Laura LeBrun, MSW, University of Minnesota Graduate and Outreach Graduate Assistant at CASCW
July 2021
Welcome to the Expanding Knowledge blog series! The following is an eight-week series that will feature means to enhance your child welfare work through education by non-conventional means, exploring content beyond traditional academia. We recognize that everyone learns in unique ways and thus will suggest resources from social media, books, podcasts, and more to help broaden the child welfare knowledge base and increase access to a variety of voices.
Our fourth week in Expanding Knowledge will explore child-welfare related organizations throughout the United States. In this series, organizations are perhaps the most general means to gain knowledge, but what each organization is doing holds value and could be applicable to your career, organization, or community. Within each website, an organization presents its history, mission, and vision, who makes up the organization, and what the organization is doing for the community. While it is impossible to read every idea on every single page, reviewing organizations has benefits because an idea could be particularly noteworthy. If, when reviewing these organizations, a program stands out to you, we encourage you to dive deeper into the concept to see what makes it feel so inviting!
When evaluating organizations, it is important to consider the organization’s past, present, and future. The “why” that an organization was founded demonstrates the passion behind its founders as well as its mission and vision. It is important, however, that organizations are willing to listen to the needs of the greater community to see if there is truly a need in this regard; those that are willing to adapt and change to the needs, in particular, have the greatest potential for effective change. It is often difficult to discern what an organization plans to do in its future, but it is important to make these considerations when evaluating if an organization is valuable to support with one’s time, emotion, or fiscal contribution. Another concept that needs to be made when evaluating organizations is the composition of its staff and board. Given our knowledge of the composition of those who make up the child welfare system, it is vital that there are varying identities, positionalities, and strengths represented in these organizations. As we have done previously, we invite you to consider these themes: Who is contributing to the execution of an organization’s mission and vision? Whose voices are being heard and amplified? Are there people’s voices who are being given more power than others? Why or why not?
While these organizations are nationwide and thus do not have resources available to all readers, it is possible that some of their ideas can be adapted and applied to your community. We’ve listed suggested organizations to review below:
1. Connect Our Kids, based in Virginia
Connect Our Kids is an organization that provides technology to help social workers find and notify family members for children in foster care and ultimately help secure permanency. This Family Connections Tool searches the internet, including public records and social media, to find connections for children in hopes that children will have the option of being placed with kinship families or relative placements in an effort to mitigate potential trauma and placement changes. Its goal is to use this technology so that the overworked social worker does not have to spend time personally scouring the internet, calling people and organizations, or making multiple in-person visits to try to find family members for children. Currently, Connect Our Kids offers the Family Connections Tool upon request and has other tools to help facilitate the relative/kinship search.
2. Irreducible Grace Foundation, based in Minnesota
The Irreducible Grace Foundation focuses on “creating safe spaces and healing opportunities for youth of color.” It was founded because its founder, Dr. Darlene Fry, found that there were many racial disparities within our social systems. Irreducible Grace offers in-person workshops designed to amplify youth voices, promote health and wellness through healing from trauma, and more. Although it is a Twin Cities-based organization, Irreducible Grace has expanded its reach by offering healing activity books that a professional or family can order as well as the new IGF Kids video subscription. Videos are made by kids, for kids, focusing on music, mindfulness, and breath work in order to help kids maintain emotional regulation and calm the body in moments of chaos. New videos and mini-poster downloads are offered each month. This resource is extremely valuable and unique as it provides kids a way to learn from people their own age, which provides the opportunity for them to feel like they can relate to someone’s life experiences and histories.
3. National Foster Youth Institute, based in California
The National Foster Youth Institute is an organization that seeks to amplify the voices of people who have experienced the child welfare system. Their goal is to involve individuals with personal experiences in policy change and programming regarding the child welfare system. They have platforms for former foster youth to amplify their voices nationally, shadow Congressional representatives, complete internships, and participate in local initiatives through smaller chapters. Members discuss intersecting topics such as COVID-19, homelessness, juvenile justice, higher education, health and wellness, national standard of care, and voter registration. While there are only four local chapters currently, they also have discussed a multitude of ways to prioritize foster youth in your community and are a great model to look upon when thinking about how to focus on foster, former foster, and adoptive youth voices.
4. Adoption Mosaic, based in Oregon
Adoption Mosaic seeks to serve all members of the adoption constellation in their efforts to find ways to support the adoption community. The organization is focused on collaboration with individuals, organizations, and agencies. Its founder, Astrid, is also an adoptee. Currently, Adoption Mosaic offers consultations and trainings, through workshops, groups, and panels. Of note is an upcoming event related to their We the Experts: Adoptee Speaker Series, which has the “intention to discuss best practices and tangible tools, to connect among peers and to engage in learning with other adoptees.”
5. FosterAdopt Connect, based in Missouri
Originally founded to support foster parents with stronger support, training, and companionship, FosterAdopt Connect has expanded since its 1998 founding to address the needs of youth who have aged out of foster care, foster youth, adoptees, and families. The organization has many resources available; some that are notable include the offering of legal representation for youth who have aged out of foster care, Community Connections Youth Project, 30 Days to Family, and Extreme Family Finding. This organization embodies one that clearly listened to the needs of its community and expanded with regards to those needs.
6. Minnesota Youth Voice (MYVoice), based in Minnesota
Founded by Ampersand Families and funded through the Minnesota Department of Human Services, MYVoice hosts many youth-led events for young people in Minnesota, ages 12-22, who have experience in the foster care and/or adoption system. These events include interactive submissions, virtual and in-person hangouts, and the outside events for current and former foster youth. In addition to social events, MYVoice includes programming such as preparing and supporting youth for panel presentations, creating media, advocacy work, and peer mentoring.
7. OC United Together, based in California
With a stated goal of “[empowering] individuals, families, & communities through restorative relationships & whole-person care,” OC United Together offers many social services. In regards to foster care, it seeks to serve foster families and former and at-risk foster youth; the organization also offers individual, family, and community resources that are applicable to the child welfare system. Of particular interest is the Traumawise Initiative, which focuses on trauma-informed care. There are many events and resources related to trauma-informed care that are relevant to all people involved within the child welfare system.
8. Foster Club, based in Oregon
Foster Club is a national network for youth in foster care. While the site has almost an overwhelming multitude of resources, interested child welfare professionals, concerned citizens, foster parents/caretakers, and foster youths can narrow the topics relevant to them midway down the homepage. (Look for: “What are you looking for?”) Foster Club offers many interesting publications, as well, a couple of which are free. It is a good organization for foster youth to turn to when searching for people who have similar life experiences.
9. Foster Care Alumni of America, based in Virginia
With over 24 chapters, Foster Care Alumni of America has an expansive reach. They have focused on maintaining connections amongst former foster youth, ensuring that they are connected, empowered, and flourishing. In the past, the Foster Care Alumni of America has offered a scholarship program for former foster youth older than 25; they also seek to transform policy, develop leaders, and support peers. Worth reviewing is the Foster Stories Radio Show and the robust resources page.
10. Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, based in Washington, D.C.
While the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute has many programs interested in raising awareness and removing barriers, it is their robust involvement within Capitol Hill that makes this organization unique. They seek to intersect the voices of experience (such as adoptees, foster children and youth, and birth families) and the voices of expertise (such as doctors, child welfare professionals, and educators) to enact policies. The Foster Youth Internship Program is a particularly unique opportunity for policymakers to gain firsthand knowledge, from former foster youth, about the child welfare system.
Do you have any articles or resources that have been helpful to you as a child welfare professional? Please send us an email. The reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are expressly that of the author and are not that of the University of Minnesota, School of Social Work, or Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare.