Andrea Sanders, credited with cleaning up the Mississippi Department of Human Services in the wake of a scandal earlier this year, is Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ choice to head the state’s Department of Child Protection Services.

Texas has not developed a full plan for the $50,265,902 it received from the federal government to help prepare for the Family First Prevention Services Act, but about 16% will go to a pilot project around congregate care. 

New York City’s newly named official in charge of health and human services comes with professional experience that neither of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent appointees for the position has had: deep roots in child welfare issues.

Researchers at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety in the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry want to hear from those involved in the care of youth in the foster care system for a study on the topic of suicide risk assessments. 

The Trump administration has updated a program for former foster youth to enable far more public housing associations to participate.

Per a notice issued yesterday, any public housing agency that offers housing choice vouchers can participate in the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative, or FYI, a program started in the summer of 2019 to connect young adults aging out of foster care with housing stability as they leave the system.

The U.S. Children’s Bureau on Friday greenlighted Washington state’s plan to spend federal funds to provide services to families whose children might otherwise be taken away and placed in foster care.

As Youth Services Insider mentioned back in July, nobody has done more to track the presence of coronavirus in juvenile settings than The Sentencing Project’s Josh Rovner. His updates on Twitter have slowed from daily to periodic, but he is still combing media coverage, government updates and more to provide a national context that the federal government thus far has not added, at least publicly.

Ohio made a strong move Wednesday toward becoming the 24th state to ban sentences of life without parole for crimes committed when the defendant was a juvenile.

The handful or two of people already serving such sentences in Ohio, and a number of others serving de facto life sentences, could be eligible for parole if the bill is passed by the Ohio House and signed into law.

The National Center for Youth Law is bringing in a longtime fighter for child, youth and community justice as the Oakland, California-based organization’s second in command.

Shakti Belway, a graduate of Stanford University’s law school like the center’s director, Jesse Hahnel, brings with her deep experience in community law, litigation, direct representation, policy development, legislative reform and strategic mobilization.