A federal appellate court last week struck down local bans in Florida on psychotherapy aimed at changing the sexual identity or orientation of minors.

The ruling increases the odds of the “conversion therapy” issue ending up in the U.S.

Over the fall months, leadership at the Children’s Bureau held 12 roundtable discussions with current and former foster youth around the country, aiming to hear directly from the source about how the coronavirus pandemic was impacting their lives.

Federal judges handing down sentences to parents and caregivers would have the power to consider whether it would be better for the whole family if the defendant were to stay out of prison or probation and instead be ordered to receive a comprehensive range of services, under legislation introduced this week.

Three years after a federal appeals court ordered Ohio to pay those who assume custody of relatives the same amount it pays licensed foster parents, the Buckeye State continues to severely shortchange kinship caregivers, according to a lawsuit seeking to enforce the order.

Team Biden has already started to fill in White House leadership amidst what promises to be the most awkward transition in modern history. It won’t be long until it’s time to start filling in nominees across the executive branch, including some of the key positions on child welfare and juvenile justice. 

Congress hasn’t been able to get together on a new coronavirus relief package for months, but at least some money from a previous one is on the way to nearly 1,200 transition-age foster youth in the state of New Jersey.

A leading philanthropy this week announced the next group of organizations to receive training aimed at encouraging juvenile justice professionals to embrace and spread the principles of positive youth development.

In the view of the reformers, frontline staff should be less concerned with sternly enforcing rules to keep kids in line and more about building on the strengths and assets that they and their families bring to the table.

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.

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.