This article features a nationally representative study of safe, stable, nurturing relationships among children and youth in the United States ages 1 month to 17 years. Researchers discovered that almost 1 in 4 children and adolescents resided in family environments with just modest levels of safety, stability, and nurturance, while approximately 1 in 15 experienced consistently low levels of these factors. Lack of safe, stable, nurturing relationships seems to most strongly affect older adolescents and children in nontraditional family structures and appear to have critical implications for future functioning of these youth. The article includes a discussion of the associations among the indicators of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and their implications for policy and practice.

This recent Council for a Strong America report profiles the opioid epidemic in Wisconsin and how parental substance abuse should be considered a significant Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) that impedes childhood development. The report notes how high-quality early care and education programs, Head Start, and home visitations support children as they grow up by preparing them to avoid crime, raise families of their own, and contribute to the workforce. The implications of the epidemic in Wisconsin have a broader national impact.

New research from the Center for Poverty Research illuminates the links between low socioeconomic status (SES) and metabolic syndrome, a family of conditions that make a person more likely to experience heart disease, strokes, and diabetes. These conditions affect nearly one-fourth of the world’s population, and children raised in poverty are 83% more likely to suffer from metabolic syndrome than children of a high SES after controlling for other factors. Adult SES has a less pronounced effect on metabolic syndrome risk. This poses to policymakers an evidence-backed opportunity to improve long-term productivity, health, and well-being outcomes by targeting young children currently growing up in poverty.

Based on a prior report on associations of time in extended foster care with youth outcomes, researchers at Chapin Hall examined data of more than 40,000 youth from California’s Child Welfare Services/Case Management System, including youth who had been in foster care for at least six months sometime after their 16th birthday. Researchers were unable to discover negative consequences of extended foster care beyond age 18. Instead, they reported that remaining in care past age 18 assists in meeting youths’ basic needs, reduces the chance of becoming a young parent and interacting with the criminal justice system, and helps them advance their education, acquire additional work experience, and save money.

An MDRC infographic provides initial findings of the Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) initiative, which targets youth ages 15-25 who have been involved in the child welfare and justice systems, or who are homeless. The infographic identifies components of two established national programs – Jobs for America’s Graduates and the Jobs for the Future Back on Track – and the LEAP enhancements for case management and training that are offered locally to support youth in employment and postsecondary educational opportunities.

This Casey Family Programs report outlines strategies for keeping American Indian and Alaska Native children in tribal foster homes and approaches to find tribal parents for an “Indian child” under the Indian Child Welfare Act. The report emphasizes the importance for Native children to have connections with families sharing their same culture, especially in cases where the children are not in safe or healthy home environments.

On December 6, the Annie E. Casey Foundation will conclude its Leading with Evidence: Informing Practice with Research webinar series on child welfare. This presentation will explore how researchers and child welfare practitioners can form partnerships to learn from each other to execute the best possible evidence-based initiatives. Because federal program funding is increasingly tied to research quality, this topic is especially important. Researchers and practitioners alike will share their experiences working together to implement youth-oriented programs and services and discuss available resources for research-practice partnerships.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) seeks material from stakeholders on hearing quality and judicial decision-making in child welfare cases. OPRE encourages submissions of findings from related programs, research reports, tools, and local datasets, among other relevant resources. The information gathered will be used to develop the Understanding Judicial Decision-Making and Hearing Quality in Child Welfare project that will look at how hearing quality and the court decision-making process affect case planning, child well-being, and family outcomes. Materials should be emailed to cwhearingquality@acf.hhs.gov by January 31, 2019.

This brief, circulated by ASPE, details the methodology used in the report Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic, and Child Welfare Caseloads: A Mixed Methods Study. Methods utilized included statistical modeling, geospatial analysis, and qualitative interviewing and analysis. Research centered on six questions, including exploring the relationship between substance use prevalence and child welfare caseloads, how parental substance misuse affects caseloads and outcomes, and whether opioid misuse impacts welfare differently than other types of substance use.

This study examines county-level data on income inequality and rates of child maltreatment. Researchers assessed data on substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect from 2005 to 2009 and poverty data from the American Community Survey. Researchers found that child poverty rates were positively and significantly correlated with child maltreatment rates at the county level. Higher income inequality across counties was significantly associated with higher county-level rates of child maltreatment. The researchers concluded that their findings support the growing literature base linking income inequality to a range of poor health and well-being outcomes for children.