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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Library and Information Services

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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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Learn how we can help your agency build the capacity to thrive.

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Showing 1 - 15 of 33 resources
Video

Explore the supportive relationship between a youth and her attorney.

Video

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.

PDF

Adapt proven strategies from this publication to improve specific areas of culture and that support collaborative development of an effective service array.

PDF

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

PDF

Adapt strategies from this publication to improve specific areas of culture and climate to support partnering with families after conducting an assessment.

PDF

Use this guide for tips, and strategies concerning the critical role leadership plays in creating and sustaining positive organizational culture.

Webinar

Explore how child welfare professionals and organizations can build capacity for implementing the reasonable and prudent parent standard (RPPS) for children and youth in foster care. 

Infographic

Browse the themes and key takeaways from the How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options podcast series.

Podcast

Listen to a judge and a child welfare agency leader discuss the challenges, achievements, and strategies of the Tompkins County Family Treatment Court. This longstanding collaboration between the child welfare, substance use treatment, and judicial systems has been steadily growing its Family Treatment Court Team and improving outcomes for families since 2001.

Podcast

Listen to child welfare agency leaders in the District of Columbia, service providers, partners in community collaboratives, and sister agencies talk about how they coordinate service planning and delivery, are culturally responsive to the community, and provide seamless services to families.

Podcast

Listen to child welfare agency leaders in the District of Columbia talk about how they work with partners to use their different data lenses to understand the needs of families and to structure a set of services to best meet the full spectrum of needs. In Kentucky, child welfare agency leaders describe the process of finding the story behind the numbers to transform their system.

Video

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.

Video

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.

Podcast

In this introduction to the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options, agency leaders talk about the changing culture of their organizations. Leaders from Kentucky discuss their Child Welfare Transformation initiative, three transformational goals, and culture of safety.

PDF

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