As a new leader in the child welfare space, I thought it would be worth my while to do some listening before I made any big changes. So I went on a tour all over the state of Washington. I talked to caseworkers, foster parents, birth families, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and anyone else I could find who had an opinion. I got an earful.
“Everything is broken.” “I had a great experience.” “The caseworker never called me back.” “My (foster) child was moved out of our house arbitrarily.” “I have emergencies to handle and some phone calls fall off my list.” I think I heard every side to every story. They all have some truth, and there are a lot of different experiences of the foster care system.
Read my op-ed on The Chronicle of Social Change
DCYF recently announced the release of its first Request for Application (RFA) for Early ECEAP (Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program).
Early ECEAP will provide an opportunity to serve more at-risk infants and toddlers with comprehensive early learning and family support services modeled after the successful Early Head Start center-based program funded at the federal level by the Office of Head Start.
Through this RFA process, DCYF will award up to 10 Early ECEAP pilot sites to participate in readiness trainings for phased-in implementation. Full implementation of Early ECEAP is dependent on secured funding by 2020. If secured funding is achieved for full implementation, the 10 Early ECEAP pilot sites that have successfully participated in the readiness trainings would be eligible for full implementation of the pilot under the directive of DCYF.
Read more
DCYF will receive more than $540,000 annually over the next five years to focus on the prevention of maltreatment and the reduction of children and youth entry into foster care. DCYF was one of nine nationwide recipients of the federal Community Collaborations to Strengthen and Preserve Families grant. The grant is administered by the Children’s Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration.
This five-year project, led by DCYF’s Strengthening Families Washington team, will begin by building new and strengthening existing multi-system collaborations in local communities. In addition, DCYF will partner with parents and providers in four pilot communities to evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative as it progresses. DCYF selected the pilot locales for this project at random from among the 23 locales in Washington with the highest rates of risk and protective factors reported over time. The four pilot locales are Port Angeles, Bremerton, Columbia and Spokane.
Read the full announcement
