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Explores parent education programming for child welfare and highlights programs that have shown positive results or promise for strengthening families and preventing child maltreatment. The brief looks at the elements of effective parent education programs and research that demonstrate their benefit. It also includes examples of State and local parent education programs and a list of resources.

Discusses laws that address the issue of substance abuse by parents. Two areas of concern are the harm caused to the health and development of affected infants by prenatal drug exposure and the harm caused to children of any age by exposure to illegal drug activity in their homes or environment. Full-text excerpts of laws for all States and U.S. territories are included.

Provides child welfare workers and related professionals with information on the intersection between substance use disorders and child maltreatment and describes strategies for prevention, intervention, and treatment, including examples of effective programs and practices. The bulletin also discusses the impact of parental substance use on children, child welfare laws related to parental substance use, service delivery challenges, systems change and collaboration, and innovative prevention and treatment approaches.

Describes the characteristics and benefits of parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), a family-centered treatment approach proven effective for abused and at-risk children ages 2 to 8 and their caregivers—birth parents, adoptive parents, or foster or kin caregivers. It was written primarily to help child welfare caseworkers and other professionals who work with at-risk families make more informed decisions about when to refer parents and caregivers, along with their children, to PCIT programs. This information may also help parents, foster parents, and other caregivers understand what they and their children can gain from PCIT and what to expect during treatment.

Helps child welfare professionals gain a better understanding of parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), including which clients should be referred for this approach, how it is implemented, and resources for additional information. PCIT is a family-centered treatment approach for children ages 2–7 with disruptive behavior and has also been used with abused and at-risk children ages 2–12. It is an appropriate therapy for all caregivers—birth parents, adoptive parents, or foster or kin caregivers—and includes the treatment of both the parent and child together along with live coaching. One of PCIT's benefits is that it can help reduce the risk for child maltreatment.

Discusses how you can help children and youth in your care by educating yourself about child sexual abuse, understanding the impact of the abuse, establishing guidelines for safety and privacy in your family, and seeking help if you need it. Reading this factsheet alone will not guarantee that you will know what to do in every circumstance, but you can use it as a resource for some of the potential challenges and rewards that lie ahead.

Discusses the nature of trauma, especially abuse or neglect, the effects of trauma on children and youth, and ways to help a child who has experienced trauma. Parents or foster parents who do not understand the effects of trauma may misinterpret their child’s behavior, and attempts to address troubling behavior may be ineffective or, in some cases, even harmful. By understanding trauma, parents and foster parents can help support a child’s healing, the parent-child relationship, and their family as a whole.

Intended to help parents (birth, foster, and adoptive) and other caregivers better understand the challenges of caring for a child or youth who has experienced maltreatment and learn about available resources for support.

Offers information to help adoptive parents understand their preschooler's developmental needs. It also provides practical strategies to promote a warm and loving parent-child relationship based on honesty and trust. It offers information on development, talking about adoption, and appropriate discipline.

Offers information to help adoptive parents understand and respond to their adopted school-age child's developmental needs. It provides simple, practical strategies to foster healthy development, including approaches for building attachment, talking honestly about adoption, acknowledging the child’s adoptive history, using appropriate discipline, and enhancing the school experience. Because some adoptive families need extra help addressing their children's mental health needs, the factsheet also discusses when and how to seek help.

Offers information to help adoptive parents understand their adopted teenager’s experiences and needs so parents can respond with practical strategies that foster healthy development. These strategies include approaches that acknowledge trauma and loss, support effective communication, promote a teen’s independence, and address behavioral and mental health concerns.

