Bruce and Brenda have been married for 33 years and have four daughters. From 2006 to 2009, they provided a kinship placement for their four grandchildren. In 2010, the couple adopted Bruce (now 18 years old), Tre’Nae (now 15 years old), Mason (now 13 years old), and Kiaunna (now 10 years old).

See how staff can boost their knowledge and skills for engaging families, community providers, and others.

Hear about the challenges and experiences of an adoptive family and how they created belonging, healthy development, and normal experiences.

This handout is part of the series, “Perspectives on Normalcy: Videos and Discussion Questions.” It is designed to facilitate discussion about the issues raised in the video, “Kinship Adoption: You Get a Call, ‘Do You Want These Kids?’”

Illustrates the four shifts that need to occur at the organizational and practice levels to establish a youth welfare system that meets the needs of youth in foster care.

Hear from a family about the challenges of dealing with an autism diagnosis and other issues while navigating the child welfare system.

Explore how child welfare agencies, legal and judicial stakeholders, prevention partners, and communities can work together to build prevention-focused systems, starting with jurisdictions' 2020–24 Child and Family Services Plans (CFSPs). 

Find meaningful and actionable connections among your agency’s strategic planning, review, and CQI efforts using this toolkit.

Use this brief to help your agency coordinate strategic and long-term planning, monitoring, and reporting processes—such as the Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP) and Child and Family Services Review (CFSR)—with agency continuous quality improvement (CQI).

Use this brief to explore actionable strategies for meaningful partner engagement in child welfare agency strategic planning, monitoring, and review processes.

Explore tips and strategies to effectively engage and sustain the involvement of families and youth at the agency level. 

Explore the key components of engaging youth and families in individual permanency planning.

Offers guidelines and practical suggestions for shifting from a child-focused system that is often reactive, case plan-driven, and protection-focused to a youth-focused system that is proactive, youth-driven, developmentally framed, and normalcy focused.

Support agency staff in the authentic engagement of youth and families in individual permanency planning processes.

Brandon is a 21-year-old alumnus of the foster care system. He was in the foster care system for about 10 years and serves as a foster care advocate, working in State government for the last 3 years. He feels that normal activities for all youth in foster care should include getting a driver’s license, going on out-of-State and overnight trips, and participating in sports.