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

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.

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.

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.

Shares Stephen’s story about being a community-based provider and policymaker in Florida, the need for laws that empower caregiver decision-making, creating Florida’s reasonable and prudent parent standard (RPPS), and the effect RPPS and normalcy laws can have on foster care.

Access strategies to better understand and implement the family engagement requirements of the FFPSA.

Learn solid strategies for understanding and implementing the trauma-informed care provisions of the FFPSA.

Develop a better understanding of customized congregate care and learn about implementing the FFPSA provisions in congregate care QRTP assessment.

Get informed about creating normalcy for LGBTQ children and youth in foster care and browse relevant examples.

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.