The FAMCare Blog

An estimated 4.2 million teenagers and young adults are homeless each year. Children who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless have higher rates of mental health problems such as behavioral issues, anxiety, and depression than children who live in unstable households.
The importance of mental health in programs for homeless young people cannot be overstated. Furthermore, most people's willingness to seek therapy is limited by a lack of access to mental health care. For organizations and services that work with at-risk youth, emphasizing mental health is critical to long-term sustainability.

Case workers involved in health and human services are in a unique position to be aware of families in the communities struggling to make ends meet. 

Struggling with staying on top of all of your cases?  Worried that someone may fall through the cracks?  Not sure how you can possibly help all of your clients achieve their best outcome?

There are about 424,000 kids in foster care in the US, according to surveys . More than 5% of these kids have been in foster care for 5 years or longer, proving what social workers have been saying all along: better management of foster care needs to be a priority!  Numerous governmental and nonprofit organizations work to enhance foster care and find these kids and teenagers better homes.

Foster care service providers can benefit greatly from case management software for social workers. Let's look at how foster care software can benefit your organization and, in turn, enable social workers to provide better services to those you serve.

For those working in child services, an understanding of family situations is vital in being able to help improve child welfare. Fortunately for those agencies, utilizing the right social services software can help streamline processes and effectively “humanize” the various situations.

The goal is to always be improving child welfare through various services, responses and interventions, and with the right social services software on your side, the tasks can become easier to track and perhaps even more simple.

As stated in Article 40 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child:

"Every child in conflict with the law has the right to be treated in a manner that takes into account “the desirability of promoting [his/her] reintegration and [his/her] assuming a constructive role in society.”

Every child deserves a happy childhood, but unfortunately, many do not receive one.

A child's childhood can be filled with a variety of 'bad' experiences. While child abuse at the hands of guardians remains one of the major contributors, children can struggle with other adverse experiences as well. Whatever the negative childhood experience was, it can have a long-term negative impact on the child's health as an adult. This is due to the fact that early childhood and adolescence are highly formative years in a person's cognitive and personal development.

Here's how bad childhood experiences can affect your health for the rest of your life.

In the United States, there are around 328,120 child welfare employees. However, given the rising number of cases of child abuse and neglect, as well as the demanding nature of the job, it's reasonable to state that there is a severe shortage of child and family social workers in the United States.

Bridging the gap between available employees and children in need of help can take years and need significant adjustments to the current system. But, in the meanwhile, here's how child welfare agencies might better manage greater caseloads.

The focus of social work has shifted from providing immediate support as a safety net to the vulnerable to striving for a better long-term outcome for each client. In child and family services, the mission no longer ends at removing an endangered child from a dysfunctional household but now extends to how a Child Welfare Agency might help the child grow into a productive member of society. In other words, what will be the ultimate outcome for the child?