Describes a Canadian social service pilot program which employed experienced foster parents as foster family workers to recruit, screen, and train prospective foster parents. (CM)

Describes the roles of judges and social workers in Dutch child welfare. Briefly outlines training efforts designed to help social workers give their assessments greater structure, case-planning scope, and clarity. (BB)

Identifies factors contributing to difficulties involved in developing ethnic sensitivity training for child protective services caseworkers. Examines frameworks for training caseworkers in ethnic sensitivity. Proposes a new approach to improving caseworkers' ability to complete ethnically sensitive assessments and discusses implications of this…

Summarizes the objectives, conceptual model, results, and implications of a project called Foster Care Training: A Comprehensive Approach, in British Columbia, Canada, which was designed to illustrate ways in which a networking model can provide increased support and training for participating foster parents. (BB)

Reviews the literature on the importance of foster children's connections to their biological families. Involvement of the placed child's biological family in all stages of the placement experience creates new forms of practice throughout the foster care system. Describes the use of group training for biological parents soon after placement and…