In today's United States, where nobody asks how much we should add to the social services budget, where the word "tax" causes serious arguments, and where children only receive a minute portion of the overall federal budget, the possibility of alternative ways of financing the child welfare system is quite intriguing. In the last few [...]
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA) issues annually a list of the top 100 best adoption-friendly workplaces, based on "the maximum amount of financial reimbursement and paid leave for employees who adopt." This list is issued each year as a way to increase public awareness of children in foster care waiting for adoption, as [...]
The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) has been selected by Senator Amy Klobuchar as one of this year's Angels in AdoptionTM for outstanding advocacy in preparing adoption-competent clinical mental health and child welfare professionals for their work with adopted children and their families. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), which orchestrates [...]
A bill in California that would allow kids involved in custody proceedings (and child protection as well) to have more than two legal parents is on its way to the governor's desk to be signed or vetoed. The bill's author, Senator Mark Leno, stated, "This legislation gives courts the flexibility to protect the best interests [...]
An article grabbed my attention a couple of days ago: Child Protection Inquiry told that forced adoption of at-risk children should become 'an option'. I had to read it—"forced" adoptions? Of "at-risk" kids? The article highlighted an increasingly-popular proposal affecting children and families in Queensland, Australia, "parendectomy of incompetent parents," whereby parents who are deemed [...]
The Surrey County Council (in the UK) is now offering the same maternity pay as birth mothers to adoptive mothers, in order to allow them time off to bond with their children without suffering financial hardship. At the same time, this move is also seen as a way to remove barriers to adoption and thus [...]
As of August 1, the new Safe Place for Newborns law in Minnesota went into effect. Since 2000, Minnesota has had a Safe Place for Newborns law that allowed a mother (or her official representative) to bring her newborn infant to a hospital within 3 days of birth for the purpose of relinquishing her rights [...]
One of the new laws that went into effect last Wednesday was regarding unreasonable child restraint. Although we've posted on this in the past (Criminal Neglect Penalties for Unreasonable Restraint of Children added to the Vulnerable Adult Bill), I recently saw an article that discussed this new law as a policy change for general child [...]