The AARP, Child Welfare League of America, Children's Defense Fund, and Generations United have created fact sheets containing current State information related to grandparents and kinship care. Information includes State census data on the number of grandparent caregivers, a list of kinship care family resources and services, State foster care policies for kinship caregivers, information about key public benefits programs, and State kinship care laws. Please click on the State to download the appropriate fact sheet.

This report was prepared as part of a collaboration between ACF, Caliber Associates, and Howard University School of Social Work. Responding to concerns about the overrepresentation of minority children in the child welfare system, particularly African-American children, this exploratory, qualitative study was initiated to gain insight into the issue of overrepresentation (or racial disproportionality) from the perspective of the child welfare community, including agency administrators, supervisors, and direct service workers. The study was conducted through a series of site visits to nine child welfare agencies to talk with agency administrators, supervisors, and workers, among others, about their perceptions and attitudes about the causes and consequences of racial disproportionalities. The site visits also documented information about the types of programs, practices, and strategies that are being implemented to meet the needs of children and families of color, particularly African-American children and families.

From California's Welfare Policy Research Project, this study was charged with investigating barriers to employment and services accessibility among TANF recipients in San Joaquin County, California. The following potential barriers were surveyed: physical and mental health, family violence, substance abuse, adequate child care, transportation, low education, poor English-language skills, and few work skills. The data is used to address which barriers affect full- and part-time employment among 400 respondents.

This newsletter, from the North Carolina Department of Social Services and the Family and Children's Resource program, gives guidance on best practices to serving families. The article focuses on fatherhood involvement in child welfare and strategies for improving engagement among fathers.

The Urban Institute, with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, conducted the Study of Fathers' Involvement in Permanency Planning and Child Welfare Casework. This study reviewed the extent to which child welfare agencies identify, locate, and involve nonresident fathers in case planning. This paper reviews the results of the study on the steps that child welfare agencies take with engaging nonresidential fathers,; possible barriers, and the policies that affect involvement.

Besides acting as a critical health problem, teen pregnancy is tied to a variety of other social issues, including welfare dependence, overall child well-being, out-of-wedlock births, fatherhood, and workforce development. Over half of all teen mothers go on welfare within five years after the birth of their first child. This resource discusses the importance of preventing teen pregnancy as it relates to these issues and the well-being of children.

The Brookings Institution released a paper that evaluates the well-being of single mother families. This policy brief uses consumption data on single mother families in the 1990s, which shows that consumption in housing costs, child care, food, and transportation increased for this group of women. Therefore, post-welfare reform, the material circumstance of single-mothers increased, seemingly because more mothers are employed.

In light of welfare reform, HHS has devoted funds to the Healthy Marriage Initiative. Because of the debate surrounding marriage education, this article seeks to answer what exactly is marriage education and if it is working. Marriage is seen to strengthen families, reduced poverty, and improve child wellbeing.

This brief looks at child welfare agencies' reliance on kin, that is, relatives, to care for children who may otherwise need to be in state custody. In most states, these agencies use voluntary kinship arrangements on a fairly limited basis when caseworkers believe that children face low risk of abuse or neglect. Agencies are confronted by many challenges, including whether to remain involved with a family and how to provide assistance to them.

Authored by Kelly Noonan, Rider University, National Bureau of Economic Research; Nancy E. Reichman, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and Hope Corman, Rider University, National Bureau of Economic Research. In this report, the authors estimate the effect of poor child health on the labor supply of new fathers post- welfare reform, using a national sample of mostly unwed parents and their children--a group at high risk of living in poverty. The researchers address the potential endogeneity of child health and find that having a young child in poor health reduces the father's probability of being employed by eight percentage points and that it reduces his work effort by over five hours per week. These results add to a growing body of literature suggesting that young children with serious health problems are likely to receive lower levels of health investment than their healthier peers.