"I'm excited to be a sister in our foster family, but I'm worried about new rules. I feel happy and sad at the same time. What about when our help isn't needed anymore?" It's Okay to Wonder is a story about Avery, a loquacious girl whose parents have decided to become foster parents. While Mom and Dad attend another foster training class, Avery shares with her Nana and Pop about her mixed-up feelings. She and her grandparents learn together what it might be like to become a foster family--that it's okay to feel two emotions at the same time and that it's okay to wonder! The Joy of Avery series offers resources for foster care families and brings the world of foster care to life by exploring Avery's feelings as her family welcomes foster children into their home. It's Okay to Wonder is the first book in the series.

This book is the first to provide strategies for effective advocacy and placement within the foster care and kinship care systems. It also takes a rare look at the dynamics of the foster and kinship relationship, not just among children and the agency workers and service providers who intervene on their behalf, but also between children and those who take in and care for them as permanency develops. Drawing on their experience interacting with and writing about the institution of foster care, Mitchell Rosenwald and Beth N. Riley have composed a unique text that helps practitioners, foster parents, and relative caregivers realize successful transitions for youth, especially considering the traumas these children may suffer both before and after placement. Advocating for a child's best interests must begin early and remain consistent throughout assignment and adjustment. For practitioners, Rosenwald and Riley emphasize the best techniques for assessing a family's capabilities and for guiding families through the challenges of foster care. Part one details the steps potential foster parents and kinship caregivers must take, with the assistance of practitioners, to prepare themselves for placement. Part two describes tactics for successful advocacy within the court system, social service agencies, schools, and the medical and mental health establishments. Part three describes how to lobby for change at the agency and legislative levels, as well as within a given community. The authors illustrate recommendations through real-life scenarios and devote an entire chapter to brokering positive partnerships among practitioners, families, and other teams working to protect and transition children.

Since the early 1980s, states child welfare agencies' use of relatives as foster parents has grown rapidly, yet little information is available on this practice. This lack of information has made it difficult to evaluate how well kinship care ensures children's safety, promotes permanency in their living situation, and enhances their well-being--three basic goals of the child welfare system. Kinship Care: Making the Most of a Valuable Resource sheds light on this changing issue. Using a study involving focus groups of child welfare workers and kinship caregivers, in addition to interviews with local administrators, advocates, and service providers, the authors describe frontline kinship care practices in today's system. They also examine how and when child welfare agencies use kin as foster parents, how their approach to kinship care differs from traditional foster care, and how kinship care practices vary across states. The book also features the experiences of actual kinship foster parents, their challenges, and their interaction with agencies and the courts. Finally, the book provides recommendations for policy development, worker and caregiver training, and issues for further research.

KINSHIP FOSTER CARE: POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH assembles the thinking and research of experts from several professional fields concerning what has become the fastest growing type of substitute care for children in state custody. The editors have contributed the initial and concluding chapters of the book and the lead chapter in each of its three sections.

Comprehensive history of the Children’s Bureau from 1912-2012 in eBook form that shares the legacy of this landmark agency that established the first Federal Government programs, research and social reform initiatives aimed to improve the safety, permanency and well-being of children, youth and families. In addition to bios of agency heads and review of legislation and publications, this important book provides a critical look at the evolution of the Nation and its treatment of children as it covers often inspiring and sometimes heart-wrenching topics such as: child labor; the Orphan Trains, adoption and foster care; infant and maternal mortality and childhood diseases; parenting, infant and child care education; the role of women's clubs and reformers; child welfare standards; Aid to Dependent Children; Depression relief; children of migrants and minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans), including Indian Boarding Schools and Indian Adoption Program; disabled children care; children in wartime including support of military families and World War II refugee children; Juvenile delinquency; early childhood education Head Start; family planning; child abuse and neglect; natural disaster recovery; and much more. Child welfare and related professionals, legislators, educators, researchers and advocates, university school of social work faculty and staff, libraries, and others interested in social work related to children, youth and families, particularly topics such as preventing child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption will be interested in this comprehensive history of the Children's Bureau that has been funded by the U.S. Federal Government since 1912.

The rapid growth of kinship foster care--full-time parenting of children by relatives or other adults who have a kinship bond with a child--has caught many child welfare agencies off guard. This monograph presents information needed by professionals, agencies, institutions, communities, and organizations to develop and provide services to kinship caregivers, kinship families, children, and parents. The monograph contains discussions of common clinical issues, suggests intervention strategies, examines kinship care's legal implications, and offers policy and program recommendations. Chapter 1 compares relative or kinship care to traditional family foster care, and outlines the characteristics of kinship care that necessitate changes in outlook and practice. Chapter 2 analyzes the clinical issues that must be considered in serving children, parents, and kinship caregivers. Chapters 3 and 4 provide guidance on child welfare practice with kinship families. Chapter 5 considers the effect of culturally based child-rearing practices, gender roles, and hierarchy of authority on child welfare practice with kinship families, as well as the impact of parental incarceration, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS. Chapter 6 looks at the legal rights, responsibilities, and status of kinship families, caregivers, parents, and children. Chapter 7 discusses federal and state issues for program and policy development; this chapter also examines the philosophy and values underlying provision of financial support to kinship families, the emerging federal role, state policy directions, and permanency planning. Contains 40 references. (KB)