Is The Indian Child Welfare Act Headed Back to the Supreme Court?
On this week’s podcast we discuss a portal to federal aid for former foster youth; a big juvenile probation reform proposal in California; and new leadership at a pioneer group for elevating parent voice in child welfare.
Guest Interview Details
Chrissi Ross Nimmo, Deputy Attorney General for the Cherokee Nation, joins us to discuss the massive and complicated federal opinion on the Indian Child Welfare Act, and its likely move to the Supreme Court. And Fostering Media Connections Founder Daniel Heimpel joins us for a “farewell” lookback on the media platform he created.
Reading Room
Arizona Launches Portal to Connect Former Foster Youth with Pandemic Relief
https://bit.ly/2Q4BYrmCalifornia Weighs Plan to Shrink Probation Supervision Terms for Youth
https://bit.ly/3fQ0qHGParent-empowerment Group Rise Names New Leadership Duo
https://bit.ly/322rNpUFederal Court Ruling on Indian Child Welfare Act Goes in Several Directions
https://bit.ly/3mvzWMXExtending Foster Care Past Age 18
https://bit.ly/3mzDOfWUPCOMING EVENTSUnjust Roadblocks: How the Juvenile System Makes It Hard to Succeed
April 13 / 1pm P/ 4pm E
https://bit.ly/3u0V9kJTransformation Points: Redesigning Child Welfare to Help Youth and Families Thrive
April 29 / 11am P / 2pm E
https://imprintnews.org/webinars
10,000 Adoptions Later: Wendy’s Wonderful Kids
On this week’s podcast we discuss the growing interest in race-blind foster care removal decisions, hidden foster care, the return of federal earmarks, and an interesting Michigan Supreme Court case on educational neglect.
Guest Interview Details
Rita Soronen, CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, joins to discuss the first 10,000 adoptions accomplished under the organization’s Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program, and what’s next for expansion of the program.
On this week’s podcast we discuss the state of legislation on Raise the Age reforms in Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin; a new campaign to repeal the Adoption and Safe Families Act; and news on the Family First Act.
Guest Interview Details
Kevin Skidmore, owner of Four Fourty Trucking in Georgia, joins to discuss his journey from a youth transferred into adult jail to a businessman helping young adults come back home from incarceration.
Big Questions for Child Welfare: How Do We Get Upstream?
The Imprint Weekly Podcast is releasing bonus episodes featuring our publisher, Daniel Heimpel, and Molly Tierney, the child welfare lead at Accenture and former child welfare director for Baltimore.
On this episode, the two friends discuss the growing call for child welfare to paddle “upstream,” investing more money in keeping families together and less on splitting them apart. What will it take to improve our prevention of abuse and neglect in America? And should that work be done by child welfare agencies, other parts of government, or something entirely different?
Guest Interview Details
Daniel Heimpel is the founder of Fostering Media Connections and the publisher of The Imprint. Molly Tierney is the child welfare lead for Accenture, and the former child welfare director for the City of Baltimore.
“That There Isn’t a System At All”… Dorothy Roberts on Abolition in Child Welfare
On this week’s podcast, we discuss Washington’s limitations on life without parole, “raising the floor” on juvenile arrests, rules of the road for foster youth COVID relief and prioritizing foster parents for vaccines.
Guest Interview Details
Dorothy Roberts, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Program on Race, Science & Society, wrote Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare two decades ago. At the time, she proposed abolishing the field as we know it, to be replaced by an entirely new system.
Today, she now longer believes that a system can work at all in a way that ensures justice for poor or Black families in America. She joins us to talk about the abolition movement in child welfare and the “non-reformist reforms” that she thinks can move the country in that direction.
