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Among the Dagbamba of northern Ghana, the customary practice of child fostering is not the sole responsibility of biological parents, but rather a collective responsibility of the extended family and the larger society. This makes child fostering an age‐old, informal socio‐cultural practice and an integral aspect of social life. Even though the intentions behind child fostering are often good, fostering may also be associated with some dangers such as child labour. In recent years, the debate as to whether child fostering amounts to child labour has been extended to northern Ghana's alleged witches' camps; places where elderly women accused of witchcraft are sheltered. Drawing on one‐to‐one interviews with selected children, alleged witches and community elders, and supplemented by personal experiences growing up in Dagbambaland, this article examines child fostering in relation to child labour in these settlements. Using qualitative ethnographic data, our findings show that what is described as child labour in these settlements is a necessary evil for the category of children who live in these settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A child placed in foster care finds themselves in an especially vulnerable position. Removed from their homes, apart from family, and living with strangers, a foster child's voice often gets lost in the shuffle. While the Supreme Court has recognized some constitutional rights for children, legislators and judges tread lightly when expanding children's rights for fear of infringing upon parents' fundamental rights to determine the care and upbringing of their children. This situation creates a unique disadvantage for a child in foster care who is subject to the trauma of removal, placement in a temporary home of strangers, outside the bounds of parental protection, and often without a voice or an advocate. This Comment focuses on the plight of foster children in America's legal system and how children's lack of decision-making authority leaves their rights under-protected. Through analysis of prominent Supreme Court cases discussing parents', children's, and foster parents' rights, and an examination of state and federal foster care legislation, this Comment argues that the foster child often falls through the gaps among parents, foster parents, and state officials, none of whom exercise full authority over the child. Moreover, the Court's justification for its failure to grant children the full spectrum of rights rests largely on the premise that the child is cared for by a fit, loving parent who acts in the child's best interests. However, for the child in foster care, this premise is flawed from the start. The foster child is not in the custody of their legal parent. This Comment argues that courts must adopt and expand the mature minor doctrine to provide a framework for entertaining and assessing the foster child's ability to make rational, informed decisions about their own life. Moreover, states must amend their statutory child welfare schemes to guarantee children in foster care the right to an attorney, and, specifically, an attorney who advocates for the child's expressed wishes throughout the child's time in foster care. Through these measures, states can return some of the continuity that children in foster care have lost by allowing the children themselves to have a voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about the decision of High Court Family Division on Unlawful placement, inherent jurisdiction and residential family placements. Topics include authorization for placements in the unregistered residential unit with interim care orders; and local authority sought to regularize the situation by applying under the inherent jurisdiction of the court for orders authorizing the placements.

The present study is the largest and most rigorous study to date on the effects of being appointed a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) on permanency outcomes of children in foster care. The intent-to-treat study accounts for selection bias by applying inverse probability weighting to logistic and sequential logistic regressions in a large sample of children in foster care in the state of Texas (N = 31,754). Overall, children appointed a CASA have significantly lower odds than children without a CASA of achieving permanency. They have lower odds of being reunified, greater odds of being adopted (if not reunified), and lower odds of being placed in permanent kin guardianship (if not reunified or adopted) than children who are not appointed CASA. This study makes an additional contribution by looking beyond the aggregate effect of CASA on permanency by examining the effect of CASA for different age groups and different types of first placement after removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports about restriction of liberty where young person lacks capacity to consent to the arrangements. Topics include European Convention of Human Rights as the right not to be deprived of liberty and applies to children as much as it does adults; and behavioural difficulties placed in foster care or residential units with high levels of supervision and restrictions placed on their movements.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including Long-term fostering versus freeing for adoption.

The article reports about the CoramBAAF Health Group conference held in Birmingham, England on July 1, 2019. Topics include exploring how combined efforts and interactions are key in a whole-system approach and reflected on the multiple factors that affect outcomes for looked after and adopted children; and Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set (CCG OIS) aiming to provide clear, comparative information for CCGs about the quality of health services and associated outcomes.