Abarca temas de interés para el creciente número de abuelos y otros parientes que cuidan a niños cuyos padres no están en capacidad de cuidarlos. A veces, este arreglo, llamado “cuidado por parientes” (en inglés, “kinship care”), es un acuerdo informal y privado entre los padres y los parientes. En otras ocasiones, la agencia local de bienestar de menores está involucrada. Esta hoja informativa está diseñada para ayudar a los proveedores de cuidados familiar—incluyendo abuelos, tías y tíos, otros parientes y amigos familiares que cuidan niños—a trabajar de manera efectiva con el sistema de bienestar de menores. También se incluye un glosario de términos comunes de bienestar de menores y enlaces para encontrar más información o ayuda.Discusses issues of interest to the growing number of grandparents and other relatives caring for children whose own parents are unable to care for them. Sometimes, the arrangement (referred to as "kinship care") is an informal, private arrangement between the parents and relative caregivers; in other situations, the local child welfare agency is involved. This factsheet is designed to help kinship caregivers—including grandparents, aunts and uncles, other relatives, and family friends caring for children—work effectively with the child welfare system. Resources, such as links to more detailed information or places to find help, are included.

Discusses laws that impose penalties, in the form of either fines or jail time or both, on mandatory reporters who fail to report cases of suspected child abuse and neglect as required by the reporting laws. State laws also may impose penalties on any person who knowingly makes a false report of abuse or neglect. Summaries of laws for all States and U.S. territories are included.

Presents an overview of State laws that give priority or preference to relatives when children are in need of out-of-home care. The issues addressed include locating relatives, determining the fitness of a relative to provide care, and requirements for licensure. Requirements for placing siblings together whenever possible and adoption by relatives also are addressed. Summaries of laws for all 50 States are included.

Explica los diversos gastos de adopción y algunos de los recursos que pueden estar disponibles. Esta hoja informativa incluye información acerca de los tipos de adopción y recursos disponibles para ayudar a pagar por la adopción.Seeks to explain the various adoption expenses and some of the resources that may be available. This factsheet includes information about types of adoption and resources to help pay for adoption.

Seeks to explain the various adoption expenses and some of the resources that may be available. This factsheet includes information about types of adoption and resources to help pay for adoption.

Presents State statutes on postadoption contact agreements, which are arrangements that allow contact between a child's adoptive family and members of the child's birth family. Topics covered include the contents of agreements; parties to agreements; the court's role; and enforcing, modifying, and terminating agreements.

With the goal of expanding and enhancing services to adoptive families of children with special needs, post-legal adoption services have been established in annual adoption discretionary grant announcements. Under that priority area in 1998, 15 3-year grants were awarded to increase permanency and well-being for children with special needs by preventing adoption disruption, dissolution, or out-of-home placement. This briefing paper synthesizes the final reports of those 15 projects. The projects targeted post-legal adoptive families and their children with special needs, pre-adoptive families, single adoptive parents, transracial adoptive families, kinship families. Core services included parent support and educational groups, children s support and educational groups, information and referral, and training for service providers.

Discusses the ways that professionals can help foster parents before, during, and after they adopt from foster care in order to ensure that the child and family experience a successful adoption outcome. Foster parents are the most important source of adoptive families for children in the child welfare system. In order to facilitate these types of adoption, professionals should be knowledgeable about the benefits, costs, and practice implications.

Discusses services for children and youth in foster care to address their readiness and preparation for adoption and other permanent relationships. It focuses on ways that child welfare workers and other adults can help to prepare those children and youth whose goal is adoption; however, much of the information on preparation is also applicable to children and youth with other permanency goals. The bulletin examines what has previously been considered adequate preparation as well as current practices and those in development to more effectively ensure that children and youth are better prepared for permanent family relationships, including both legal and relational permanency (permanent relationships with caring adults).

Provides information on how communities, community leaders, and individual citizens can strengthen families, protect children, and prevent child abuse and neglect.

This Resource Guide was written to support service providers in their work with parents, caregivers, and their children to strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. The guide includes information about protective factors that help reduce the risk of child maltreatment, strategies for changing how communities support families, and evidence-informed practices. It also offers suggestions for enhancing protective factors in families, tools to build awareness and develop community partnerships, information about child abuse and neglect, a directory of national organizations that work to strengthen families, and tip sheets in English and Spanish on specific parenting topics.

This Resource Guide was written to support service providers in their work with parents, caregivers, and their children to strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. The guide includes information about protective factors that help reduce the risk of child maltreatment, strategies for changing how communities support families, and evidence-informed practices. It also offers suggestions for enhancing protective factors in families, tools to build awareness and develop community partnerships, information about child abuse and neglect, a directory of national organizations that work to strengthen families, and tip sheets in English and Spanish on specific parenting topics.

