Resource Library

Explains how agencies and organizations can prepare for authentic youth engagement, especially when working with young people who have lived experience in the child welfare system. It emphasizes co-design, organizational readiness, and power sharing.

Discusses how child welfare professionals can better utilize guardianship and highlights the importance of kinship care. This brief outlines the benefits of guardianship and addresses the challenges and areas of improvement in guardianship utilization. It advocates for a stronger kin-first approach in child welfare, promoting guardianship as a supportive and permanent placement option that benefits children, families and communities. Several examples are provided on how states use guardianship as a prevention strategy.

Outlines strategies to address high turnover rates in child welfare agency and improve workforce stability.

Highlights the importance of respite for families raising children who have experienced trauma. The guide outlines two main categories of respite: planned respite and crisis or emergency respite. It also describes various forms of respite such as support network development, special events, specific respite events, recreational activities, hub homes, camps or retreats, training and maintaining a directory of respite care providers, and flexible funding to families. This article also provides examples of programs implementing these forms of respite care and offers additional resources for further information.

Describes 12 categories of support for children and youth—including life skills development, job training/employment support, and recreational experiences—and points to examples of successful support programs.

Examines various types of respite care services offered and provides examples of jurisdictions offering each type.

Reviews factors that affect adoption/guardianship disruption and how to respond to them, including examples from various states and jurisdictions.

The National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) created this resource as a tipsheet for service providers to share with relatives/kin caring for Native children. It provides guidance to help caregivers access services, utilize them effectively, and advocate for Native children in their care.

Explains why child welfare agencies should create and maintain a comprehensive census of all children in their post‑permanency population (adoption or guardianship) and how doing so strengthens stability, service delivery, and long‑term well‑being. This brief covers the definition of post-permanency child population, how to create a census of the population, and how to use that information.

Provides key elements, distribution strategies and best practices for developing and disseminating an outreach letter and well-being questionnaire to adoptive and guardianship families. This tipsheet also includes practical tips for the outreach letter along with implementation tips for the well-being questionnaire.