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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Supporting Successful Transition to Adulthood for Current and Former Youth in Foster Care Through Coordination With the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program
This training and employment notice informs states and local areas about how youth programs can help youth who are or were in foster care to complete postsecondary education and training. Intended for youth programs that receive formula funding through the Workforce Investment Act, the training highlights how youth programs can coordinate with state and local independent living coordinators to ensure that youth have knowledge of and access to state tuition waivers and education and training vouchers from the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program.
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.
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.
Information Memorandum: Serving Youth Who Run Away From Foster Care
This Information Memorandum provides guidance on services for youth under age 18 who run away from foster care and come in contact with runaway and homeless youth programs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Resource: Running Away from Foster Care
This article highlights a literature review that analyzed the research on prevalence, risk factors, and outcomes of running away from foster care, as well as the interventions implemented to stop it from happening.
Resource: Health Care Coverage for Homeless and At-Risk Youth
This fact sheet describes eligibility for health care coverage, including through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), for youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness. It also provides information on subpopulations of youth who may be eligible, services covered, enrollment, and Medicaid and CHIP income eligibility levels for each state.
Report: Exploring Cross-Domain Instability in Families with Children
This brief examines different types of instability among children and families, using data on employment, income, moves, and changes in family and household composition. The brief shows significant differences in the prevalence of instability for children by household education level.
Report: Predictive Analytics in Child Welfare: An Assessment of Current Efforts, Challenges and Opportunities
This environmental scan, developed by the MITRE Corporation, explores how child welfare agencies currently use predictive analytics in their work. It describes several agencies’ motivations for using predictive analytics, how their models support casework practice, and the challenges encountered.
Report: Psychotropic Medication Use among Children Who Are Subjects of Child Protective Services Investigations: Does Court Oversight Matter?
This brief examines courts’ roles in overseeing psychotropic medication prescriptions for children who were the subjects of child maltreatment investigations. It also explores the relationship between oversight roles, rates of psychotropic medication use, and rates at which children were re-reported to child protection agencies.
Report: Patterns of Foster Care Placement and Family Reunification following Child Maltreatment Investigations
This brief identifies characteristics of children and families who reunified with parents or family following the child’s stay in foster care, patterns regarding success or failure of reunification, and maltreatment re-reports among children reunified with their families.