CWLA

By Michael Fitzgerald In the nearly two months since the police killing of George Floyd launched a global protest movement against systemic racism, the American child welfare system has experienced its own reckoning.

Yesterday, Senators Gary Peters (D-Michigan) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation to address the needs of the nation’s most at-risk youth. The Child Outcomes Need New Efficient Community Teams (CONNECT) Act seeks to improve outcomes for youth in contact with both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

The U.S. family foster care program dates back over 150 years. Known as the father of foster care, a young minister – Charles Loring Brace – was horrified by the thousands of orphaned and destitute European immigrant children he found roaming the streets of New York City or barely surviving in tenements and orphanages.

An edited version of this column has been reprinted with the permission of the Child Welfare League of America. It happened again, just before Congress left for the summer break on July 31, Congress gave children in foster care their heartfelt support but were much more limited in their financial support.

The Child Welfare League of America, a 94-year old membership organization representing public and private child welfare agencies, took a major step toward survival when a federal agency agreed to terminate the organization’s pension plan.

After more than two years of waiting, The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) will hear by the end of September about a federal pension plan ruling that could determine its prospects for survival.

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) published a manifesto this month calling for excellence in child welfare and accountability in communities this month, a document that balances best practices with a loftier vision for the field.

The Child Welfare League of America awarded its 2013 Community Partnership Award to the Child Welfare Organizing Project, a New York City group that helps parents advocate for themselves after making contact with the city’s child welfare system.

With only weeks until his 19th birthday, David C.’s future looks bright. In June, he will graduate from his Contra Costa County high school in the top one percentile of his class, and is excited about starting his college career at the University of California- Berkeley in the fall.