Outlines a list of resources found on the Child Welfare Information Gateway website that focus on enhancing quality community-based collaboration.

Ofrece información sobre los elementos más comunes del proceso de estudio del hogar, y responde algunas preguntas que los posibles padres adoptivos puedan tener sobre el proceso. Los requisitos y procesos específicos del estudio de hogar dependen en gran medida de la agencia que se elija, del Estado y, en el caso de una adopción entre países, del país de origen del niño. También están sujetos a cambios.Discusses the common elements of the home study process and addresses some questions prospective adoptive parents may have about the process. Specific home study requirements and processes vary greatly from agency to agency, State to State, and (in the case of intercountry adoption) by the child's country of origin. They are also subject to change.

In 1996 and 1997, the Children's Bureau funded 10 demonstration projects to address the prevention, intervention, and treatment needs of neglected children and their families. These projects implemented and evaluated a wide variety of service strategies with large numbers of high-risk children and families. The programs varied considerably in terms of theoretical model (psychosocial or ecological), target population, location (in-home or out-of-home), duration, and intensity. The projects provided a great variety of services, including parent education and support, home visits, and referrals to other resources or services in the community. (For information about the programmatic aspects of these projects, see the companion synthesis, Child Neglect Demonstration Projects: A Synthesis of Lessons Learned, published by the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information.) Throughout the course of their 5-year projects, grantees faced a number of common challenges in combining service delivery with a rigorous program evaluation methodology. Despite these challenges, several of the programs conducted very thorough evaluations, and they all reported positive outcomes. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the evaluation of social service programs. Funders and other stakeholders want evidence that programs are achieving their intended outcomes. Practitioners want to develop more effective services by documenting interventions and measuring results, and they want to establish stronger connections between services and outcomes. Therefore, this program evaluation synthesis summarizes the grantees' challenges, strategies, and lessons learned regarding program evaluation, so that these lessons may help future projects develop and implement effective evaluation plans. While some of the lessons learned will be most useful to other programs addressing child neglect, many are applicable to a broader range of social service programs. Contact information

This special issue of Protecting Children is a response to the need for empirical knowledge and research on family group decision making (FGDM) to support its future implementation, practice improvement, and sustainability. The first four articles present overarching philosophical and methodological considerations in FGDM research and evaluation. The remaining articles summarize a wide range of FGDM studies in action or already completed, including experiences in California, Washington, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Utah, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and England. The overall findings, divided into the categories of implementation, process indicators, and outcome indicators, offer considerable support for the advancement of FGDM and good reasons to explore ways to mainstream its practice. (Author abstract modified)

This Resource Guide was written to support service providers in their work with parents, caregivers, and their children to strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. The guide includes information about protective factors that help reduce the risk of child maltreatment, strategies for changing how communities support families, and evidence-informed practices. It also offers suggestions for enhancing protective factors in families, tools to build awareness and develop community partnerships, information about child abuse and neglect, a directory of national organizations that work to strengthen families, and tip sheets in English and Spanish on specific parenting topics.

Presents information from a review of current research linking protective factors to well-being for children and youth in and transitioning out of foster care. Topics include individual skills and capacities that can improve the well-being of children and youth in foster care, creating a community that supports the well-being of children and youth in care, strategies for practitioners, and resources for more information. This factsheet is part of a series of five factsheets for practitioners exploring the importance of protective factors in working with in-risk populations served by the Administration on Children Youth and Families.

Presents information from a review of current research linking protective factors to well-being for children exposed to domestic violence. Topics include individual skills and capacities that can improve the well-being of children exposed to violence; how parents, guardians, and others can contribute to the well-being of these children; creating supportive communities; and strategies for practitioners. This publication is part of a series of five factsheets for practitioners exploring the importance of protective factors in working with in-risk populations served by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families.

