Research & Reports

• Fostering Connections Aging Out Brief
• Review of State Policies and Programs to Support Young People Transitioning out of Foster Care
  The report addresses the findings of a national review of state programs for young people aging out of foster care.
• FY 2010 Adoption Incentive Awards, based on FY 2009 Earning Year
  On September 15, 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded $39 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico for increasing adoptions from foster care. The recipients of these awards completed more adoptions in FY 2009 than in the 2007 baseline year. A list of states who received these funds is available on the Department's website.
• Connecting Children to their Native American Roots. Tribal Contact Lookup:
  Private Company Created Resource: Ayazuta. Provides up to date information on Tribal Contacts and additional resources for states to strengthen their notice of tribes in child welfare cases.
• Alabama Fostering Connections Act Implementation Report
  Provides an overview of the state's child welfare population, budget, native tribes, and the progress (as of 2009) the state has made toward implementing the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act
• Alabama Adoption Facts
  Summary of data and statistics regarding waiting children and children adopted from foster care.

National Resources

Research & Reports

• Addressing the Unmet Educational Needs of Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems
  Reviews educational barriers encountered by youth in the child welfare systems and describes recent legal and policy reforms. Includes promising practices and evidence-based interventions to improve educational outcomes.
• Improving Educational Continuity and School Stability for Children in Out-of-Home Care
  This report highlights the most promising practices developed by the participating teams where the focus was on improving educational continuity and school stability; these strategies influenced systems change by enhancing the way information is exchanged across systems and by coordinating resources and advocacy around educational issues.
• Practice Principles for the Recruitment and Retention of Kinship, Foster and Adoptive Families for Siblings
  A set of principles for keeping siblings together. Produced by Adopt Us Kids, and funded by the Children's Bureau.
• Relative Foster Care Licensing Waivers in the States: Policies and Possibilities
  This document covers relative licensing waivers for foster care. It discusses examples of what states are doing, and options that states have.
• Pursuing Permanence for Children in Foster Care: Issues and Options for Establishing a Federal Guardianship Assistance Program in New York State
  Provides an overview of the options for New York State Kinship Guardianship Assistance Programs.
• Reasonable Efforts to Preserve or Reunify Families and Achieve Permanency for Children
  A description of Reasonable Efforts as it applies to family reunification.
• New Help for Children Raised by Grandparents and Other Relatives: Questions and Answers About the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008
  This question and answer guide aims to ensure full and prompt implementation of the improvements in the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act for children being raised by grandparents and other relatives.
• Strengthening Families Through Guardianship
  This publication provides a brief overview of guardianship and why it is important as a permanency option for children in foster care
• Subsidized Guardianship: Testing the Generalizability of an Idea Whose Time Has Finally Come
  This powerpoint presentation provides an overview of the results of Tennessee's subsidized guardianship waiver
• Child Welfare and Child Support: Working Together to Help Families
  Published by the Administration for Children and Families, this document provides advice on how child support and child welfare agencies can work together to identify family resources for children at risk of or in foster care
• Health Screening and Assessment for Children and Youth Entering Foster Care: State Requirements and Opportunities
  This issue brief reports on a 50-state survey conducted by the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) to understand the extent to which child welfare agencies require physical, behavioral, and oral health screenings and follow-up assessments upon a child's entry into foster care.
• Cortisol Production Patterns in Young Children Living With Birth Parents vs Children Placed in Foster Care Following Involvement of Child Protective Services
  This study examined differences in waking to bedtime cortisol production between children who remained with birth parents vs children placed in foster care following involvement of Child Protective Services (CPS).
• State Practices for Assessing Health Needs, Facilitating Service Delivery, and Monitoring Children's Care
  A report by the GAO on Foster Youth Health
• Addressing the Health Care Needs of Foster Care Children
  This brief highlights a number of critical health concerns and policies impacting children in the foster care system.
• Children in Foster Care: Challenges in meeting their health care needs through Medicaid
  An overview of the challenges of meeting the health care needs of foster youth through Medicaid.
• Medicaid and Financing of Health Care for Children in Foster Care: Findings from a National Survey
  An overview of findings on Medicaid and Financing of Health care for Children In Foster Care
• Sample State Legislation to Extend Foster Care, Adoption and Guardianship Protections, Services and Payments to Young Adults Age 18 and Older
  Gives sample legislation for in regards to the Older Youth provision of the law.
• Protecting Children in Foster Care: Why Proposed Medicaid Cuts Harm Our Nation's Most Vulnerable Youth
  A report on medicaid cuts and the effects on youth in foster care
• Lighthouse independent living program: Characteristics of youth served and their outcomes at discharge
  This study examined the outcomes of 455 young people who entered the Lighthouse Independent Living Program during the period 2001–2006.
