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The House Ways and Means Committee dropped a bipartisan bill today that would prevent youth from aging out of foster care during the coronavirus pandemic and provide additional federal cash to state child welfare agencies.

A federal grant will allow for the completion of a major study on the effect of long-term professional mentoring on at-risk youth. 

It is safe to say that without the benefit of hindsight, no child welfare agency got it totally right in responding to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But Michigan child welfare director, JooYeun Chang, said that an unrelated assessment of her agency, finished months before the virus hit our shores, was fortuitous in helping to shape a creative response to COVID-19. 

Statistics show that the longer kids are in foster care, the harder it is to place them permanently in a loving home.

Point Source Youth, a nonprofit that helps local partners in 30 communities fight to prevent youth homelessness, is preparing to meet a key organizational goal by expanding its work into 20 more communities across the country.

A federal grant of up $12 million will allow Kentucky to provide comprehensive behavioral health and social services for almost 1,500 children and youth in the state’s child welfare system.

The four-year grant of up to $3 million a year is intended to improve long-term outcomes for youth through age 21.

After Jodi Cohen’s excellent reporting this week, the Michigan Supreme Court will review a case in which a teenager from Oakland County was detained for not taking her virtual learning seriously during the pandemic.

Research has shown that quality legal representation on behalf of all parties in the child welfare system improves the outcome for children and families alike. But until now, little research has been conducted on just how funding affects the ability to provide quality legal services.

Last week, Youth Services Insider looked at the fresh round of numbers from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s juvenile detention surveys, which found that during the coronavirus pandemic, admissions to those facilities continue to be low while releases from them have slowed considerably.