social worker

As a community pastor ministering to foster and probation youth in Northern California, I know how important it is for teachers, family friends, clergy, mentors and others to support these youth at dependency and delinquency juvenile court hearings.

We launched a writing contest to see what former foster youth had to say about their time in care or their experiences with the justice system. The contest gave youth the opportunity to write on one of three themes: “What does home mean to you?”

This summer has seen a lot of action around youth-centric legislation in Hawaii. In July, Gov. David Ige (D) signed a number of new laws governing the state’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

Dewayne Johnson might not have the worldwide fan following of the similarly named pro wrestler-turned-movie star. But, in his way, he has become a true rock for kids in need. Johnson, 48, is a social worker with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), home to the largest local population of foster kids in the nation.

Prolific child-welfare blogger Marie Cohen led The Imprint’s Blogger Co-op this year in readership – earning her the title as The Imprint’s 2016 Blogger of the Year. Her blog entries were viewed more than 43,000 times on The Imprint from July 2015 to July 2016.

Los Angeles County’s aim to place foster children in homes within their own communities is often thwarted by the stark reality that those communities lack sufficient foster beds. Economics make it so that many times the only suitable placement for an L.A. youth...

Social worker Ruby Guillen’s shift at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the largest child welfare agency in the U.S., starts at 4 p.m. and ends at 2:30 a.m.—except when serious incidents occur and keep her on the job even longer.

The over-reliance on psychotropic medication for children in foster care has been drawing a lot of attention both among policymakers and in the media. A recent study reports that in 2012, Pennsylvania’s foster children were nearly three times as likely to be prescribed psychotropic drugs for behavior problems as other children on Medicaid.

By Sarah Thomas In 2014, Los Angeles County’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection issued a scathing report that pointed out that the social workers investigating emergency cases of child abuse and neglect were often the least experienced.