Reading Room
Washington Supreme Court Raises Age of Sentencing Limits for Teenagers
https://bit.ly/2NmSAJRBoy Picks Tulip, Gets Arrested: A Tale As Old As Time
https://bit.ly/30XvYmrFederal Guidance on Foster Youth Pandemic Relief: A Breakdown
https://bit.ly/3lj19lLCalifornia Foster Parents Win Vaccine Eligibility, As Fight Continues in New York
https://bit.ly/3tsMiaVAbolishing Policing Also Means Abolishing Family Regulation
http://bit.ly/37Y8aDQRising Voices For ‘Family Power’ Seek to Abolish The Child Welfare System
http://bit.ly/3okyyNU
“A Tsunami Is Headed Your Way.” The Pandemic, One Year Later
On this week’s podcast, we break down the major child and family provisions in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package signed by President Biden last week, including a major guaranteed income program for parents.
Guest Interview Details
Dave Newell, CEO of the Children’s Home Society of Washington, joins us to discuss a year of pandemic for an organization with services ranging from Head Start and home visiting to foster care.
Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing bonus episodes on Thursdays that will be conversations between The Imprint’s publisher Daniel Heimpel and Molly Tierney, the child welfare lead at Accenture and former director of Baltimore’s child welfare system.
On today’s episode, Tierney and Heimpel talk about the Biden administration, which succeeds an erratic period for child welfare in America under former President Donald Trump. The Trump administration is responsible for intentionally separating families at the nation’s Southern border, and for proposals that would gut the social safety net. It also unleashed federal resources for legal support to system-involved parents and children, and expanded federal child welfare spending to include much more money for efforts to keep families together.
Tierney and Heimpel talk about what a good comprehensive agenda for child welfare under Biden could mean.
Guest Interview Details
Daniel Heimpel is the founder of Fostering Media Connections and the publisher of The Imprint. Molly Tierney is the child welfare lead for Accenture, and the former child welfare director for the City of Baltimore.
Leo Ages Out: What One Case Shows about Holes in The System
On this week’s podcast we discuss testing universal basic income for youth aging out of the foster care system, a Minnesota law aimed at addressing race disproportionality, and the new head of the U.S. Children’s Bureau.
Guest Interview Details
Lori Ross, the founder of FosterAdopt Connect, joins us to talk about the case of a high-needs youth who was almost pushed out of Missouri foster care onto the streets with no help, and the many policy implications that young man’s story carries
On this week’s episode we discuss some of the Biden administration’s early hires for key positions at the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees family support and child welfare in the federal government.
Guest Interview Details
Michelle Caldeira, the senior vice president of College Bound Dorchester, joins us to discuss a plan to invest in a new trajectory for gang leaders in Boston as an antipoverty strategy.
Reading Room
“How Foster Families Are Coping”: A webinar to discuss findings from a survey of foster and resource families about the pandemic.
http://bit.ly/ParentPollFindingsJooYeun Chang Joins Biden Child Welfare Team
https://bit.ly/3pWNCARBiden Starts to Fill in Leadership at Administration for Children and Families
http://bit.ly/3bGv42wAs Hotline Calls Plummeted, Michigan Did Some Dialing of Its Own
http://bit.ly/3fT15ET$400 Million In Coronavirus Relief for Foster Youth Heads to States
http://bit.ly/3c36KIHConfusion Among State Agencies Delays Vaccines for New York Foster Youth In Congregate Care
https://bit.ly/2MusUuz
Big Questions for Child Welfare: Racial Bias and Caseworker Training
Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing bonus episodes on Thursdays that will be conversations between The Imprint’s publisher Daniel Heimpel and Molly Tierney, the child welfare lead at Accenture and former director of Baltimore’s child welfare system.
On today’s episode they discuss racial biases and the child welfare workforce with Karen Baynes-Dunning, acting president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and former juvenile court judge. The three explore interesting lessons on this issue learned from testing of a virtual caseworker training platform.
