In recent weeks two bills have been introduced that attempt to assist youth in foster care and while the bills are being introduced late in this Congress they set a marker for future action in the next Congress. Last week Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) was joined by a group of bipartisan legislators in introducing a
At the end of last week, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention ACT (JJDPA). The members supporting the long-awaited reauthorization include Congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Education and Workforce Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA), Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA) and
Three organizations have come together to provide a toolkit, SSI for Youth Transitioning Out of Foster Care, that could help test out a new Social Security Administration pilot that seeks to extend SSI benefits to youth exiting foster care. The three groups authoring the report, the Juvenile Law Center, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, and
On Wednesday, July 13 a bipartisan bill was introduced by Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) to encourage coordination between state child welfare and juvenile justice systems in addressing the needs of vulnerable youth caught between the two systems. The Childhood Outcomes Need New Efficient Community Teams (Connect Act) would authorize grants
On Friday the Office on Adolescent Health (OAH) released the results of 41 rigorous evaluations on the effectiveness of teen pregnancy prevention programs. The studies, 90 percent of which were randomized controlled trials between 2010 through 2015, is expected to offer a significant contribution to the field’s knowledge of where, when, and with whom programs
Holding Pattern in Senate Last week efforts to adopt the House version of the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456) (Conference Report 114-628) continued but success has stalled—at least temporarily. By week’s end the only thing that was clear is that they had not yet reached unanimous support for the bill and passing it.
The Coalition on Juvenile Justice has launched Collaborating for Change: Addressing Youth Homelessness and Juvenile Justice, a project with two main goals: to decrease the likelihood that homeless youth become involved with the juvenile justice system; and to prevent youth homelessness among justice-involved youth. The project is a collaboration between the Coalition and with project partners, the National
On Thursday the Education Department and HHS issued guidance, Non-Regulatory Guidance: Ensuring Educational Stability for Children in Foster Care that is intended to help implement new provisions of the reauthorized Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that seek to protect the education access for student who are also in foster care. The guidance includes 40
On Monday, June 13 a group of advocates and organizations led by the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) hosted a forum to discuss the challenges of homeless students in America’s public schools. Under the federal McKinney-Vento Education Act there is a small amount of money in the federal budget
Late Friday afternoon a group of House and Senate Republicans and Democrats released the, Family First Prevention Act along with a summary. The legislation includes three overarching pieces: a reauthorization of the Title IV-B programs (Promoting Safe and Stable Families, Child Welfare Services), new definitions of foster care including greater oversight and limitations of residential/institutional