• Resources from the April 16th, 2010 Summit on Charting a Better Future for Youth
  Resources from the April 16th, 2010 Fostering Connections National Summit: Charting a Better Future for Youth hosted by the American Bar Association.
• Guiding Principles for Implementation of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 Provisions Addressing Older Youth
  This document provides a set of principles regarding the essential elements of implementing the Fostering Connections provisions for older youth.
• Extending Foster Care to Age 21: Benefits, Costs, and Opportunities for States
  This audioconference gives an overview of research conducted by Chapin Hall and others shows that foster youth who are allowed to stay care beyond age 18 -- when most states end guardianship -- are more likely to go to college and derive other benefits.
• Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth
  The Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth (Midwest Study) is a prospective study following a sample of young people in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois as they make the transition from foster care to early adulthood. It provides a comprehensive picture of how foster youth are faring during this transition since the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 became law.
• Continuing Foster Care Beyond 18: How Courts Can Help
  The study involved analysis of administrative data, a statewide survey of caseworkers, focus groups with substitute caregivers and with youth, and site visits to interview court personnel across the state. Findings indicate that strong advocacy within the juvenile court on behalf of foster youth plays a primary role in keeping youth in care.
• Youth Transitioning from Foster Care: Background, Federal Programs and Issues for Congress
  This report summarizes the issues faced by young people when they leave foster care without safe, permanent families. Youth who spend their teenage years in foster care and age out are likely to face challenges in early adulthoold.
• Review of State Policies and Programs to Support Young People Transitioning out of Foster Care
  The report addresses the findings of a national review of state programs for young people aging out of foster care.
• When Should the State Cease Parenting? Evidence from the Midwest Study
  This Issue Brief discusses the potential benefits of allowing foster youth to remain in care past age 18. In particular, data from the Midwest Study suggest that allowing foster youth to remain in care past age 18 increases their likelihood of attending college and their likelihood of receiving independent living services after age 19. It may also increase earnings and delay pregnancy.
• Children Discharged from Foster Care: Strategies to Prevent the Loss of Health Coverage at a Critical Transition
  Kaiser Family Foundation report on health of foster care children at transition time
• Teen Pregnancy Prevention Among Youth in Foster Care
  This brief makes recommendations for how federal, state, and local governments can use provisions in the Fostering Connections Act to help young people in and transitioning out of foster care to get the education and health services they need to avoid teen pregnancy.
• Fostering Connections to Success: Extending a Social Safety Net for Youths Facing Homelessness and Poverty
  A journal article on the Act's effect on older youth aging out of foster care.
• FY 2010 Adoption Incentive Awards, based on FY 2009 Earning Year
  On September 15, 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded $39 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico for increasing adoptions from foster care. The recipients of these awards completed more adoptions in FY 2009 than in the 2007 baseline year. A list of states who received these funds is available on the Department's website.
• Providing Federal Adoption Assistance to More Children with Special Needs: A Welcome Change
  This issue brief summarizes the following: the problems of the AFDC adoption assistance link; the new provision that removes the AFDC link; and what the child welfare community needs to do to take advantage of the law’s Maintenance of Effort provision (MoE), which requires states to continue their investments in child welfare services.
• Adoption Incentive History 1998-2009
  Table presenting state-by-state receipt of adoption incentive awards from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for each year from FY1998 through FY2009
• In Focus: The Adoption Tax Credit
  This report provides an overview of the legislative history of the adoption tax credit and a detailed analysis of the tax credit with respect to existing law. The report also outlines key policy considerations and summarizes pending legislation to modify the tax credit.
• Adoption USA: A Chartbook Based on the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents
  Findings from the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents (NSAP), the first-ever representative survey on the characteristics, adoption experiences, and well-being of adopted children and their families in the U.S.
• A Report to Congress on Barriers and Success Factors in Adoptions from Foster Care: Perspectives of Families and Staff
  Results from two adoption studies: (1) surveys/interviews of families seeking to adopt children with special needs from foster care, as well as private and public agency adoption professionals, regarding barriers in the adoption process (the "Barriers" study); and (2) an investigation of factors influencing successful adoptions (the "Success Factors" study)
• Ending the Foster Care Life Sentence: The Critical Need for Adoption Subsidies
  Results of a survey of nearly 250 parents who have adopted (or are considering adopting) children from foster care,on their experiences, including factors influencing their decisions to adopt, the impact of the adoption subsidy on the adoption, and other challenges/barriers with the adoption process.
• Federal Income Tax Benefits for Adoption Use by Taxpayers 1999-2005
  An overview of the use of the federal adoption tax credit between 1999 and 2005.
• Title IV-E Claims and Adoption Assistance Payments
  History of the federal adoption assistance program, national statistics and trends regarding the use of Title IV-E adoption assistance payments, and state-by-state data on adoption assistance claiming and subsidy amounts.
