Partnering to Support American Indian/Alaska Native Children and Families

Project Description: In 2016, the Children’s Bureau awarded three, 5-year grants to develop innovative strategies to support the creation of practice model partnerships for effective implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The grants fostered partnerships among Tribes, State courts, State public child welfare agencies, Tribal child welfare agencies, and Tribal courts.

Project Highlight: Explore videos, training materials, and resources developed by the University of North Dakota about the basis and importance of ICWA , a guide for child welfare professionals on recognizing and reducing bias, a hard card on ways professionals can better support children and families, and questions to consider for qualified expert witness testimony.

Learn More: Visit the University of North Dakota (UND), Children & Family Services Training Center’s website. 

Photo provided by UND

Evaluating Interventions to Address Youth Homelessness

Project Description: Over the past 8 years, the Children’s Bureau has funded grant projects in 23 communities to improve outcomes for families and youth through stable and affordable housing. The Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families in the Child Welfare System (SHF) was a 5-year grant funded in 2012 that targeted families, while the Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH) grants served youth through a multiphase project that began in 2013.

Project Highlight: The article “Skills for Collaboration: Training Graduate Students in Using Evidence to Evaluate a Homelessness Program,” in the Journal of Social Work Education discusses the importance of and connections among continuous quality improvement, collaboration, implementation, and evaluation in evaluating intervention to address youth homelessness for San Francisco Human Services Agency—a SHF grantee. The Colorado Department of Human Services, a YARH grantee, describes Colorado’s Pathways to Success project in their Intervention Manual September 2019, which is built around navigators engaging youth in a coach-like way to develop and achieve goals and provide services around housing, education, employment, permanent connections, and well-being.

Learn More: See project summaries of YARH grantees under Featured Grantees on the Child Welfare Information Gateway website and case studies from SHF on the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness website. Also, more information about both grantees can be found in Appendix B of IM-17-03.

Photo provided by Center for Policy Research on behalf of Colorado’s Pathways to Success

Training Successful Foster and Adoptive Parents

Project Description: The National Training and Development Curriculum for Foster and Adoptive Parents (NTDC) is a state-of-the-art, interactive training program and curriculum that helps prepare people who are interested in fostering or adopting to be successful parents. NTDC provides families with the initial tools and basic knowledge to start the journey toward parenting children who have experienced trauma, separation, or loss and provides ongoing information and support once the child is in their home.

Project Highlight:The NTDC’s website provides materials on the project and curriculum, including an orientation video, sample components of the curriculum, classroom-based and right-time training themes of the curriculum, and more.

Learn More: NTDC is being piloted in seven State or county child welfare systems and one Tribal nation and will undergo rigorous evaluation. The curriculum will be available for free to State, local, and private foster and adoption agencies in 2022. If your agency would like to learn more, please contact NTDC.

Photo provided by NTDC 

Family Engagement Inventory

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Primary Prevention: Themes From 2018 Grantee Site Visits

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COVID-19 Resources

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