For information on physical health issues of children and youth in foster care, please visit our Hot Topics page at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/
info_serviceschild-and-adolescent-health-care.html

For information on mental health issues of children in the child welfare systems, please visit our Hot Topics page at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/
info_services/mental-health.html

For information on issues affecting children and youth with disabilities in the child welfare system, please visit our Hot Topics page at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/
info_services/children-with-disabilities.html

Guides

• Checklist of Needed Services for Children in Foster Care
  This checklist from the Child Welfare League of America identifies necessary services for children in foster care.

• Ensuring the Healthy Development of Infants in Foster Care: A Guide for Judges, Advocates and Child Welfare Professionals
  This resource from Zero to Three is a working tool for those involved in the court process to understand the questions to ask and the resources that can address the special needs of infants in foster care and their families. It was jointly published with the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children.

• A Practical Guide for Improving Child Developmental Services
  By improving their office systems, pediatric practices can offer better developmental care to the children and families they serve. This manual has been developed by the Healthy Development Learning Collaborative, a 12-month quality improvement initiative, to give offices step-by-step guidance on how to revise their office systems. The Guide offers a number of newly tested and established resources--including checklists, surveys, bibliographies, and helpful links.

• Pediatric Developmental Screening: Understanding and Selecting Screening Instruments
  This tool from the Commonwealth Fund helps providers choose and apply the structured screening method that is most appropriate for their practice setting. The manual is based on an extensive review of scientific research on available developmental screening instruments.

Resources

• Infants and Toddlers in the Child Welfare System Need Developmental Checkups (It's Also the Law)
  This paper from National CASA discusses the importance of early screening for disabilities in children in the child welfare system, reviews federal regulations requiring such screening, and describes the federal early intervention program for children ages birth through 36 months. High-quality screening tools are identified, and requirements on the screening of children prenatally exposed to legal drugs are reviewed. Additional resources on disabilities and screening requirements are listed.

• Mental Health Assessments for Infants and Toddlers
  This paper from Child Law Practice defines mental health in infants and young children as the capacity of the child from birth to three to experience, regulate and express emotions; form close and secure interpersonal relationships; and explore the environment and learn. It discusses the goals of infant mental health assessments, kinds of cases in which such assessments are useful, and who should conduct the assessments. Qualifications of evaluators are described and include infant mental health training, experience with infants/toddlers, and skill in evaluating and diagnosing young children. Components of infant mental health assessments are then explained, as well as the tools that are typically used during the assessment, the types of information that assessments can offer the court and advocates, and pitfalls and challenges in conducting infant mental health assessments. A list of warning signs that may indicate mental health problems in infants is provided.

Websites

• Meeting the Health Care Needs of Children in the Foster Care System
  In October of 2002, the Georgetown University Child Development Center completed a three-year study to identify and describe promising approaches for meeting the health care needs of children in the foster care system. In this study, the term health care encompassed physical, mental, emotional, developmental and dental health. The study was funded by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and supported in part by the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families. In response to a national search for promising approaches, the study collected information on over 100 different approaches. Multiple products that represent the findings of the study are identified and described on this website.
  

Last updated 05/04/2008