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.

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.

Explore additional resources aimed at the needs of expecting and parenting teens in child welfare.

Learn how to support state planning and implementation of the reasonable and prudent parent standard (RPPS), which is required by the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (P.L. 113–183), to help children and youth in foster care experience normal childhood and adolescent activities. 

Understand available technologies and best practices for holding virtual meetings.

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.

Learn how child welfare agencies can transfer select operations online and out of a central worksite.

Discusses new software and technologies used in child welfare.

Desiree is an alumna of the foster care system. She lived with the same foster care family for 14 years. She entered foster care with three of her siblings, and wants to use her experiences growing up in foster care to make a difference for those still in the system.

Examine a five-step framework that helps organizations promote youth engagement in normalcy conversations about the youth’s own care.

Get practical guidance for building organizational capacity and for implementing flexible and innovate programs for youth engagement.

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

Explore promising practices in pregnancy, parenting, and prevention services and view practice examples, including evidence-based programs, in-home services, and specialized units.

Brandon is a 21-year-old alumnus of the foster care system. He was in the foster care system for about 10 years and serves as a foster care advocate, working in State government for the last 3 years. He feels that normal activities for all youth in foster care should include getting a driver’s license, going on out-of-State and overnight trips, and participating in sports.

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).