Presents information from a review of current research linking protective factors to well-being for the five in-risk populations served by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF): children exposed to domestic violence, homeless and runaway youth, pregnant and parenting teens, victims of child abuse and neglect, and youth in and aging out of foster care. Topics include individual skills and capacities that can improve the well-being of children and youth; how parents, guardians, and others can contribute to the well-being of these children; and strategies for practitioners. A model framework for organizing and applying protective factors is included, as well as a table listing specific protective factors for ACYF populations by level of influence. This publication is part of a series of five factsheets for practitioners exploring the importance of protective factors in working with in-risk populations served by ACYF.

Presents information from a review of current research on specific protective factors that carry moderate or strong association with improved well-being for pregnant and parenting teens. Topics include individual skills and capacities that can improve the well-being of teens who are pregnant and/or parenting; how parents, guardians, friends, and others can contribute to the well-being of these teens; creating supportive communities; and strategies for practitioners. This publication is part of a series of five factsheets for practitioners exploring the importance of protective factors in working with in-risk populations served by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families.

Presents information from a review of current research on specific protective factors that carry moderate or strong association with improved well-being for victims of child abuse and neglect. Topics include individual skills and capacities that can improve the well-being of children who have been abused or neglected; how parents, guardians, friends, and other adults can contribute to the well-being of these children and youth; strategies for practitioners; and resources for more information. This publication is part of a series of five factsheets for practitioners exploring the importance of protective factors in working with in-risk populations served by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families.

This poster for Child Abuse Prevention Month 2007 identifies how professionals working with parents and caregivers can support and enhance five protective factors that increase the safety and well-being of children.

Este póster para el Mes Nacional de la Prevención del Abuso Infantil 2007 incluye actividades para los profesionales que trabajan con padres y cuidadores con el fin de garantizar el bienestar de menores.

This manual provides an overview of how child welfare and other related professionals can assist families affected by substance use disorders (SUDs), which also often may be referred to as "substance abuse." It is part of the Child Abuse and Neglect User Manual Series, which is published by the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The manual addresses the nature of SUDs; the impact of parental SUDs on children; in-home examination, screening, and assessment for SUDs; treatment of SUDs, and the role of child protective services (CPS) caseworkers when an SUD is identified. It also explores the differences and similarities between CPS and SUD treatment providers and how they can make the systems work for families. The primary target audience for this publication is CPS caseworkers, but substance use disorder treatment providers may find it helpful in building their understanding of child welfare issues among families with whom they work. This manual is an update of Protecting Children in Substance-Abusing Families, which was published in 1994.

This manual, developed by NCCAN, provides an overview of how to identify parental substance abuse, assess the strengths and needs of families, develop service plans, and implement strategies for helpi

Provides an overview of protective factors approaches to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect. It is designed to help policymakers, administrators, child welfare and related professionals, service providers, advocates, and other interested individuals understand the concepts of risk and protective factors in families and communities and learn ways in which building protective factors can help to lessen risks for child abuse and neglect.

Draws from available literature and practice knowledge to summarize key issues related to providing effective services to support the stability and permanency of adoptions. It is intended to support adoption professionals in addressing adoptive parents' and children's needs for services, recognizing key considerations in providing services, addressing emerging issues, and meeting common challenges in delivery.

Summarizes State laws regarding the types of information that adoptive parents are provided about the background of the child they are hoping to adopt. The information generally relates to medical and genetic history, family and social background, and mental health history of the child and the child's birth family. For the adopted child or youth, it may also include placement history and any history of abuse or neglect. Exceptions for stepparent and relative adoptions also are discussed.

Outlines child welfare professionals' legal responsibility to provide background information to adoptive families about their prospective child or youth. The bulletin explains the benefits of disclosure to the child, the adoptive family, and the adoption agency. It addresses the information that should be provided, helping families understand the information, international adoption where little or no information is available, wrongful adoption, and additional resources.

Addresses common child and adolescent mental health diagnoses and presents a multimodal approach to managing mental health disorders for children and youth in foster care. The benefits, drawbacks, and side effects of psychotropic medications are discussed and presented in a table. Recommendations for best practice are listed, and questions that judges and advocates should ask about medication use with children in foster care are included.