The Blog

Education and Foster Care

The foster care system has historically been so concerned with safety and finding a stable placement that it has often missed the importance of fostering the well being of the children in its care.

As foster youth bounce from foster home to foster home they change schools at much higher rates than their peers. Early trauma affects learning, and a culture of low expectations can inhibit the educational growth of students in foster care.

But, over the last decade we have seen advances in state and federal policy, increased philanthropy support and heightened media coverage hinging on the educational stability … Read more

NCCPR, Family Preservation Advocacy Shop, Goes Dark

Richard Wexler, its controversial leader, leaves for new job.

The March 29 update on the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform blog, an acknowledgement to the organizations donors and supporters over the years, was labeled simply -30-, a journalist’s signal that a story has ended.

The post, written by the group’s founding Executive Director Richard Wexler, may indeed mark the end of the cash-starved NCCPR, which announced that it was suspending operations on March 30 “due to lack of funding.”

“We have slowly but surely over the last couple years lost the capacity to secure level of grants made it … Read more

A Delicate Web

The promise of post-secondary education for California’s foster youth.

While oft-quoted statistics point to the hardships foster youth face upon aging out of the foster care system, a broad array of interests from higher education, policy and philanthropy have mobilized throughout California over the past two decades, creating a wide and varied array of supports as these young people try to navigate college.

This web of services – ranging from tutoring to housing – has changed the life trajectories of thousands of California foster youth. But competing forces: the evisceration of monies for public higher education on one hand, and … Read more

Adoption Institute Finds Rise in Open Adoptions

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute announced Wednesday the results of a new study which finds the vast majority of infant adoptions are “open,” meaning the two families have some level of ongoing relationship.

The new report, “Openness in Adoption: From Secrecy and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections,” is a new Institute survey of agency practices relating to infant adoption placements. The study, along with a review of other relevant research, yielded these key findings:

·         “Closed” infant adoptions have shrunk to a tiny minority (about 5 percent), with 40 percent “mediated” and 55 percent “open.” In addition, 95 percent of … Read more

Racial Disparity in the System: Why Black Children Are Overrepresented in Foster Care

There are over 500,000 Black children in CA, and almost 13,000 of them, or 2.4 percent, are in foster care.

There are 2.5 million White children in CA, and 13,500 of them are in care, or .05 percent.

Nationwide, Black children are 2.7 times more likely to be places into care than White children. And they wait in care 30 percent longer than other children.

On March 9th, FMC hosted an event with the Black Community Services Center at Stanford University to address these numbers and possible reasons for the racial disparity in foster care. Enriching the discussion was the … Read more

The “Story” Behind Extending Foster Care Past 18

In 2008, during the waning days of his Presidency, George W. Bush signed the landmark Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act into law. This sweeping change to federal child welfare policy created a host of provisions and mandates intended to improve the lives of foster children across the country.

One of the key provisions offered states that opted into extending foster care to age 21 matching federal dollars, a long time goal of many advocates perennially frustrated with the callous practice of leaving foster children to themselves at 18. The story behind this momentous step forward in how … Read more