Resource Library

The Center for States designs products, services, and learning experiences to increase understanding and awareness, and build knowledge and skills. The Center focuses its attention on developing products and resources on several core organizational and practice topics.

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Library and Information Services

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The Center for States provides research assistance and responds to information requests on building capacity in child welfare.

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Learn how we can help your agency build the capacity to thrive.

Email: capacityinfo@icfi.com 
Phone: 1.844.222.0272

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Showing 1 - 15 of 238 resources
Video

This video tells the story of how a family court judge in Hancock County, Mississippi, works with families and stakeholders to support reunification through a trauma-informed, family-centered approach.

Video

Frankie is 14 years old and lives with his sister, brothers, and moms. He and his sister were adopted when they were 2 years old and 4 years old, respectively. He loves spending time with his aunts, uncles, and cousins and loves being part of a big family.

Video

Learn about negotiating boundaries, communication, support, and normalcy from a young person formally in foster care and her adoptive parents.

PDF

Identify data sources to explore agency responsiveness to the community.

Video

Explore the supportive relationship between a youth and her attorney.

Video

Highlights the role agency resources and family support can play in helping kinship families face challenges. This video discusses an aunt's decision to become a full-time caregiver for her niece and her niece's daughter, and the importance home visits played in the transition.

PDF

Discover how to examine and drill down into state data to build understanding of what’s happening in your child welfare system.

Video

Reveals how advocating for youth makes a difference in system change and in the advocates’ own lives. The Director of Policy and Advocacy at NMCAN and a youth advocate talk about their shared experience in testifying as expert witnesses for state legislative committees and how it created a strong bond between them.

Video

Explores the task of assessing the results of the pilot, reviewing progress, and making adjustments before large-scale implementation of an intervention.

PDF

Explore how data reported in AFCARS about youth who run away from state custody can be used to inform interventions.

Video

This video highlights the story of a therapeutic foster care social worker in North Carolina and how her own experience in kinship care helps her connect with kinship caregivers and engage families.

Video

Examines tasks of building capacity to implement the intervention in new locations or with new populations in a sustainable way and scaling up the intervention.

Webinar

Learn about the practice and systemic changes Hawaii, Indiana, and Westchester County, NY, made in partnership with their youth and young adult partners.

Video

Buzzwords: Moving to Behavioral Descriptors doodle video is a short, animated video that follows a child involved in a child welfare investigation. The video describes what buzzwords are and illustrates the impact they can have on children and families. It also demonstrates how to recognize buzzwords and offers strategies for transforming buzzwords into objective, behavior-based descriptors.

PDF

This publication looks at buzzwords in the context of words or phrases commonly used in child welfare reporting and documentation that can be subjective or carry negative connotations, and offers strategies to minimize their negative impact.