Resources

• Guardian Angels: Helping Children in Foster Care - A Handbook for Building Community Programs
  Written by Barbara Fenster with the assistance of Nalani Linder and published by the Children's Home Society of Washington, this handbook is a response to the numerous inquiries about creating local "enrichment" programs for children in foster care in communities across Washington State. Provides examples, outlines, tips and suggestions from people who have created their own enrichment programs.

• What Makes a Solution? Lessons and Findings from Solutions for America
  This report highlights research findings from nineteen Solutions for America sites and identifies common features of effective community-based programs. It also describes the participatory evaluation model that partnered faculty and program staff in the research process.

• Re-engaging Disconnected Youth Action Kit
  This Action Kit from the National League of Cities contains a wealth of new policy and program ideas for municipal leaders and draws upon the latest research and best practices from across the nation -- with a specific focus on older young people who are disconnected from the workforce, school, and community. The Action Kit lists good arguments for focusing on disconnected youth, and addresses the topics of education, workforce connections, and transitions from public care.

• State Agency Systems Collaboration at the Local Level: Gluing the Puzzle Together--The Staff Perspective
  The Institute for Community Inclusion published this brief, which describes states' difficulties in making interagency collaboration work and gives an overview of tools that can help.

• Financing Strategies to Support Comprehensive, Community Based Services for Children and Families
  This report from the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Organizational Improvement provides the results of a survey of state and county initiatives that have brought catagorical funding streams together to create flexible funds for local entities to support the development of comprehensive services. It provides an overview of initiatives underway around the country, and discusses a range of financing strategies, including pooling and redeploying funds, refinancing, and capitation.

• Community Partnerships for Protecting Children
  The movement toward partnerships between child welfare agencies and communities is based on the consensus that safety, permanency, and well-being for children are more successful when children and families are supported within their communities. Putting this concept into practice means that child welfare agencies must determine meaningful ways to partner with communities so that the responsibility for supporting families is broadly shared. Moving this vision from theory to practice is the focus of a recent series of articles from the Center for Community Partnerships in Child Welfare (CCPCW) in the Spring 2005 issue of Safekeeping.

NRCFCPPP Information Packet

• Faith-Based & Community Initiatives by Kristine Schuerger (May 2002)

Websites

• FRIENDS National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention Programs (CBCAP)
  FRIENDS is funded by Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau to promote the purposes of the Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) program. FRIENDS provides training and technical assistance to lead agencies intended to build their capacity to meet the requirements of Title II of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act as Amended in 2003.

• The Art and Science of Community Problem-Solving
  This ongoing research and outreach project, supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Harvard's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and the Rockefeller Foundation, has launched this website to provide community builders with problem-solving tools and strategies. Practitioners can access strategy and program tools in the form of case-studies, best practices, and web links related to community development issues. The website also features discussion forums to foster interactive exchange of ideas and peer-to-peer learning.

• Online Parent Leadership Network
  The Parent Leadership Network is an online community for parents to connect with one another to develop and expand their leadership skills and opportunities. This e-mail group is also an important resource for others who work with or are interested in working with Parent Leaders in shared leadership such as staff, community members, professionals, and policymakers. Parent Leaders are parents, grandparents, kinship care providers, foster parents or anyone in a parenting role who takes action to accomplish goals that result in better outcomes for children, families and communities.

• Family to Family
  Family to Family is a child welfare systems reform initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It involves principles, strategies, and tools to confront the real problems faced by child welfare systems. These include: strengthening the network of families available to care for abused and neglected children in their own communities; and building partnerships with at-risk neighborhoods toward that end.