Ask anyone in child welfare about foster youth aging out of the foster care system and you’re sure to hear about everything from high rates of incarceration, early parenting, homelessness, unemployment and mental health issues. You will also be told about the very high rates of homelessness among former foster youth ages 18-25.

At a recent Barrett-Jackson collector car auction in Las Vegas, a “resto-mod” was auctioned off for the benefit of Kristi House in Miami, Florida. We immediately put out an inquiry to our readers for more information about Kristi House and were deluged with responses.

They informed us that Kristi House is the state-designated Children’s Advocacy Center responsible for coordinating all child sexual abuse cases in Miami-Dade County working with its partner agencies. Kristi House was named in honor of a nine-year-old girl who was impregnated by her stepfather and had no idea how to seek help or even tell her story. Her pregnancy, however, brought her attention, and she got the help she needed while, at the same time, inspiring social workers to establish a Child Advocacy Center in her name.

How we care for the most vulnerable among us is one of the great challenges of our time. As Mahatma Ghandi once said, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” And social workers are hard-pressed to find one group in more dire need of urgent attention than children at risk of neglect or abuse.

Children deprived of a safe, nurturing family environment are entitled to special protection, assistance and alternative care. And today’s caseworkers can most effectively address this with the right social services software.

While doing some spring cleaning on the FAMCare Blog, I stumbled across this brief but excellent blog article from one of our team members posted in 2018.    

This TED Talk features, Dr. Anna Scheyett, PhD, and makes a very compelling case for social workers. Dr. Scheyett's research, which she conducts as a professor at The University of Georgia, has focused on the needs of vulnerable populations. In this Ted Talk, she gives a succinct 7-minute summary of why social workers are superhumans. It's reassuring to know that some people recognized social workers as superheroes even before the pandemic that rocked social services to its core.

So Happy Social Worker Month.  Please enjoy this reposted TED Talk! 

Educators, who are some of the likeliest professionals to report child abuse, are encountering youth who have faced abuse in isolation throughout the pandemic. During 2020, the proportion of mental health-related emergency department (ED) visits among adolescents aged 12-17 years increased 31% compared to 2019. Suspected suicide attempt ED visits were 50.6% higher among girls aged 12-17 (CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 6/18/21). These stats indicate an increase in child abuse as children were confined to the home during the pandemic.

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.”

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. 

5 Simple Ways to Manage Your Caseload Effectively 

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?

As a former caseworker for DFCS, I've been there.  I also know the transformation I had to go through to take control of my workday and case load.

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.