This article describes an infant and early childhood mental health-informed therapeutic visitation program that offers clinical support, systems-level advocacy, and developmentally appropriate guidance to families navigating the child welfare and family court systems. The program offers treatment, permanency, and placement planning for infants,…

"Children's Budget 2019" is a comprehensive analysis of how kids and families have been faring in the federal budget over the past five years. The book captures and analyzes historical funding data and spending trends across a wide range of policy areas including child welfare, early childhood, education, health, housing, income support,…

"Children's Budget 2018" captures and analyzes historical funding data and spending trends across a wide range of policy areas including child welfare, early childhood, education, health, housing, income support, nutrition, safety and training, tracking federal investments in nearly 200 different programs. To determine the amount of…

Spreading and sustaining evidence-informed practice in child welfare is complex. In particular, putting in place an active dissemination strategy requires the recognition of these unique challenges. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how collaborative partnerships between individuals and organizations may represent an opportunity for more…

"Children's Budget 2017" captures and analyzes historical funding data and spending trends across a wide range of policy areas including child welfare, early childhood, education, health, housing, income support, nutrition, safety and training, tracking federal investments in nearly 200 different programs. For each program listed, this…

Families influence their children's health in two ways that are amenable to public policy- through their financial and other investments in children, and through the quality of care that they provide. In general, children who receive more resources or better parenting are healthier than those who don't. Public policies, therefore, might improve…

Family-centered, community-based programs are particularly suited to support families with at-risk children or maltreated children and achieve family preservation or reunification. In these child protection and child welfare cases, assessment is of great importance to inform decision making. But the implementation of services to support the…

This paper deals with the implementation of integrated services providing early support for young children and their families. The integration of services is considered to have highly positive effects on the development of children and on the prevention of child neglect and maltreatment. Therefore, childcare centres have been developed into family…

Reports such as this typically begin with a statistic designed to highlight a problem. The girls and boys to whom this edition of "The State of the World's Children" is dedicated are not problems. Rather, each is a sister, brother or friend who has a favourite dish, song or game; a daughter or son with dreams and the desire to fulfil…

The Promising Practices Network (PPN) on Children, Families and Communities (www.promisingpractices.net) began as a partnership between four state-level organizations that help public and private organizations improve the well-being of children and families. The PPN website, archived in June 2014, featured summaries of programs and practices that…

Pastoral del Nino is transforming children's lives in rural Paraguay. Part of Pastoral Social (Catholic Social Services), Pastoral del Nino's primary focus is to bring "vida en abundancia" (the abundant life) to families by ensuring that mothers survive childbirth and children reach their first birthdays. In addition, the organization…

This paper describes an innovative service delivery model to reduce the number of children entering the child welfare system. Point of Engagement (POE) is a collaborative family- and community-centered approach initiated in Compton, a regional office in Los Angeles County that serves south Los Angeles, a predominantly African American and…

The "Colorado Children's Budget" presents and analyzes investments and spending trends during the past five state fiscal years on services that benefit children. The "Children's Budget" focuses mainly on state investment and spending, with some analysis of federal investments and spending to provide broader context of state…

Shared family care has been defined as the planned provision of out-of-home care to parents and their children so that the parents, supported by the host caregiver, cares for the child and works toward independent in-house care; this approach is an alternative to the trauma of separation and lack of continuity inherent to foster care placement.…

Nonprofit family-run organizations, such as Tennessee Voices for Children (TVC), are providing leadership in advocating for and delivering services to children and families in need. Utilizing a family-driven approach and a staff partially comprised of parent-professionals, TVC's Nashville Connection and Family Connection programs have strengthened…