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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood
The John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood (the Chafee program) provides funding to support youth/ young adults in or formerly in foster care in their transition to adulthood. The program is funded through formula grants awarded to child welfare agencies in States (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and participating Tribes. Chafee funds are used to assist youth/ young adults in a wide variety of areas designed to support a successful transition to adulthood. Activities and programs include, but are not limited to, help with education, employment, financial management, housing, emotional support and assured connections to caring adults. Specific services and supports are determined by the child welfare agency, vary by State, locality and agency, and are often based on the individual needs of the young person. Many State or local agencies contract with private organizations to deliver services to young people.
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being
Youth Indicators is a statistical compilation of data on the distribution of youth, their family structure, economic factors, school and extracurricular activities, health factors, and other elements that constitute the world of young people between the ages of 0-17 years. This report is created and published by Child Stats, a division of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.
Bright Idea: A Free Teen Clinic Reduces Barriers to Health Care
This article from the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth highlights the work of Tulane’s Drop-In Clinic, which provides free medical care to teens in New Orleans. It shares some of the best practices that have helped the clinic successfully reduce barriers and connect youth to care.
Don't Call Them Dropouts
A report from America’s Promise Alliance encourages readers to think differently about youth who have left school, suggesting a change in terminology, from “dropouts” to “nongraduates” or students who have had “interrupted enrollment.” As this article explains, youth voices are featured prominently in the report, which also highlights factors that influence students to leave school and the supports that can help them to return to and remain in school.
Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB)
FYSB supports the organizations and communities that work every day to reduce the risk of youth homelessness, adolescent pregnancy and domestic violence. Learn more about FYSB programs.
Five Ways to Improve Youth Health
This slideshow presents tips for youth-serving organizations on how they can improve the health of the at-risk youth they work with. Ideas include partnering with local farms to receive fresh vegetables and offering classes for physical and mental health.
Five Key Ways the Affordable Care Act Affects Young People
This blog post from the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth links to multiple resources that can help youth-serving programs understand how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) affects youth, including homeless and runaway youth. The post also provides some of the highlights from a recent webinar that discussed what youth and youth workers need to know about the ACA.
Introduction to Positive Youth Development
The National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth has recently updated its two-part, self-paced online training, “Introduction to Positive Youth Development.” The modules focus on explaining the concepts and theories of positive youth development, and how this information can be put into practice.
Learn More About Positive Youth Development
Learn more about Positive Youth Development with this resource by RHY. Positive Youth Development (PYD) 101 Online is a series of short courses intended to introduce PYD to new youth work professionals, volunteers, and advocates.
NCFY Voices: The Youth Dreamers Think Big
Two young people from Youth Dreamers share how they raised money to build a safe place for youth in their community to go after school. Youth Dreamers is a youth leadership group in Baltimore, MD.
Online Sexual Health Resources
The Department of Health and Human Services’ National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth released this list of recommended resources on sexually transmitted diseases, including information geared specifically to teens and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.
Q&A: Amy Lin of Young Invincibles on Helping Young People Find Health Insurance
This interview features Amy Lin of the health advocacy group Young Invincibles discussing her organization’s work to encourage young people to sign up for health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace. Amy also discusses the challenges that young people, including those who are homeless or teen parents, face in accessing healthcare and how youth-serving professionals can help them overcome these obstacles.
Putting Positive Youth Development Into Practice: A Resource Guide
This guide provides information about how you can put positive youth development principles into practice
Resource Roundup: Helping Youth and Families Get Affordable Care Act Health Coverage
NCFY has compiled a list of resources from federal agencies and nonprofit organizations that can help professionals guide youth and families in obtaining affordable health care through Medicaid or the Health Insurance Marketplace.
Train Juvenile Justice Staff to Educate Youth on Sexual Health
Without other trusted adults to guide them, young men in juvenile justice facilities may turn to employees for information about sexual health, a role that these individuals may not be trained to fulfill. To answer this need, the Washington State Department of Health, through the State Personal Responsibility Education Program, provided training to juvenile justice staff to deliver evidence-based sexual health curricula to youth.
What Makes Homeless Youth More Likely to Get STIs? More Likely to Get Tested?
This article from the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth provides an overview of recent research on the factors that influence sexually transmitted (STI) infection rates among homeless youth. The article also presents the factors that influence the likelihood these youth will get tested and offers suggestions for potentially effective prevention and intervention efforts to reduce risky sexual behaviors and promote STI testing.
Youth Workers: When Did You Make the Biggest Difference in a Youth’s Life?
In the first of a new video series from the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth (NFCY) that asks youth workers to discuss the impact they have had on the lives of youth, Linda Mascarenas of Family and Youth Services in Stockton, CA, talks about a teen mother who became a paid employee of her youth program.
Q&A: How to Help Homeless Youth Quit Smoking
This Q&A with Joan Tucker, the senior behavioral scientist and professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California, focuses on Dr. Tucker’s work on smoking among homeless youth and her recommendations for what tailored cessation programs might look like.
5 Tips for Providing Trauma-Informed Sex Education
This article highlights the work of two researchers who are pioneering changes in sex education that bridge the gap between sex education and trauma-informed care by better understanding how sex education could be more sensitive to students’ traumatic experiences. This article also offers tips, based on this research, for implementing a trauma informed approach to sex education.
Guidance: Education Department Reiterates — Title I Funding Can Be Used to Serve Homeless Students
This article explains the guidance provided in a recent “Dear Colleague” letter (PDF, 4 pages) issued by the Department of Education which explains how school districts can use Title I funds to help children and youth experiencing homelessness. Some examples of ways districts can use the funds are to transport homeless students to and from school, pay the salaries of staff who work with homeless youth, and to generally meet the needs of these students.
Resource: Apps Help Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Promote Youth Sexual Health
This slideshow highlights six free apps that can help youth avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Share with Youth: Apps Promote Youth Sexual Health
This slideshow features free apps that can help youth avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. It includes a brief description of each app and a link to where it can be downloaded.
Resource: How Does Talking to Extended Family Influence Teens' Decisions About Sex?
This article highlights a recent study which examined why teens talk with extended family members about sex and what they discuss. The results indicate that almost 60% of teens in the study talked with extended family members about sex, and youth who said they talked exclusively to extended family members about sex were more than twice as likely to have had sex.