Late last week, a bipartisan group of House legislators introduced a bill that would supply $2 billion to states for help in preventing youth or family homelessness during the coronavirus pandemic.

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. 

Every single one of the 5- and 6-year-old kids in the study faced multiple daunting obstacles before they met their “friends” – the full-time professional mentors supplied by the nonprofit Friends of the Children – who have helped them navigate life’s inevitable challenges for at least the next 12 years.

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. 

Last month, an inspector general report out of the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that Medicaid data can be used “to identify instances of potential child abuse or neglect.”

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.

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.

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. 

The Annie E. Casey Foundation continues to supply a macro-level look at how the use of juvenile detention has changed during the coronavirus pandemic. Its most recent release of data today shows two trends in May that could portend a more dramatic shift next month.