American Academy of Pediatrics

Emergency removals of children from their parents by the child welfare system have increased in New York City. According to Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), New York City’s child welfare agency, nearly half of all cases where children were placed in foster care were emergency removals — involving a total of 1,699 children in 2018.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced last week that it opposes federal legislation that would temporarily preserve child welfare waivers and delay implementation of the landmark Family First Prevention Services Act.

The scene unfolding on the United States-Mexico border continues to be tough to watch. Even as immigration policies shift, it remains unclear how the more than 2,000 children wrenched from their parents and swept into warehouses, cages and chaos will be reunited with family.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was furious and heartbroken. Nearly three years into an effort to fundamentally overhaul the nation’s foster care system, the bill Wyden had crafted alongside Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was dying.

A new advocacy campaign in Virginia has refocused the role of school nurses as crucial healthcare providers in schools. The campaign, led by school nurse Dana Holladay-Hollifield, aims to require a school nurse in all Virginia public schools, especially in schools with higher numbers of students with chronic illnesses and those unable to access primary healthcare.

Food insecurity, which according to the USDA is “the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food,” has long been known to have adverse health consequences.

Research presented at the national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children in foster care are more than three times as likely to have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than other children enrolled in Medicaid.

by Jane Krienke Seven years after President George W. Bush signed the landmark Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (FCSA) into law, 26 states have introduced bills to improve the oversight of healthcare resources for foster youth, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures State Actions.