The Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) offers a training institute consisting of an array of evidence-based, trauma-informed, and accredited programs. The training programs include both free and fee-based trainings, web-based and instructor-led programs, virtual and in-person options, and a range of topics to meet the training needs of professionals supporting children and their adoptive, foster, and kinship families.

This Child Welfare Information Gateway webpage offers resources that highlight strategies that professionals can use to build relational permanency through lasting, lifelong connections and to support youth before, during, and after adoption. These resources highlight the importance of relational permanency, offer guidance on supporting kin caregivers to strengthen stability and permanency outcomes, and provide tools for building and maintaining comprehensive, culturally responsive, and accessible post-permanency services.

This Executive Order by the Trump-Vance administration announces that they will dedicate Federal support, technology, and strategic partnerships to provide young Americans in or transitioning out of the foster care system with the tools they need to become successful adults.

Every child deserves a safe and nurturing home where they can learn, grow, and reach their full potential. Adoption makes that possible by opening the door to stability and belonging for children who need a family. This proclamation by the Trump-Vance administration declares November 2025 as National Adoption Month throughout the United States and encourages all Americans to support children in need of a safe and loving home, uplift the families who welcome them, and help strengthen the bonds of family and community.

The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network will host a webinar on December 11, 2025 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to help Tribes who operate kinship support service programs, including kinship navigation programs, know about and understand how they can prepare to take advantage of new resources afforded under the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act. This new law reauthorizes and updates Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, a critical child welfare law that provides funding to Tribes, states, and territories, to create and operate coordinated child and family services programs.

Alex J. Adams, PharmD, MPH, serves as Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families. Assistant Secretary Adams brings years of health, human services, education, and regulatory expertise to advance President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s broader vision to Make America Healthy Again. Prior to leading ACF, Dr. Adams spent more than ten years in Idaho State Government. He led the Governor’s zero-based regulation initiative, which resulted in Idaho becoming the least regulated state in the nation. Dr. Adams also made significant efforts to improve Idaho’s child welfare system, enacting kin-specific licensing standards, announcing paid family leave for foster parents, extending foster care to age 23, and overseeing record recruitment and retention of foster homes. This webpage showcases resources that support the priorities identified by Assistant Secretary Adams.

Kinship navigator programs offer information, referrals, and follow-up services to kin caregivers to link them to benefits and services that can support them and the children they raise. Some of these programs are over twenty-five years old and provide robust case management, concrete goods, and other supportive services for the families, while others may be limited to information and referral.

This Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network webpage offers a list of known kinship navigator programs, organized in alphabetical order by state and territory with tribes listed separately at the end. Each entry notes which families the program serves, in addition to providing basic service information and a website link.

The Family First Prevention Services Act enacted as part of Public Law 115 -123 amended Title IV-E to allow Title IV-E agencies the option to receive funding for evidence-based kinship navigator programs that meet certain criteria. Kinship navigator programs help relatives and kin caregivers learn about and access programs and services to meet their own needs and the needs of the children they are raising.

This Children Bureau’s resource outlines the requirements Title IV-E agencies must meet to apply to the Kinship Navigator Program.

This Casey Family Programs webpage offers videos and resources that highlight data and research that support the benefits to child safety, permanency and well-being that kinship care can provide. This webpage also notes specific policies – federal, state and agency-specific – that help to build a kin-first culture.

Research shows that separating children from their families causes lasting trauma. Child protection agencies should exhaust all means to ensure children and families receive essential support to safely remain together. In instances when temporary out-of-home placement is necessary, finding the best possible family-based setting helps to mitigate trauma. Placement preferably should be with kin, but when kinship care is not possible, placing children in a safe family setting with a resource caregiver in their community is essential.

To ensure family-based placements meet the differing needs of children in the child welfare system, child protection agencies should actively recruit and retain resource caregivers from varied backgrounds. This Casey Family Programs brief highlights a menu of strategies for recruitment and retention of resource families, as well as a selection of tools and resources to help develop comprehensive, integrated recruitment and retention plans.