Abstract With the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997 (ASFA), legal permanency emerged as a priority of those committed to the wellbeing of children who have been removed from parental custody. To date, no studies have specifically focused on the roles played by out-of-home (OOH) caregivers in the permanency process. OOH caregivers may influence the journey to permanency in a number of significant ways: by adopting the children for whom they are providing care, by enabling the timely completion of child-level judicial mandates and by providing high-quality care that can influence child behavior. This longitudinal study is the first to evaluate the ways in which OOH caregivers influence permanency outcomes for children in the foster care system while controlling for child-level and parent-level characteristics. Analyses were conducted on two waves of quantitative data from the National Study of Child and Adolescent Well-being II (NSCAW II) dataset. We find that the availability of respite services for OOH caregivers and communication between foster care caseworkers and OOH caregivers predicted permanency for the children in our sample. Child welfare administrators could contribute to these exploratory findings by evaluating the extent to which their own respite programs and caseworker responsiveness may impact time to permanency and type of permanency in the various contexts in which they operate. Highlights • OOH caregivers may influence child welfare permanency outcomes. • Analyses were conducted on two waves of data from the NSCAW II dataset. • Receipt of respite services and communication with caseworkers influenced permanency. • Agency support and resources impact the experiences of OOH caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a unique statewide collaboration between Rutgers Law School and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families to provide immigration legal services to children in foster care. As the Project enters its third year, the authors examine the reasons why the collaboration was launched. They then describe the structure and staffing of the Project, including the development of case referral and management systems. The data collected over two years and included in the article provides a snapshot of services offered to children who are immigrants and in the foster care system. Finally, the authors reflect on the lessons learned and share insights with others interested in launching similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child welfare agencies are increasingly required to leverage their limited resources to meet nearly limitless demands. As a result, agencies are searching for new opportunities to efficiently improve policy and practice, and advances in data availability and technology have brought increased attention to the utility of predictive modeling. While the literature has often highlighted the considerable potential of predictive models leveraging “big data”, discussions of the methodology and the associated best practices remain critically absent. To address this gap, this paper provides an illustrative case involving the development and testing of models used to predict the probability of whether U.S. foster children would achieve legal permanency. The models were trained and tested using a national administrative dataset of 233,633 foster care children that discharged from state child welfare systems in 2013. The optimal model, a boosted tree, predicted whether children would achieve permanency with 97.66% accuracy. The paper concludes with a discussion of best practices detailing how agencies can utilize predictive modeling to enhance policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older youth in the foster care system are often caught in the transition from childhood to adulthood. They are pushed to be independent in a system that historically and jurisdictionally has existed because of their dependency. Unlike their peers who may test responsibility, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes in supportive environments, oftentimes, the rules and court orders of foster care rigidly confine the day-to-day existence of transition-age youth. Current research around adolescent development and decisionmaking capacity indicates that transition-age youth are neither children nor adults. With the passage of the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (the SFA) in 2014, Congress opened the door for states to adopt laws, policies, and practices more in line with the developmental stage of this age group. The law specifically requires states to provide foster youth with a list of their rights with respect to education, health, visitation, and court participation. This Article critiques the SFA's rights provision in the context of the juvenile court's historical underpinnings, the rights of parents and the state, current developmental research, and common practice around older youth transitions to adulthood. In doing so, this Article highlights the legal paradox facing transition-age youth and questions the validity of "rights" without enforcement. This Article emphasizes the need for culture change within the child welfare community to appropriately integrate current research into policy and practice in the pursuit of achieving better life outcomes for older youth transitioning from care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses court cases on child adoption and fostering including London Borough of Hackney v Williams & Others, Re TJ, and CZ. It reports that Williams' older son shoplifted chocolate, TJ was relinquished by his mother at birth, and negligence of child care by CZ's parents. Details related to court's decision and the actions taken concerning the child care also discussed.

The article discusses the author's contention that the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC) agreement infringes upon America's best interest of the child legal standard, and it mentions a call for modifications to the ICPC statute and regulations to protect children. According to the article, the ICPC has been adopted in every American state and monitors the out-of-state placements of children in the foster care system. The legal rights of familial relatives are examined.

The article discusses the provisions of the U.S. Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act aimed to promote normalcy for foster children.

