Five-part webinar series: Leveraging the Strengthening Families Act

For more than a decade, the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative has been partnering with communities across the nation to help improve outcomes for young people transitioning from foster care to adulthood. The federal Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (Strengthening Families Act) provides new opportunity to achieve our collective goal of creating a brighter future for these young people.

The Jim Casey Initiative’s recently released report, “What young people need to thrive: Leveraging the Strengthening Families Act to promote normalcy,” highlights recommendations from young people in foster care. And in this series, we’ll explore critical opportunities the law provides.

First in the series:
Creating Effective Normalcy Policies
2 p.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015

The Strengthening Families Act’s normalcy provisions hold great potential for expanding developmentally appropriate opportunities for young people. They also hold great promise for empowering foster families, and improve the relationships between foster families, birth parents and child welfare agencies. This session highlights essential components of an effective normalcy policy; considerations for implementing policy through law, regulation or guidance; strategies for reducing barriers to implementation through development of training policies; and communications. Panelists include:

Jenny Pokempner, supervising attorney, Juvenile Law Center
Clark Peters, assistant professor, University of Missouri School of Social Work and Truman School of Public Affairs
Andy Shookhoff, attorney and former juvenile court judge of Nashville, Tennessee

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Mark your calendars for future webinars in this series!

Future sessions will highlight strategies for using court oversight to support and enforce the normalcy provisions as well as strategies for enhancing system accountability through such mechanisms as effective grievance policies and consumer/stakeholder feedback.