Child Welfare Archives - National Wraparound Initiative (NWI)
Not-For-Profit Foster Care Agencies Are Being Forced to Close Due to a Lack of Liability Insurance
April 27, 2025 | NWI
Lawsuits, regulations, social inflation and policy failure have made it more difficult for not-for-profit agencies to obtain liability insurance, leading to closures and placing further stress on the child welfare system. This report describes the problem, and offers policy solutions.
Beyond Psychotropics: Critical Strategies for Supporting Youth in Foster Care
March 22, 2025 | NWI
This article provides an overview of four clinical features that can be particularly burdensome for foster children and interfere with delivery of effective psychiatric care, as well as guidance on how the child psychiatrist can most appropriately respond to the foster youth’s needs in each scenario.
Access to Medicaid and Healthcare Promotes Child Safety
March 22, 2025 | NWI
The central role of economic hardship as a driver of child welfare system involvement underscores the importance of addressing the concrete needs of families and promoting economic stability. In addition to income poverty, material hardship is a consistent predictor of child protective services contact, above and beyond family characteristics. Access to Medicaid and healthcare for children and their families, specifically, is associated with reduced risk for child welfare system involvement.
A New Chapter in America’s Child Welfare System
February 23, 2025 | NWI
At the end of last year, Congress passed the largest overhaul of the nation’s child welfare system in more than 15 years. The reform includes more support for kinship care, aging out youth and efforts to prevent the separation of families due to poverty. This panel discussion looks at how these reforms will make a difference for children and families in the U.S.
An Analysis of Custody Relinquishment Using Administrative Data
February 23, 2025 | NWI
Custody relinquishment occurs when children enter foster care primarily to receive behavioral health or disability services. This brief focuses on the prevalence custody relinquishment and the demographic characteristics, family circumstances, and behavioral health conditions and disabilities of children relinquished.
Foster Care’s Downward Trend
February 23, 2025 | NWI
Data from various sources shows a steady decline in the number of children and youth in foster care. This article highlights reports on legislative, policy and advocacy efforts aimed at preventing the use of foster care in as many child welfare cases as possible.
Stories of Navigating Youth and Family Systems
January 13, 2025 | NWI
This podcast series features authentic stories shared by individuals who have navigated various youth and family systems. Each episode offers a unique perspective on their encounters within these systems and solutions to the challenges they faced.
Youth Leaving Foster Care at High Risk for Suicide
December 7, 2024 | NWI
Roughly one-quarter of young adults in foster care in California have attempted suicide, and their rate of suicidal behavior is nearly three times that of peers who aren’t in government care, according to a recently published study and policy brief.
What Foster and Adoptive Parents Need to Know About Child Trauma
July 28, 2024 | NWI
Early childhood trauma affects kids on a physiological level, and can cause behaviors ranging from detachment to clinginess to violent outbursts. Foster and adoptive parents are often unaware of just how tough it might be – emotionally and financially – to raise a child with a trauma background. This article explores how some caregivers have managed.
Spring 2024 Updates to the Family First Clearinghouse
June 16, 2024 | NWI
This Spring, the clearinghouse that greenlights foster care prevention services approved one new program that states can finance by drawing down federal funds aimed at lessening the use of foster care, rejected nine others, and announced 16 new programs up for consideration.