This paper explores the sexual politics of Chinese nationalism in Taiwan by studying a rescue campaign for a particular group of women, so-called foster daughters. It concerns the politicisation of female fosterlings’ problems, particularly their involvement in prostitution, in relation to the reproduction of postcolonial nationhood during the 1950s. Tracing the nationalist rescue discourses and tactics around foster daughters via pro-official and journalistic materials, this study investigates how foster daughters’ physical and sexual suffering was constructed and governed as a social and national problem, articulating the cultural specificity of rescue in a particular geo-political terrain. It argues that the rescue campaign for foster daughters embodied the (de-)colonisation struggle rather than a moral enterprise at individual and social levels, and that it established the political, cultural and gender foundations for Chinese nation-building in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author argues foster care caseworkers in America could be held liable for allegedly failing to carry out their duty to protect foster children if the courts in the U.S. adopted a "professional judgment" standard. A deliberate indifference standard is addressed in relation to cases involving the alleged maltreatment of foster children. The U.S. Supreme Court, child protection laws, and a child's due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are examined.

The article discusses legal permanency in relation to the Minnesota Juvenile Code and the best practices for providing assistance to foster care youth in the state. Transfers of legal custody of children are addressed, along with adoption laws and the termination of parental rights. Consent to adopt is mentioned, along with family reunification efforts and the counseling of older clients about the permanency of foster care services. Child welfare litigation under Minnesota law is examined.

In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) to stem what it perceived as an overreliance by states on foster care to provide a safe place for children whose parents had been accused of abuse or neglect. Prior to ASFA, many children were placed in foster care for extended periods of time while their parents were evaluated for fitness and rehabilitative efforts were made to reunify families. Congress considered the time children spent in foster care as damaging to them because it left them uncertain about where they would live in the future. Congress, in an attempt to reduce the amount of time children spend in foster care, included provisions in ASFA that require states to expedite termination of parental rights to such a speed that states have been engaging in, for many years, systematic deprivation of parents' procedural and substantive due process rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on how courts can facilitate the reunification of children and parents in the U.S. Topics include the religious conflicts that may arise between foster parents and foster children, the loss of parental rights and its impact on a foster child's religion, and the best interest of the child standard.

Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997 in an attempt to provide safety, stability, and permanency for maltreated children. To help provide a historical context, child welfare legislation preceding ASFA is reviewed. In this historical analysis, the precipitating events that led to the creation of ASFA are assessed. In addition, a detailed review of congressional hearings related to this Act is given. The key components and goals of this policy are outlined. Finally, revisions made to ASFA are discussed, and its influence on proceeding legislation is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's ruling in the 2012 case M.D. ex rel. Stukenberg v. Perry which deals with American civil procedure rules, class action litigation, and class certification rules. U.S. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) is addressed in relation to the prerequisites for a class action lawsuit. Other topics include the U.S. Supreme Court case Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, foster children, and the commonality class action requirement.

