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 32 resources
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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.

Video

Explore the need for involving multiple voices in developing and implementing prevention plans, as well as the important role courts play in prevention.

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Learn about the importance of successful collaboration and engagement for implementing prevention-focused systems.

PDF

Use this discussion guide with the Child Welfare Virtual Expo (CWVE) 2020 videos to access a description of each topic; individual reflection questions to facilitate personal, on-demand learning; and conversation starters and team activities for child welfare staff and collaborative partners.

Video

Explore strategies for developing a comprehensive community prevention framework across all levels of prevention.

Video

Explore the process of transitioning to a prevention-focused child welfare system from several perspectives, including those of a mother and son with lived experience and leaders who set the tone and direction for putting families at the center of child welfare work.

Video

Emphasizes the importance of community and caseworker support in having the resources needed to promote family well-being, particularly when caring for children with special needs. This video highlights the perspective of a kinship caregiver who is an Athabaskan native teaching her grandchildren the Navajo culture and community traditions and passing down her grandparents' stories.

Video

Gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of effective collaboration and how to avoid pitfalls when implementing partnerships for primary prevention.

Video

Watch this recorded webinar to learn how other jurisdictions encourage kinship care placements and then discuss kinship support with your team.

PDF

Use this discussion guide to lead your team to integrate strategies into practice for immediate improvements and to identify models you can adapt for long-term change.

Video

Addresses the importance of being open to agency support and resources and the necessity of self-care in working through family transitions and meeting family needs. In this video, a kinship parent caring for her niece's children reflects on her family's strategies for raising children who have experienced trauma and the resources that enabled them to become effective kinship caregivers.

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Highlights the significant impact agency staff have on the kinship and foster parent experience and in helping families serve as a resource for the birth families of the children in their care. This video presents one family's story of becoming a kinship resource and how support from their foster care specialist guided their decision.

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Demonstrates the benefits and challenges of serving as a kinship/foster parent and supporting and collaborating with children's biological parents. This video highlights one caregiver's decision to foster and adopt her son and become a kinship caregiver to his younger sibling. She discusses how she maintained a close, supportive relationship with their biological mother and how they ultimately created a united, blended family.

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Demonstrates the life adjustments and rewards of becoming a kinship caregiver. In this video, a caregiver shares his story of what motivated him to become a kinship parent. He discusses how caring for his sister's children and a child with special needs, as well as managing a household, have changed his life and what encourages him to continue.

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Addresses the critical importance of having a strong support network to face the challenges of becoming a kinship resource and caring for children who have experienced trauma. This video highlights one mother's perspective on making the decision to become a kinship parent and the rewards brought by providing care for her kinship daughters.