Resource Library

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.

Explore how independent verification and validation services for title IV-E agencies are used for child welfare information systems projects.

Learn how Anntesha’s experience as a child living with her grandparents and later in foster care influenced her to become a relative caregiver to her niece and nephew and work as a kinship navigator. 

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

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.

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.

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.

Learn about Catherine’s journey recovering from trauma and addiction to be successfully reunified with her daughter.

Learn effective strategies to collect, analyze, and use data related to caseworker visits.

Get guidance for completing the CQI self-assessment instrument, see suggested sources for local assessment data, and learn to rate assessment results.

​Learn from people with lived experience about the impact of kinship care on children in the child welfare system.

The Center for States’ virtual Exhibit Hall booth features several products that focus on workforce development, including a variety of publications, videos, and learning experiences to help agencies foster healthy and supportive environments for child welfare professionals.

CWVE 2019 Closing Session Presentation Maximizing Our Collective Impact

Becoming a Workforce of Everyday Scientists: Frontline Staff in Agencies and Tribes

Becoming a Workforce of Everyday Scientists: Frontline Staff in the Legal Community Legal Presentation