• The Value of Adoption
  Summary of a cost-benefit analysis of foster care adoption, focusing on adoption's private and societal impacts. Explores foster care adoption as an intervention, and its cognitive and educational, health and mental health, behavioral, and economic effects on individuals and society.
• Understanding Adoption Subsidies: An Analysis of AFCARS Data
  Analysis of AFCARS data from 1999-2001, showing national trends and state differences in use of adoption subsidies; the relationship between states' subsidy use and adoption outcomes; and the relationship between child, family, and state characteristics and subsidy levels and usage.
• Overview of Tribal Provisions in P.L. 110-351
  Detailed description of the tribal provisions of Fostering Connection.
• Tribal/State Title IV-E Intergovernmental Agreements: Facilitating Tribal Access to Federal Resources
• Indian Child Welfare Act; Designated Tribal Agents for Service of Notice
  Federal Resource: This list of Indian Child Welfare Act; Designated Tribal Agents appeared in the Federal Register on Wednesday, May 19, 2010.
• Connecting Children to their Native American Roots. Tribal Contact Lookup:
  Private Company Created Resource: Ayazuta. Provides up to date information on Tribal Contacts and additional resources for states to strengthen their notice of tribes in child welfare cases.
• National Indian Child Welfare Association's Information on Customary Adoption
• The Indian Extended Family and Its Relationship to Parenting
• Traditional Native American Culture and Contemporary U.S. Society: A Comparison
• Key Considerations and Best Practices for Tribal Title IV-E Data Collection and Reporting
  This report by Dr. Priscilla Day and Erin Geary provides an overview of the critical issues related to American Indian child welfare and data collection. It describes the data reporting requirements under Title IV-E. Drawing on the experiences of successful tribal agencies that have collected and reported data in an effective, culturally relevant way, it describes challenges, lessons learned and best practice related to child welfare data collection. It further provides an assessment tool for tribes to use to assess their readiness to implement Title IV-E services.
• Trauma Exposure in American Indian/Alaskan Native Children
• Transition Programs in Indian Country
  Provides an initial understanding of programs available to American Indian youth and services provided within American Indian communities.
• Improving Access to Independent Living Services for Tribes and American Indian Youth.
  Describes how Tribes can access independent living services for Indian youth and be involved in the development of culturally appropriate services to assist Indian youth as they begin the transition from tribal and state foster care systems to adulthood.
• Court Reform and American Indian and Alaskan Native Children: Increasing Protections and Improving Outcomes
  Description of court reforms related to handling of cases involving American Indian and Alaskan Native children.
• Screening foster care children doubles detection rate of potential developmental problems
  The addition of a simple and systematic screening among children in foster care doubled the detection rate of developmental disabilities in a population that is at high risk for developmental problems. The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) study published in Pediatrics in January 2010 shows that universal screening is feasible in a busy pediatric practice.
• A Carrot Among Sticks: The Adoption Incentive Bonus
  This report summarizes interviews with states and DC about what they are doing with their Adoption Incentive dollars, how they have responded/reacted to the Adoption Incentive program, and how they have reinvested these dollars.
• What Works for Older Youth During the Transition to Adulthood
  This fact sheet examines the role that programs for older youth can play in promoting positive development and subsequent self-sufficiency in adulthood. It synthesizes the findings from 31 rigorous evaluations of programs; all of the programs evaluated youth outcomes during the transition to adulthood (ages 18 to 25), but programs varied in the ages of targeted youth.
• ESEA Letter to Chairman Miller
  A letter from Rep. McDermott to Chairman Miller. The letter requests that the Chairman include language promoting educational stability for children in foster care in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) .
• The role of housing in the transition process of youth and young adults: A twenty-year perspective.
• Needs and Demographics of Former Foster Youth Entering California's THP-Plus Program: Findings from the Statewide Participant-Tracking System
  The report provides the findings of an analysis of data collected from 1000 former foster youth who entered California's THP+ Housing Program with supportive services.
• Extending Foster Care to 21: Measuring Costs and Benefits in Washington State
  This report gives information on the costs and benefits of extending foster care to 21 in the state of Washington.
• Securing Child Safety, Well-being, and Permanency Through Placement Stability in Foster Care
  Provides an overview of how to achieve successful placement stability within foster care.
• "Green Book"- Child Welfare section
  The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee "Green Book" section on child welfare includes information on federal programs dedicated to child welfare purposes, including program requirements, spending and characteristics of children served.
• Child Welfare Outcomes 2003-2006: Report to Congress
  Child Welfare Outcomes 2003-2006: Report to Congress is a report created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the Department) to meet requirements of section 203(a) of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA).1 ASFA amended section 479A of the Social Security Act to require an annual report on State performance. Child Welfare Outcomes 1998 was the first report created in the Child Welfare Outcomes series of reports.