Keeping Systems Accountable and Young People Engaged The federal Strengthening Families Act (SFA) provides new opportunities for child welfare agencies to create typical family experiences for children and youth in foster care. In this third installment of a six-part webinar series, the Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative highlights key SFA provisions that leverage the law’s enforcement mechanisms to not only improve outcomes for kids, but establish better practices from the start. Read More
New Lead Agency Helms Jim Casey Initiative’s Mississippi Site A new lead partner agency, Southern Christian Services for Children and Youth, helms the Jim Casey Youth site in Mississippi. The nonprofit joins 17 other lead partner agencies across the Jim Casey Youth network. Read More
Does Your Child Welfare Agency Have a Practice Model? The most effective child welfare agencies establish practice models that describe how they partner with families and the community and keep them focused on their goals. In its child welfare leader's desk guide, the Casey Foundation outlines how these practice models create high-performing agencies. Read More
Incarceration’s Toll on Communities Casey’s new KIDS COUNT report on parental incarceration, A Shared Sentence, highlights that children and families aren’t the only ones to experience stress and instability when a parent is behind bars — their communities also feel the blow. Read More
New Casey Report Recommends Policies to Help Millions of Children With Incarcerated Parents More than 5.1 million U.S. kids have a parent who has served time. In a new report, A Shared Sentence: The Devastating Toll of Parental Incarceration on Kids, Families and Communities, the Annie E. Casey Foundation recommended policy reforms that would help millions of children who struggle with emotional and financial instability as a result of having an incarcerated parent. Read More
CaseyCast Podcast Tackles a Silent Issue: Parental Incarceration In this episode of CaseyCast, the Foundation’s Lisa Hamilton enlists social worker Tanya Krupat to discuss the stigmas, struggles and solutions shaping the lives of kids who have experienced parental incarceration. Read More
New Leadership Video: Improve Decisions with Proposal-Based Decision Making Proposal-based decision making — an alternative to the majority-rules approach — creates decisions that all group members can support. Read More
Fewer Kids Living in Homes Owned by Their Parents From 2006 to 2014, the proportion of American kids living in a home owned by their parents fell 7% — from 48.9 million to 43.1 million. This sinking statistic means that 5.7 million more kids are no longer living in a parent-owned home relative to nearly a decade ago. Read More
A New Approach to Preparing Young Adults for Jobs A key component of the Foundation’s new Generation Work initiative is the use of positive youth development strategies. This post highlights the core principles of such strategies, which actively engage young people in learning and provide them with opportunities, such as on-the-job training or mentoring, that help foster their success. Read More
StriveTogether Network Embraces Results-Based Leadership Approach Community partnerships in the StriveTogether national network are applying the tools of results-based leadership (RBL) — the Casey Foundation’s unique approach to leadership development for social change — to support the success of every child from cradle to career. Read More
