Highlights the advocacy work of state and regional youth leadership councils. Two paid regional and state youth specialists and the Texas Director for Transitional Living Services describe how including youth voice by providing them a “seat at the table” at the state capital enhances the child welfare system. All three discuss the rewards and personal impact of their work.

This video is a part of the Empowering Caregivers, Strengthening Families Video Series. It demonstrates key aspects of agency support to caregivers, including the importance of quality personal contact, training, and resources to empower caregivers through the process of moving from foster parenting to adoption.

Learn about Dezzie’s experience bonding with her newborn while embracing parenting classes and other agency supports in her journey to be reunified with her daughter.

Tells the story of the relationship, initially forged over a shared meal, between a youth and her CASA worker. The CASA worker’s advocacy for concrete supports to meet the youth’s needs helped grow the trust in their relationship.

This tool is a role-playing activity, designed to help child welfare workers and supervisors become more familiar with the process of recognizing and translating buzzwords into descriptive language.

Highlights the beneficial role of agency support and encouragement to caregivers in ensuring effective foster parenting and successful reunification measures. In this video, a foster parent discusses the importance of communication and trust between caregivers and biological family members, along with agency training and resources, for successful reunification.

Watch this recorded webcast to learn what it means to build a complete system of foster care as a support to families, not a substitute for parents.

Emphasizes the importance of community and caseworker support in having the resources needed to promote family well-being, particularly when caring for children with special needs. This video highlights the perspective of a kinship caregiver who is an Athabaskan native teaching her grandchildren the Navajo culture and community traditions and passing down her grandparents' stories.

Learn to facilitate a normalcy conversation and to promote normal and developmentally appropriate experiences for youth in foster care.

This video highlights the story of a program manager and lead navigator for the Montana Kinship Navigator Program and how her own experience caring for a nephew helps her better support and connect with kinship caregivers and families.

Learn about the challenges faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) families involved with the child welfare system and ways to help them.

Learn how to create an agency organizational culture that is inclusive and knowledgeable about the unique needs of LGBTQ children, youth, and families.

Discover how parent partner programs support family reunification by guiding and motivating parents into constructive interactions with the child welfare system and courts.

Exhibits the effect of committed caregivers throughout the process of foster parenting to adoption and demonstrates the power of strong families in promoting positive outcomes and permanency for children. In this video, an adoptive parent shares her reflections on her relationship with her daughter on the day of her adoption.

Addresses the importance of being open to agency support and resources and the necessity of self-care in working through family transitions and meeting family needs. In this video, a kinship parent caring for her niece's children reflects on her family's strategies for raising children who have experienced trauma and the resources that enabled them to become effective kinship caregivers.