This study examined adolescent paternity through structured interviews with their social workers. It adds to the literature by exploring if there were young men involved with the child protection services (CPS) system who are fathers, identifying their unique needs, and beginning discussions on working with these young men. CPS social workers from…

Participation of extended family members, particularly custodial grandparents, has generally resulted in better outcomes for abused children and relief for an overburdened child welfare system. This research explores the risk of adolescent perpetrated violence in custodial grandparent households with data from the Florida Department of Juvenile…

Students, a large percentage with disabilities, are at high risk for poor post-secondary outcomes in state agency education programs. This mixed-methods study describes the understandings of student transitions in state agency education programs from the perspectives of youth and administrators. Results indicated that: transition is more narrowly…

Since its creation, New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has used child and family development research to bridge the chasm between child welfare and juvenile justice policy and practice. OCFS's major challenges have been to help the staff and stakeholders of the merged child welfare and juvenile justice agencies develop a…

This article describes the Model Standards Project (MSP), a collaboration of Legal Services for Children and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The MSP developed a set of model professional standards governing the care of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth in out-of-home care. This article provides an overview of the…

Traditional leadership practice frameworks to guide systems change often fall short in today's practice environment. Reclaiming Futures is a national initiative to create an integrated, comprehensive, seamless system of care for teens with substance abuse problems involved in juvenile justice. It uses leadership and systems reform strategies to…

This article describes the Durham Family Initiative (DFI), an innovative effort to bring together child welfare and juvenile justice systems to reach DFI's goal of reducing the child abuse rate in Durham, North Carolina, by 50% within the next 10 years. DFI will follow principles of a preventive system of care (PSoC), which focuses on nurturing…

Presents logical, theoretical, and empirical arguments for a new rehabilitative agenda for juvenile justice, based on positive principles of youth development. Offers critical examination of dominant intervention paradigms within juvenile justice, compares underlying assumptions of a competency-based rehabilitative model with deficit-based…

Youth in state custody, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have federal and state constitutional and statutory rights. These rights guarantee a young person safety in their placement as well as freedom from deprivation of their liberty interest. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth have these rights…

Explored attitudes of public child welfare caseworkers and child care staff toward policy and practice relating to youth who commit crimes, such as truancy, that would not be considered crimes if they were committed by adults. Respondents felt that courts need to mandate parental involvement in the cases of such youth. (BG)

The alarming number of children killed and seriously injured as a result of child maltreatment and neglect has led to increased calls for action. In response, interdisciplinary and multiagency child death review teams have emerged as an important component of child protection. Paradoxically, child death review teams are among the least visible and…

This article presents a comprehensive strategy framework for integrating mental health, child welfare, education, substance abuse, and juvenile justice system services. It proposes an infrastructure of information exchange, cross-agency client referrals, a networking protocol, interagency councils, and service integration models. This…

Project Confirm aims to address the problem of foster children ending up in detention because of police and probation officers' difficulty in locating guardians to appear on behalf of arrested children. Project Confirm locates juveniles' caseworkers and informs them of their legal responsibilities. The program reached most of its implementation…

Describes how the Washington State Families for Kids program used data to create a sense of urgency for system change in the state's Department of Social and Health Services and the juvenile court systems, through distillation and dissemination processes that integrated data, policy, and fieldwork. (Author)

This study examined service delivery and risk factors for 93 youth with emotional and behavioral disorders who were served by one jurisdiction's child welfare, juvenile justice, and special education agencies. The researchers collected data through an archival review of agency records. The article discusses findings as they relate to the link…