May is National Foster Care Month, a time for Nebraskans to bring awareness to the needs of our children in foster care, and to acknowledge the incredible dedication of the foster families in our state. On a typical day in 2014, there were 3,100 Nebraska kids living in an out-of-home…...
We Never Outgrow the Need for Family
This Saturday is National Adoption Day! All through November, advocates, families, and communities from across the country have celebrated the importance of adoptive families with the goal of raising awareness of barriers to adoption for children in foster care. This year’s theme is “We Never Outgrow the Need for Family,”…...
SPARC: What’s next for child welfare in Nebraska?
Last week, just a few days after attending the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT conference in Baltimore with hundreds of child advocates from across the country, I found myself in a much smaller room in Washington D.C. for the convening of the State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center (SPARC)…...
HR 4980: Pathways to permanency
It’s rare to find an issue that draws unanimous bipartisan support among members of the U.S. Congress in the news today. Fortunately, when it comes to some children’s issues, politicians from both sides of the aisle often come to an agreement on the importance of investing in tomorrow’s generations. Last…...
Child maltreatment doesn’t start at removal, so we shouldn’t stop at reunification
The goal of the child welfare system is to keep kids safe in permanent, loving homes. After reading Martha Stoddard’s article in the Omaha World-Herald last weekend and reviewing the Foster Care Review Office’s quarterly report (mentioned in the article), the current state of Nebraska’s child welfare system looked pretty…...
