Watch this recorded webinar to learn how other jurisdictions encourage kinship care placements and then discuss kinship support with your team.

Bruce and Brenda have been married for 33 years and have four daughters. From 2006 to 2009, they provided a kinship placement for their four grandchildren. In 2010, the couple adopted Bruce (now 18 years old), Tre’Nae (now 15 years old), Mason (now 13 years old), and Kiaunna (now 10 years old).

Learn to be more intentional about creating opportunities to relate to the staff and families you serve and to infuse more empathy into your agency.

Explore workforce challenges in child welfare and highlight the urgent need to be brave in addressing those challenges.

Learn actionable ways to engage in authentic, nonexploitative storytelling practices with people with lived experience and expertise. 

Learn how child welfare organizations can create equity in the workforce. 

Learn strategies to address the mental health needs of children, young people, and families.

Learn about organizational capacity to assess readiness and how it impacts retention of people with lived expertise in child welfare agencies.
 

Tells the story of the relationship between a youth in foster care and a BraveLife peer navigator. Both talk about the personal sharing and mutual trust that have forged a connection that will last a lifetime.

Hear a summary of the 2022 CWVE themes and learn strategies for moving forward with prioritizing lived expertise in child welfare. 

Explore ways to increase commitment to partnering with people with lived expertise in child welfare.

See how listening and relatability helped build trust between a youth and his attorney.

Underscores the importance of consistency and encouragement in trusting relationships. A Fostering Success peer mentor gave impactful advice to the youth she mentored: Stop listening to the people who don’t believe in you.

Discover strategies to effectively integrate people with lived expertise into the child welfare workforce.

Explore a family-focused program that embodies many of the changes that Kentucky wants to see throughout its child welfare system in this podcast. The START, program demonstrates a shift in organizational culture to focus on family and serves as an example of a truly collaborative team that uses early intervention and a shared decision-making model to work with families.