This paper chronicles the exploration and development of a residential program of the child welfare authority of Renfrew County in Ontario, Canada. Recognizing that virtually its entire population of youth in care was failing to achieve positive outcomes in education, Renfrew County Family and Children Services embarked on a program development…

Training is widely believed to be an important element in promoting good child welfare practice. Scholarly attention to training, however, has been limited. To facilitate further development of child welfare training, in this article, we discuss the importance of conceptualization in the design and evaluation of training projects, offer a…

This paper reviews the research on youth empowerment in seven child welfare programmatic areas. A lack of studies specifically focused on the empowerment of youth in foster care was found. Conceptual perspectives and existing data, however, suggest that the empowerment of youth in and transitioning out of care is essential and should be overtly…

The lack of culturally appropriate health and mental health care has contributed to the large number of African American youth and families involved in the child welfare system. This article reviews the consequences of the insufficient access to culturally sensitive, evidence-supported interventions for African American foster youth. The authors…

As the health, social, and developmental needs of infants in foster care become more complex, foster families are challenged to develop specialized knowledge to effectively address these needs. The goal of this qualitative research study was to identify the process of becoming a foster family and providing family foster caregiving within the…

This article is a 20-year evaluation of the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP) of Child and Family Services in Western Manitoba. Following Levenstein's (1979, 1988) approach, home visitors model parent-child interchanges using books and toys to enhance children's cognitive development through appropriate parenting behaviors. The evaluation provides…

Summarizes findings of a test of the Parent Outcome Interview, a client outcome measure for evaluating child welfare services. Reported are types and degrees of case improvement, unresolved problems and apparent service gaps, and client satisfaction with the agency. (RH)

Describes a program developed by the Children's Aid Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, called Intergenerational Support System (ISS), in which senior volunteers serve as support persons for problem families. (SAK)

Articulates how the family support movement emerged in the last 20 years, and describes the philosophical premises, principles, and practices that currently guide it. Considers the inability of current family support program typologies to guide outcome evaluations, and introduces a typology that deconstructs family support programs into their…

Presents a framework for preventive action on federal, state and local levels. Obstacles to the provision of preventive services are indicated and lines of action in the areas of policy, legislation, and program capacity building are recommended. (Author/RH)

Examines the concept and application of prevention programs in the child welfare services, and provides a framework for child welfare services based on the public health model of prevention, which focuses on helping program administrators identify and plan services and programs for target populations at different stages in their development. (CM)

Steps in establishing a community-supported foster group home are described. Efforts to begin the group home, now in its fifth year of existence, included community education, community organization, and work with individual community members. (Author/DB)

Presents basic concepts and techniques for developing an effective, supportive program for supervising child care workers in residential facilities. (CM)

Matching Needs and Services (MNS) is a practice tool intended to help people who work with vulnerable children use rigorously assembled information on needs as a guide to design, implement, and evaluate more-effective services. To do this, MNS focuses on needs but links them to outcomes and thresholds before dealing with the services to achieve…