The state Division of Child Protection and Permanency (CP&P), formerly known as the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), has placed a child in your home. You may be related to the child, a close friend of the family or perhaps the child has been in your home for a long time. Your CP&P case manager has explained that it is unlikely the child will return to their parents. CP&P is asking you to make a permanent commitment to raise this child. You have lots of questions. What are your options?  What financial supports will be available to you?

It is important for you to understand the different permanency options available to you and the child in your home. You should learn about all the options, the financial supports available with each, and how those supports may affect other benefits you receive before making your final decision. This guide gives you an overview of one permanency option – kinship legal guardianship (KLG) – as a first step toward making this all-important decision.

Please Note: This booklet is not intended to offer legal advice or legal guidance. You should consult the professionals involved in your child’s case, including the CP&P case manager, the child’s attorney (law guardian) and the attorney for CP&P (the Deputy Attorney General [DAG]). For more information or if you have questions not answered in this guide, contact Mary E. Coogan, Esq., vice president at Advocates for Children of New Jersey and director of the KidLaw Resource Center, at mcoogan@acnj.org.

The KidLaw Resource Center offers information, assistance and trainings about the rights of children. The Center provides free fact sheets, manuals and other resources. Staff is available to provide presentations and trainings on children’s legal rights. Visit www.acnj.org  for more information.

A proactive guide for recognizing the warning signs and
identifying children who may turn to violence.
“STEP UP, TAKE ACTION” – When Does a Child Need Help?
Dear Parents and Teachers of Elementary School Children,
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, made clear the urgent need to protect our children and to reduce violence
in our communities. Many “shooters,” who are described after the tragedies they cause, are isolated individuals who have had emotional problems for
years. But, they never received the attention and help they needed early enough to prevent them from putting themselves or others in danger.

From Rights to Reality is designed to unite parents and parent advocacy around a common set of goals. It identifies 15 rights for parents affected by the child welfare system. Most parents do not yet have these rights in child welfare proceedings. From Rights to Reality represents a commitment to working in our communities and nationwide to make these rights a reality.
Each right is illustrated by parents’ stories—stories that show how families can be strengthened and transformed when parents have these rights, and stories that show how families are harmed when these rights are denied.
These rights are essential to ensuring that children receive the best possible care—at home or while in foster care. In child welfare proceedings, children’s needs and parents’ rights are often portrayed as incompatible. Research and practice have demonstrated that, in most cases, this is not true. Children do better if they can remain connected to their parents and return home.
Most of the promising practices described here were advanced through tireless parent advocacy or through meaningful parent participation in child welfare reform. They developed because parents made themselves heard and child welfare practitioners listened. From Rights to Reality gives parents a clear, resounding voice in leading the process of child welfare reform in their communities. Child welfare practitioners must listen and respond.
Parents, we hope our stories will guide you in working with advocacy organizations and other parents in your community to make your voices heard. Child welfare leaders, policymakers, frontline workers and advocates, we hope these stories will deepen your understanding and compassion for families in the child welfare system and guide you in joining with parents in your communities to advance needed  reforms.

Published By: © 2013 The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Every year, more than 26,000 young people age out of foster care, many with no permanent home and no parent to help them navigate the road to adulthood. For some young people, like Rivera, stolen identities and bad credit pose yet another obstacle on the road to independence. For youth who have faced years of instability and uncertainty, bad credit stands in the way of some basic life activities, such as renting an apartment, buying a car, getting a job, having a bank account or securing student loans.

Published by:

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 7500 Security Boulevard, Mail Stop S2-26-12 Baltimore, Maryland 21244-1850

“A Changing World” represents the most extensive independent research into intercountry adoption to date, including into the regulatory framework/treaty called the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (HCIA). The research – funded by the American Ireland Fund and the Adoption Institute – was conducted over the past two years by scholars at Tufts University and the Institute; among its components are surveys of about 1,500 adoptive parents, adoption professionals in the U.S. and other “receiving” countries and countries of origin, as well as interviews with senior policymakers in 19 nations.

Funded by:
American Ireland Fund and the Donaldson Adoption Institute
This report was researched and written by Dr. Ellen Pinderhughes, Associate Professor, Eliot-
Pearson Department of Child Development, Tufts University; Jessica Matthews, Doctoral Student,
Tufts University; Georgia Deoudes, Legislation & Policy Director of the Adoption Institute; and Adam Pertman, President of the Adoption Institute.

Today’s reality is far different as a result of the Internet, and the changes – some or better, others for worse – are accelerating every day. That means people who want to make connections are being enabled to do so more easily and more quickly than had ever been possible before, but it also means that for-profit brokers and facilitators are expanding their reach, with virtually no monitoring or regulation. And so, for instance, highly commercialized and aggressive marketing is being aimed at expectant mothers and prospective adoptive parents, promising easy and quick solutions to very complex human situations. Ads pop up alongside almost any search related to adoption, sometimes offering “a baby in less than 3 months” or “a free college education” for women who place their infants. Would-be families advertise online, describing an almost perfect future for any baby they might adopt, the kinds of ads one adoptive parent in our study described as “butterflies and rainbows,” while ignoring the pain, loss and grief inherent in adoption. And “desperate” mothers-to-be (who may not be desperate or even pregnant) reach out over the Internet to offer unborn children in exchange for money.!

Published by:

This report was researched and written by Dr. Amy Whitesel, Assistant Research
Professor of Psychology, George Washington University, and Dr. Jeanne Howard,
Policy and Research Director, Donaldson Adoption Institute.

It is difficult to describe the extent to which the Internet is changing the everyday realities of adoption – and the lives of the millions of people it encompasses – without using words that sound hyperbolic. But a yearlong examination of the effects of this very new technology on a very old social institution indicates that they are systemic, profound, complex and permanent. Social media, search engines, blogs, chat rooms, webinars, photo-listings and an array of other modern communications tools, all facilitated by the Internet, are transforming adoption practices, challenging current laws and policies, offering unprecedented opportunities and resources, and raising critical ethical, legal and procedural issues about which adoption professionals, legislators and the personally affected parties, by their own accounts, have little reliable information, research or experience to guide them.

Published by:

All contents (c) 2012 by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.
Send questions and comments to info@adoptioninstitute.org

Presented by:

Marie Dolfi, LCSW

Volunteer Advocacy Chairperson, NYSCCC