Resource Library

Reviews the key concepts for understanding self-regulation, including the relationship between stress and self-regulation. Summarizes principal findings from a comprehensive review of self-regulation interventions. Addresses how current theory and knowledge of self-regulation may apply to programs and practitioners serving children and youth in different developmental groups from birth through young adulthood.

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.

Helps county behavioral health agencies improve access to adoption-competent mental health services for adoptive and guardianship families. It includes recommendations, tools and resources to remove systemic barriers and promote trauma-informed, community-centered care.

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.

Offers a review of data related to American Indian and Alaska Native children and child welfare. It focuses on the early to mid-points of the child welfare pathway-beginning with suspected maltreatment and followed by entry into foster care.

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.    

Highlights the often‑overlooked long‑term impacts of foster care on adults who experienced the system as children.  The author underscores the persistent challenges many former foster youths face in adulthood—including housing instability, limited supportive relationships, unresolved trauma, and barriers to accessing benefits due to bureaucratic complexity. This article calls for sustained, developmentally appropriate supports beyond age‑based cutoffs, including trauma‑informed mental health care, stable housing pathways, and mentors who engage without stigma. Ultimately, it urges a shift in narrative: former foster youth should be recognized not only for surviving the system but as whole people capable of thriving when provided with consistent, [...]

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.