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

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Showing 1 - 15 of 23 resources
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Highlights some of the factors that motivate caregivers to work through challenges and to provide permanency to children in foster care. In this video, a foster parent discusses lessons learned from fostering over 50 children in her home.

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This video raises key motivating factors for caregivers, including the need for strong family and community support networks.

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Emphasizes the need for agency assistance and openness toward creative therapeutic services such as music lessons and highlights the need for a strong caregiver support group. This video shares one caregiver’s positive experience working with older youth with special needs in therapeutic foster care.

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Addresses the importance of agency resources, such as caregiver support groups and specialized training, to equip caregivers to work successfully with children and youth who have severe therapeutic needs. This video highlights a therapeutic foster parent's belief that effective advocacy relies on agency resources and training as well as community support.

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Examines the tasks of sharing findings and recommendations to inform stakeholders of the implementation progress, guide decision-making about the future of the intervention, support advocating for resources, and expand the knowledge base.

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Examines how teams can identify questions to help guide monitoring and evaluation, shape the data that are collected and analyzed, and support evaluation partners in developing research questions.

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Explores the task of identifying, as a team, if an intervention is effective enough to spread, needs adjustment to improve, or should be discontinued if appropriate.

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Describes how teams identify measures, sources, and collection methods to move from the logic model to an evaluation plan, identify any existing data gaps, and pinpoint the tools needed to collect new data.

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Explores the tasks of refining and implementing a sustainability plan to have a clear and intentional roadmap for sustainability, identify the resources available or needed, and identify the commitment and supports that will help.

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Presents how to develop a plan to have a blueprint for all evaluation activities and to clearly outline timeframes, roles, and responsibilities for those activities.

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Explores the task of developing a plan to implement the process and methods outlined in the evaluation plan, gather the information and data needed, and determine the effect of the process or program being evaluated.