Youth in foster care are more likely than their peers to require mental health supports to promote their well-being, and this level of need has likely been heightened by individual, familial, system-level, and societal factors arising during the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes have simultaneously produced a shortage in the supply of available…

Students with lived experience in government care can face significant challenges in their lives and their educational journeys. Students entering higher education may be simultaneously transitioning out of government care and grappling with the complexities of a new educational system. Students formerly in care are more likely than the general…

Higher education is experiencing a mental health epidemic (Venit, 2022). There is unprecedented student demand for psychological services that colleges are unable to meet (Lipson et al., 2019a), leading to high rates of mental illness-related attrition (Koch et al., 2018). Two groups of students at particularly high risk of mental illness-related…

This study used a qualitative design featuring narrative inquiry to explore the systemic challenges in child welfare and education systems that affect the K-12 and college educational outcomes of former foster youth. The study took on an asset-based perspective to elevate the voices of foster youth. The methods involved conducting semi-structured…

Children who experience foster care, write Youngmin Yi and Christopher Wildeman, are considerably more likely than others to have contact with the criminal justice system, both during childhood and as adults. And because children of color disproportionately experience foster care, improvements to the foster care system could reduce racial/ethnic…

Many children taken into care tend to be in need of psychiatric treatment as well as child protection services, and thus the professional expertise of both systems must be coordinated in their care. However, it is widely known across Europe that collaboration between child protection services and mental health services is not working well and the…

Objective: Increasing rates of mental health needs in child welfare clients highlight the importance of training child welfare workers in effective mental health interventions. This pilot study evaluates the effects of training public child welfare workers and interns in modularized research-supported treatments (RSTs). Methods: We compared…

Background: Children involved in the child welfare system (CWS) have a greater need for mental health treatment relative to children in the general population. However, the research on mental health treatment for children in the CWS is sparse with only one known previous review of mental health services with children in the CWS. Objective: This…

At the age of 4 years, Joseph came to the Orleans Parish Early Childhood Supports and Services program (ECSS) for mental health services because of serious aggression and anger. His history included physical abuse before age 2, long-term maintenance on an atypical antipsychotic medication, and other biological, psychological, and…

Objectives: Parental depression symptoms often change over the course of child welfare family preservation and parenting services. This raises the question of whether certain processes in family preservation services might be associated with depression symptom change. This study tests three correlational models of change among family preservation…

The purpose of this study was to examine the three most common types of caregivers in the child welfare system (birth parents, relative caregivers, and foster parents), an active child welfare case, caregivers' endorsement of barriers to mental health services and mental health service use by caregivers for the children under their care. The…

With suicide being the third leading cause of death among young people, early identification of risk is critical, particularly for those involved with the juvenile courts. In this study of court-involved youth (N = 433) in two Midwest counties, logistic regression analysis identified some expected and unexpected findings of important demographic,…

An abundance of research suggests that children in the child welfare system (CWS) have experienced numerous traumatic events and are exhibiting traumatic stress symptoms. Therefore, it is critical that the CWS work closely with the mental health system to ensure that these children receive the appropriate trauma screening, trauma-focused…

This article presents a community-focused participatory action project designed to promote children's resilience in the early aftermath of the cataclysmic May 2008 Earthquake in Beichuan, China. Thirty children aged 7- to 15-years-old participated in the project. The project encompassed four phases that evolved from adult-directed/initiated…

Children in the child welfare system frequently experience trauma within the caregiving relationship. These traumatic experiences may be compounded by system trauma and place these children at high risk of emotional disorders and placement in out-of-home (OOH) mental health treatment programs. This article reviews the literature on trauma and…