Resource Library

Identifies the seven core issues in adoption—loss, rejection, shame and guilt, grief, identity, intimacy, and mastery and control—and explores how they affect children and families.

Discusses shared/co-parenting strategies that provide well-being, safety and stability for children in kinship families.  Five main points: 1) what are the pre-requisities to address when involving birth parents and relatives together in parenting; 2) what are some approaches used in getting caregiver and birth parent buy-in; 3) guidelines to consider in making co-parenting work in kinship care; 4) how to manage challenges that caregivers, relative caregivers and birth parents might experience due to pre-existing history and 5) what criteria should be used and considered in assessing if the family is ready for co-parenting.

Explores the START 24/7 conceptual framework and offers tools for implementation. Explains how START (Start Early, Trauma-informed, Attachment-focused, Resiliency-building, Therapeutic Services) can be used by parents and caregivers and others who support families after adoption and guardianship create an environment where parents and caregivers can plan for future needs of the child and family.

Presents state and national data on child maltreatment, foster care, kinship caregiving, permanency (including adoption), and older youth in care.

Provides tips on developing a general outreach plan along with how to use risk and protective factors to design a more focused plan to reach families who may have higher needs.  It also offers a few concrete examples of how different sites have done outreach. The article’s strategies and examples can be used to develop site specific outreach plans to connect with adoptive and guardianship families after they have achieved permanency. Introduction to the Resource Watch the video below for an overview of the resource, or click on the button to access the article directly.    

Identifies common challenges agencies face in building the evidence required by the Family First Prevent Services Act related to kinship navigator programs. Suggests ways to address these challenges, including defining the program model, selecting a comparison group, ensuring an adequate sample size, selecting appropriate outcomes and reliable and valid measures, and collecting data.

Offers four strategies from ninth grade students about how to design programs that will appeal to youth and encourage engagement. Includes strategies such as diversifying program activities to engage different types of learners and creating environments that are inclusive and judgment-free.

Provides an overview of key issues and strategies for residential leaders regarding how to engage and support families formed through adoption, who have a child in residential. The content of this document was developed based on a literature review, as well as consultations and interviews with adoption experts, practitioners, residential leaders, parent advocates, adoptive parents with residential experience, and youth who have been adopted. The purpose of the document is to raise awareness regarding the unique needs and concerns of families formed by adoption whose children are using residential interventions, and to promote tips and strategies for enhancing the responsiveness [...]

Provides an overview of six guiding principles for sites working to improve adoption and guardianship preservation and support.

Helps administrators and other leaders assess and improve the services offered to foster, adoptive, and kinship families. Offers a tool to bring stakeholders together for an assessment of services’ quality and accessibility, identify gaps and areas for improvement, and create and action plan based on the results. Includes the assessment tool and a companion guide.