The Prevention Initiative Demonstration Project, funded by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), is a community-specific strategy delivered through eight regional networks designed to address the full spectrum of community-based prevention. This article summarizes a strong and meaningful pattern of improvements…

This paper presents findings from a landmark Australian study investigating the experiences and perspectives of young people in residential care. Data from a representative sample are analyzed to identify young people's satisfaction with various aspects of their residential care experience: their sense of safety, normality, support, comfort in…

The lack of culturally appropriate health and mental health care has contributed to the large number of African American youth and families involved in the child welfare system. This article reviews the consequences of the insufficient access to culturally sensitive, evidence-supported interventions for African American foster youth. The authors…

Child welfare is not the only system in which disparities have been identified in U.S. foster care. According to the recent Children's Defense Fund's report "America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline," racial and economic disparities exist in many systems including child welfare, health care, mental health, education, and juvenile and criminal justice.…

Children and families built by adoption or relative caregiving have specialized needs. This paper proposes a rubric for the central elements of permanency-focused mental health services in child welfare practice. Kinship Center provides an innovative mental health service delivery system, weaving foster and adoptive placement programs, adoption…

Under federal outcome standards established by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, discharges to adoption are expected to occur within 24 months of the most recent removal from home for at least 32% of cases. In the research recounted here, adoption is treated as a process composed of two discrete steps: adoptive placement, and adoption…

This paper describes an innovative service delivery model to reduce the number of children entering the child welfare system. Point of Engagement (POE) is a collaborative family- and community-centered approach initiated in Compton, a regional office in Los Angeles County that serves south Los Angeles, a predominantly African American and…

Describes Rhode Island's adaptation of the Illinois model for delivery of child protective services. This system centralizes reporting of child abuse and neglect; uses computer technology; separates the investigative function from provision of social services; and provides a structured investigative and decision-making process that continually…

Examines the concept and application of prevention programs in the child welfare services, and provides a framework for child welfare services based on the public health model of prevention, which focuses on helping program administrators identify and plan services and programs for target populations at different stages in their development. (CM)

Proposes a comprehensive definition of permanency planning and delineates its major components. (Author/RH)

Reports the conclusions reached by participants at a symposium on the licensing of child welfare services. (CM)

The authors, as leaders in a public child welfare system, have teamed together and reached out to their private sector partners in a large, rural county in western Colorado. This effort was part of a comprehensive, community-wide effort to redesign and fundamentally improve the entire child welfare service delivery system. Across the country in…

Describes Tayari, an adoption service organized by black personnel with special procedures designed to reach black clientele. Tayari is a division of the San Diego County Department of Public Welfare. (BRT)