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New Initiative Seeks to Ensure Foster Youth Receive the Educational Advocacy and Opportunities They Need to Succeed
Foster children are taken from their families because they have experienced abuse or neglect. Bounced from home to home and school to school, their educational outcomes are tragically poor. NCYL's new foster youth education initiative seeks to ensure foster youth receive the educational advocacy and opportunities they need to succeed in school and in life. cont'd...
Feb. 2009 - The National Center for Youth Law and Clark County, NV (Las Vegas) child welfare officials have begun mediation to try and settle NCYL’s lawsuit to force improvements in the County’s child welfare system. cont'd...
November 24, 2008 - NCYL won a major case in California, securing fair and equal treatment of foster youth who play high school sports. This victory could potentially affect thousands of foster youth in the state.
NCYL, the Center for Study of Social Policy in Washington, DC, and Vanderbilt Law School are seeking funding to hold a national "Lessons Learned" Symposium with the goal of distilling the knowledge gained from 30 years of class action litigation to improve child welfare systems. cont'd...
June 30, 2008 - A Superior Court Judge in Washington State has ruled that the state’s Department of Social and Health Services must keep the promises it made four years ago to dramatically improve the care and protection of the state’s 10,000 foster children.
June 29, 2007 - The federal District Court in Utah yesterday approved an agreement between the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) and Utah officials to end a longstanding suit to reform Utah’s child welfare system.
More than 13,000 children in California receive Kin-GAP benefits, a program that provides cash benefits and Medi-Cal to former foster children who are in a guardianship with a relative. Kin-GAP allows children whose parents cannot care for them to live in a stable, loving home. However, a recent administrative court decision confirms that the California Department of Social Services ("CDSS") has a policy that could unfairly terminate Kin-GAP benefits for hundreds of former foster children.
The third annual survey of foster parents and other caregivers in Washington State shows significant gains in the number of children receiving monthly caseworker visits, and other improvements. The survey is part of the implementation of the Braam foster care reform settlement, reached in 2004 after NCYL and other advocates sued the state over deficiencies in the foster care system.
The National Center for Youth Law’s victory in Dyer v. CIF has prompted significant policy and legislative developments that further advance the rights of California foster youth. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has revised its bylaws so that foster youth can readily participate in school sports when they transfer to a new school.
Local foster care committees in most of California’s 58 counties have begun preliminary work to implement reforms put forth by the state’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care.
Results from the 2008 administration of the National Assessment of Education Progress suggest that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is failing to close the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students. The results call into question whether NCLB, officially described as “An Act to Close the Achievement Gap,” is having its intended effect.
Oct. 11, 2007 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed Senate Bill 39, a groundbreaking bill that mandates public disclosure of findings and information about children who have died of abuse or neglect. Download: Press Release
California Center for Research on Women & Families (CCRWF) has produced this new publication which is available on the CCRWF website. Printed copies are also available through the resource center for family focused practice (contact information available on the CCRWF website).
NCYL, in collaboration with Children's Rights Inc. and with support from Cornerstones for Kids conducted a review of efforts to strengthen the child welfare workforce through litigation in 12 jurisdictions across the country.
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The Foster Care Reform Litigation Docket provides basic information on 71 child welfare reform cases nationwide that are currently in active litigation, a pending settlement agreement, or are significant in some other respect.
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A Guidebook for California Foster Youth, Former Foster Youth, and Those Who Care About Them.
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