Recent modifications to the Foster Care Independence Act have enabled states to provide Education and Training Vouchers (ETVs) to foster care alumni who are enrolled in postsecondary education institutions. This article is a summary in which we examine the disparities in states' allocations for ETVs, as well as the variation in states' implementation of broad-based, state-funded tuition waivers. The outcomes are descriptive in nature and display the wide range in ETV funding across the United States; outcomes also indicate that just about half of the states in the United States offer state-funded tuition waivers to foster care alumni. The findings are further discussed in the context of recommendations that would help support further research on programs and services for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) protects foster children's rights to have a special education decision maker. For foster children who do not have a natural or adoptive parent or a responsible adult in their life to take on this role, IDEIA requires that a special education surrogate parent be appointed by appropriate procedures. Under IDEIA, these procedures are delegated to the states. Each state must ensure that local education agencies (LEAs) delineate methods for recruiting and maintaining a pool of available special education surrogate parents. Due to differing state laws and LEA procedures, there are many discrepancies in the quality and availability of special education surrogate parents. To combat these problems, this Note proposes principles for administrative regulations establishing statewide special education surrogate parent programs by examining existing statewide programs. Administered through a state's Department of Education in collaboration with child welfare agencies, statewide special education surrogate parent programs guarantee well-qualified decision makers who will advocate for all children eligible for special education services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes an evaluation of the Safe Babies Court Teams Project. The study compared children in the Court Teams Project at the four initial sites (n = 298) with a nationally representative sample of young child welfare participants (n = 511) from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW). The Court Teams Project has a significant effect on how quickly children exit foster care: Children participating in Court Teams leave foster care nearly 3 times as fast as the comparison sample. Findings also suggest that children in the Court Teams Project experience a different pattern of exits from foster care: Reunification is most common for Court Teams children (38%), whereas adoption is most prevalent for the comparison group (41%). Children in Court Teams appear to leave foster care faster regardless of the type of exit. Findings from interviews suggest that parental compliance with the service agreement heavily affects the case outcome. Both judicial approach and the monthly case reviews appear to contribute most to reducing time to permanency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses an ignored problem-the plight of infants and toddlers in foster care who find themselves hospitalized. A majority of the children in foster care will be hospitalized for medical treatment while in foster care because they are more likely to have serious medical problems or developmental disabilities than their age peers. Building on the large body of research concerning the difficulties faced by all young children in the hospital, this article uses real cases from a children's hospital to illustrate the challenges that young children, their families, and their care providers confront while children are in the hospital, [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The family farm played an important role in the development of a welfare system for dependent children in the United States. This became increasingly true in the second half of the nineteenth century as the population of institutionalized children grew alongside the desire to place those children into the homes of families. Farm families, which held a special place in the ideology of a self-sufficient United States, partnered with institutions and childplacing agencies to house tens of thousands of dependent children. Those involved in child welfare believed that they could reverse the trend of dependency by placing children with Americans of high esteem. Farmers, for their part, could expect labor from their placement children in exchange for care. The availability of dependent children filled an important farm labor need while attempting to satisfy the goals of reformers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Virginia's implementation of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act. Topics include child welfare policies within Virginia, collaboration between educational and social services departments, and the number of children in foster care in Virginia annually.

The article focuses on cases in which foster care children become respondents in child welfare proceedings. Topics include the implementation of mother-child programs for teen mothers in foster care, the best interests of the child standard, and filing neglect or abuse petitions against a parenting youth in foster care.

The article focuses on the case of C.M.-C. and P.M.-C. vs. Winnipeg Child and Family Services and Dakota Ojibway Child and Family Services. The case sprung when the respondents opposed the guardianship filed by the applicants for their three foster children, because the children would lose contact with siblings, extended family and their heritage. However, as the case was filed before the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench, it granted the guardianship filed by the applicant.

The article discusses the Nebraska Supreme Court's reported determination in the 2013 case In re Anonymous 5 that a minor in foster care who is seeking an abortion mist obtain consent from her foster parents despite her apparent legal status as a ward of the State of Nebraska. Nebraska's Abortion Consent Law and various legal exceptions are mentioned. The legal rights of alleged victims of abuse are examined, along with Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services.

• This study examined the perceptions of attorneys about the legal representation of foster youth. • Participants typically agreed that legal representation can impact foster care experiences. • Group differences were detected by gender and jurisdiction representation model. Despite recent federal policy changes related to improving the quality of legal representation afforded youth in foster care, few empirical studies have examined the topic. This exploratory national study examined the perceptions of attorneys who represent foster youth (N = 934) about the legal representation of foster youth involved in dependency court proceedings. Variables of interest included impact of legal representation on foster care, perceived quality of legal representation afforded foster youth, and perceived quality of the relationship between attorneys and the youth they represent, among others. Data were analyzed for descriptive statistics and comparisons in perceptions, by demographics (e.g., race, age, etc.) and professional characteristics (e.g., years of experience, jurisdiction representation model, etc.). Overall, data suggest that participants typically agreed that legal representation can be impactful to the overall foster care experience. However, current quality of that representation was rated lowest among all variables. Notably, group differences were detected by gender and jurisdiction representation model. Findings indicate the need for focus on more robust training models, targeted policies, and further research on the legal representation of youth in foster care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Legal Needs of Children Committee of the Florida Bar Association. Topics include the responsibilities of the Legal Needs of Children Committee, the Regis Little/Guardianship Subcommittee's work on foster children with disabilities, and the efforts of the Juvenile Life Without Parole Subcommittee.