This guide is designed to support administrative leaders in states and other jurisdictions in using data to assess and identify ways to improve their service array.

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.

Learn about the range of practices comprising the continuum of youth engagement to youth empowerment.

The FELA resources listed on this guide can be used alone or together to help agencies build individual, team, and agency capacity to engage and collaborate with families.

Learn the definition and find information about normalcy and the reasonable and prudent parent standard in the PL 113-183.

Read about the services available under two federal programs and how to use them to improve outcomes for pregnant or parenting youth in out-of-home care.

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.

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

See statistics on increased risks for LGBTQ youth and learn how child welfare systems can use healthy approaches when working with LGBTQ children and youth.

The videos and activities in this guide can be a vehicle to build mutual understanding and spark change across the child welfare system. Training managers can integrate the content into training for child welfare workers or for cross-system training of court and child welfare personnel.

Explore the supportive relationship between a youth and her attorney.

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.

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.

Explore successful cross-system collaboration across three phases of child welfare interactions with families experiencing co-occurring issues—front-end investigation, case planning/service provision, and case resolution. 

Get guidance, tips, and strategies for assessing agency culture and climate.