iFoster released the Voice of Foster Care Community Report this week, which contains findings from over 1000 youth with experience in foster care, over 1100 caregivers, and 228 frontline workers from 49 states and D.C. The website houses all the data, searchable by state. The report finds that “the overwhelming consensus is that the child
The CLWA recommends Congress extend foster care to age 21 so that every young person in foster care will have an option to stay in care, resulting in improved education, housing, and employment outcomes. In 2008, Congress passed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (PL 110-351). That law gave states the option
The overdose death rate among U.S. adolescents nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 — a climb that continued into 2021, a new study in JAMA shows. Researchers determined that it’s not a surge of 14- to 18-year-olds using drugs - survey data actually indicate that fewer teens experimented with drugs during the pandemic. Rather, a
On Monday, March 28th, 2022, Think of Us hosted a Town Hall with the Children’s Bureau. Speakers included representatives of the Administration, Aysha E. Schomburg, Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau, and people with the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ youth. Associate Commissioner Schomburg echoed other speakers’ sentiments of standing behind LGBTQ+ children and families especially
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a statement on March 7, 2022, that it will consider granting deferred action to minors awaiting green cards through their Special Immigrant Juvenile Status but who can’t obtain a visa because of existing backlogs. Deferred action would protect those immigrants from deportation and allow them to work legally. “This
A new publication from the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends primary preventive services that reduce the perpetration of intimate partner violence and sexual violence among youth. Based on a systematic review of 28 studies, the CPSTF found evidence that prevention strategies that utilized one or more of three strategies were successful in reducing
New research published last week on February 15, 2022, More comprehensive sex education reduced teen births: Quasi-experimental evidence, provided further evidence that comprehensive sex education does have an impact on reducing teen pregnancy in the United States. The authors of the study state, “Our results show that federal funding for more comprehensive sex education reduced
On Tuesday, February 8, 2022, the Senate Finance Committee started their series of hearings on mental health with Protecting Youth Mental Health: Part I – An Advisory and Call to Action. This series of hearings will focus on five areas of behavioral health: youth mental health, mental health workforce, parity between mental and physical health,
On February 8th, 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, and American Rescue Plan Coordinator Gene Sperling hosted a press event for the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit Day of Action. Sperling opened the event by giving the history of the Child Tax Credit and an overview of
Last Tuesday and Wednesday two key congressional committees began a set of bipartisan discussions on the challenges of access to mental health and substance use services. On Tuesday the Senate HELP Committee held their first hearings and on Wednesday the House Ways and Means Committee focused hearings on the behavioral health challenges. The subject and