Guest Interview Details
Daniel Heimpel is the founder of Fostering Media Connections and the publisher of The Imprint. Molly Tierney is the child welfare lead for Accenture, and the former child welfare director for the City of Baltimore. Karen Bayens-Dunning is a former juvenile court judge and the acting president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Building the Case for Rewiring Child Welfare
On this week’s episode we discuss new access to birth certificates for adoptees in New York with reporter Michael Fitzgerald, more job training efforts for system-involved teens and young adults in California and Nevada, and a national campaign to end the use of solitary confinement for youth.
Guest Interview Details
Ned Breslin, CEO of Tennyson Center for Children, joins us to talk about Colorado’s Rewiring initiative aimed at proving that more money to help families avoid crises will reap huge savings in the long run.
Reading Room
Adoption Secrecy Has Ended for Thousands Since New York Unsealed Birth Recordsbit.ly/2ZA5iYpHouston Region Funds Community-Based Alternatives to Youth Incarcerationbit.ly/3bqHdslChild Welfare Workers Scramble to Protect Foster Youth through Deadly Texas Winter Stormbit.ly/3aImDVsStates Jump on New Chance to Target Most-Vulnerable Youth for Job Trainingbit.ly/3qIPluS$1 Million to Fund New Phase of Fight Against Solitary Confinement for Youthbit.ly/3dzteDjWhat Child Welfare Can Learn from ‘Rewiring’bit.ly/3ujCQrR
YAP-ing About Alternatives to Incarceration
On this week’s episode we discuss the continuing spiral of Sequel, a for-profit provider of residential youth programs, Biden’s halt to Trump religious rules, a new slate of child allowance plans and more.
Guest Interview Details
Gary Ivory, the new president of Youth Advocate Programs (often just called YAP) joins us to talk about what we know about serving young offenders without resorting to incarceration, his famous Tour of the South with young gang members, and what the Biden administration should focus on in regard to youth justice.
The Vaccine and Child Welfare; A New Prize for Thinking Outside the Box
About 40,000 foster youth live in group homes and institutions. On this week’s podcast we talk to reporter Megan Conn about what’s going on with vaccination for the frontline staff at these places, some research of note on homelessness and employment, and a former foster youth who just became an NAACP Image Award nominee.
BONUS: This episode features music from the Unsung program, which helps youth in juvenile settings learn to perform, record and produce songs.
Guest Interview Details
Chani Katzen Laufer and Jill Nagle of the Aviv Foundation join us to talk about a new $200,000 award the grant maker will give to four new ideas for family support and child welfare.
On this week’s podcast, we highlight a law to dismantle and rebuild child protection in Iowa, closure of juvenile prisons in New York and a former foster youth gets a key spot in the Biden administration.
BONUS: This episode features music from the Unsung program, which helps youth in juvenile settings learn to perform, record and produce songs.
Guest Interview Details
Christopher Scott and Lino Peña-Martinez of Connecticut’s Sun Scholars program join us to talk about their model of a central program that supports current and former foster youth on college campuses around the state.
On this week’s podcast, we share some thoughts on the earlygoing on child welfare and juvenile justice for the Biden Administration: initial actions, key hires, and the Family First Act.
BONUS: This episode features music from the Unsung program, which helps youth in juvenile settings learn to perform, record and produce songs.
Guest Interview Details
David Finkelhor of the Crimes Against Children Research Center and Family Research Laboratory joins to discuss the most recent federal data on child abuse and neglect, and what it showed as America headed into the coronavirus pandemic.
On this week’s podcast we discuss the departure of Jerry Milner from the Trump administration (will he be back under Biden?), more lawsuits, and what the newest data on child abuse and neglect shows.
Guest Interview Details
Double feature! Celeste Bodner of FosterClub joins to discuss the $400 million in coronavirus aid headed to states to help current and former foster youth; and New Jersey child welfare commissioner Christine Norbut Beyer talks to us about her recent stimulus check program for older youth in care. BONUS: This episode features music from the Unsung program, which helps youth in juvenile settings learn to perform, record and produce songs.
