Resilience and Well-Being

• NEWBuilding Brighter Futures: Helping Youth in Foster Care Successfully Transition to College
  M. Sebrena Jackson, PhD, LICSW, Associate Dean for Educational Programs and Student Services, University of Alabama
  

  » A conversation with Dr. Sebrena Jackson, founder of the National Social Work Enrichment Program (NSEP), giving youth in foster care the skills they need to not only survive in college, but thrive in life.

• Building Community Capacity to Support Perinatal Mental Health
  Sara Winkleman, Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families
  Mia Edidin, Perinatal Support Washington
  

  » Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are among the most common complications that occur in pregnancy or in the first 12 months after delivery. Yet despite the long-reaching negative impacts on parent-child attachment, child development, and financial stability, perinatal mental health (PMH) disorders often remain underdiagnosed, untreated, or under-treated.

• Supporting Children and Youth Coping with Unresolved Loss
  Deborah Langosch (GrandFamilies Outcome Workgroup (GrOW))
  

  » Ambiguous loss occurs when a parent is physically or emotionally absent, whether due to a child welfare removal, incarceration, substance use, or physical or mental health struggles. Children facing ambiguous loss are dealing with grief, uncertainty, confusion, and many other conflicting emotions. Ambiguous loss can cause challenging reactions and affect a child’s behavior, relationships, and learning. Understanding ambiguous loss, its impact on children, and how to promote resiliency and healthy coping for them, is important for both child welfare intervention and prevention communities.

• The Science and Practice of Self-Regulation
  

  » Over the past decade, our field has learned a lot about the brain science behind trauma, adversity, and stress. In this Digital Dialogue, we will be focusing on what the science tells us about resilience, healing, and self-regulation. Learn more about the brain's anatomy and practical tips for identifying restorative practices that work when your body is under stress.

• Birth Parent Foster Caregiver Partnerships: Taking a Family Systems Perspective
  Elayne Chou (Counseling Psychologist)
  

  » Family systems theory gives us a framework for understanding, supporting, or engaging in birth parent foster parent partnerships while acknowledging the complexity and the relational work they require.

• Laying the Groundwork: Paid Family Leave as a Prevention and Promotion Strategy
  Laura Weeldreyer (Maryland Family Network)
  

  » New data shows that policies to provide universal concrete and economic supports to families can have a powerful impact on child abuse and neglect prevention and broader family well-being. This Digital Dialogue covered one such strategy—paid family and medical leave. It explored what research tells us about the impacts of these concrete supports and provided information about one state’s journey to a statewide policy.

• Promoting Healthy Behaviors for Kinship Caregivers
  Kerry Littlewood, PhD, MSW (University of South Florida)
  

  » Kinship caregivers often prioritize their children’s needs before caring for their own, often delaying their own medical appointments and medication to purchase shoes for children, transportation, and food. Learn more about kinship caregiver health and an approach to working with kinship caregivers that emphasizes self-compassion and self-care. Created by a multi-disciplinary team of doctors and social workers, the Time for Me Toolkit helps peer navigators to support and provide psychoeducation to caregivers around six pillars of health management (Healthy Eating, Being Active, Healthy Sleep, Healthy Coping, Medical Adherence, and Self-Monitoring).

• Caring for Kinship Caregivers
  Ana Beltran (Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network), John Cheney Egan ( Office of Cash Assistance, Illinois Department of Family Services and the Extended Family Support Program), Liliana Hernandez (Children’s Bureau)
  

  » In 2018, 2.7 million children were being raised in a kinship care family without a parent present – either with grandparents, aunts/uncles, siblings, or close family friends. While kinship caregivers provide essential support to children, many frequently need support to carry out this added responsibility effectively.

• Addressing the Systemic Inequities that Stand in the Way of Children's Well-Being
  Iheoma U. Iruka (Equity Research Action Coalition at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute)
  

  » Poverty, race, culture, or zip code should not predetermine a child’s school and life success. This digital dialogue explored the historical roots and current practices and policies that may lead to racial disparities (e.g., conflation of effects of poverty and neglect/abuse) within early childhood and child welfare.

• All Children—All Families: Improving Practice For and With LGBTQ+ Youth and Families
  Ellen Kahn (Human Rights Campaign Foundation)
  

  » The Human Rights Campaign is working with hundreds of child welfare systems across the nation to build new and inclusive practices for LGBTQ+ youth and families. Learn more about the effective innovations being put into practice and tools you can use to shift practice in your own program and system.