child welfare agencies and their partners to strengthen kinship families and meet the unique needs faced by these caregivers. Part 5 explores a series of changes within New Mexico's Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) to improve the engagement and support of kinship families. These changes include internal workforce shifts, such as changes in supervisory practices and internal communications to improve how relatives and caregivers are viewed; programs to keep families engaged and involved in children's lives even if they are unable to serve as primary caregivers; and streamlining the licensing process to be less invasive and more supportive of families facing the abrupt changes and challenges of raising children.