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| New York City's child welfare system grew out of a need to protect and care for the most vulnerable children. The system is complex and flawed, yet recent reform efforts show promise and have received broad-based support. Although addressing foster care issues is difficult, it is an entrée point for focusing on helping troubled families achieve better outcomes. Child welfare experts, practitioners and advocates have identified many opportunities where private funding can leverage public dollars and make a difference for low-income children and their families.
Specifically, the foundation's Foster Care Grants Program seeks to support programs in the New York metropolitan area that address one or more of the following areas:
- The shift to neighborhood-based services or realignment of services at the neighborhood level, with an emphasis on developing service linkages and partnerships with different service providers within the child welfare community (e.g., substance abuse, domestic violence, mental health and housing). Preference will be given to neighborhood-based services that are family-centered and holistic, addressing the needs of the child as well as parents.
- Adolescent services including education, job training, and independent living skills, as well as services for special populations such lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender youth.
- Training and strategies to recruit and retain qualified caseworkers and other front-line staff at foster care agencies. Training for birth parents that helps them develop specific job-related skills, negotiate the child welfare system and interact better with their children.
- Policy and advocacy efforts around issues such as (but not limited to) housing for youth in foster care, updating the foster care rate-setting methodology and sustaining quality-assurance programs.
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For more information, contact:
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