News from the Field Related to Wraparound
Lack of Sleep Contributes to Mental Health Difficulties
June 13, 2022
Teen mental health is a major concern for today’s parents. More than 1 in 3 high-schoolers say they’ve felt persistent sadness or hopelessness, and roughly 1 in 5 reports having seriously considered suicide. Many are searching for answers. But one major culprit identified in in this Washington Post opinion piece could be the significant sleep deprivation of this generation of teens.
Best Practices in Child Welfare: Resources
June 13, 2022
The Children’s Bureau has selected a series of resources on best practices in child welfare. These resources demonstrate how prioritizing the placement of children and youth in foster care with biological family, or kin can help transform the child welfare system into one that truly supports families and maintains connections. This includes an emphasis on family finding and other child-specific recruitment strategies, best practices for family engagement, and licensing relative caregivers who understand their unique ability to partner with parents to support reunification. These resources also highlight the positive impact that culturally appropriate trainings and services and equitable supports to kin caregivers can have on placement stability and permanency outcomes for children and families.
Utilizing Black Families’ Cultural Assets
May 13, 2022
This publication is part of a broader effort to build a deeper understanding of the diversity of Black families, contextualize their experiences within systems and institutions, and produce evidence to inform policies and practices that promote their well-being in the twenty-first century.
The Rise of Suicide Among Youth and Young Adults
May 13, 2022
For decades, the average age of suicides has decreased and the rate of youth suicide has increased. Among youth and young adults, suicide is as common a cause of death as car crashes. This article explores what is and isn’t known about causes and treatment.
Parenting an Introverted Child
May 13, 2022
Experts explain how to identify introversion in children, and offer parenting tips for raising an introverted child.
Girls and Young Women More Likely to Drink Alcohol
May 13, 2022
For at least the past two decades, data showed that boys and young men were more likely to drink than girls and young women. However, data now show that girls and young women, ages 12 to 20, are drinking more alcohol than their male counterparts. Alcohol use by people under the legal drinking age of 21 has decreased over the past few decades, but the decreases have been more pronounced for males than females. In 2020, more girls and young women reported past-month alcohol use than boys and young men.
New Research on Peer Support in Wraparound
May 13, 2022
This new article, published in Psychiatric Services, reports on a study that investigated a skills enhancement and role clarification training intervention for young adult peer support specialists (YPSSs) in Wraparound. The results showed gains in YPSSs’ skills and confidence in providing person-centered planning to the young people they worked with as well as reduced job-related anxiety and high training satisfaction.
Child Welfare Publications in Spanish
April 4, 2022
The Child Welfare Information Gateway provides an index of its Spanish-language publications. Most of these are factsheets for families.
New Resources to Teach Children Coping Skills
April 4, 2022
The Child Mind Institute has released a series of free, evidence-based video and print resources that caregivers and educators can use to teach their kids critical mental health and coping skills.
Loneliness Damages Children’s Mental Health and Their Grades
April 4, 2022
Children who feel lonely are more likely to leave school with worse grades than classmates who never experience loneliness. Even a temporary bout of loneliness at age 12 puts children at risk of worse qualifications when they leave school up to six years later, according to a new study.