Impact Feature Issue on Children with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System

The following resources may be of interest to readers of thisImpactissue.

• National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information. This clearinghouse offers extensive information in the following areas: preventing child abuse and neglect, overview of child abuse and neglect, reporting child abuse and neglect, and the Child Welfare System. Operated by the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

• Child Welfare: Better Data and Evaluations Could Improve Processes and Programs for Adopting Children with Special Needs (GAO Report 05-292).This report to Congress published in June 2005 identifies the major challenges to placing and keeping special needs children in adoptive homes, examines what states and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have done to facilitate special needs adoptions, and assesses how well the Adoption Assistance Program and the Adoption Incentives Program have worked to facilitate special needs adoptions and what changes might be needed.

• ARCH National Resource Center for Respite and Crisis Care Services. This Web site includes information on the National Respite Locator Service, a service to help caregivers and professionals locate respite services in their community, and the National Respite Coalition, a service that advocates for preserving and promoting respite in policy and programs at the national, state, and local levels. The site also includes extensive online materials, including factsheets related to children with disabilities and their families

• Policy Research Brief: Do We Really Mean Families for All Children? Permanency Planning for Children with Developmental Disabilities (2000). This publication examines permanency planning policies and practices, and their implications for children with disabilities. Published by the Research and Training Center on Community Living, Institute on Community Integration.

• The Let’s Prevent Abuse Program (LPA).This program is available from PACER Center, a national center committed to enhancing the quality of life of children and young adults with disabilities and their families, based on the concept of parents helping parents. The program, which is available for purchase by groups wishing to present their own child abuse prevention programs, helps children with disabilities and adults gain information about child physical and sexual abuse, as well as helps children to develop personal safety skills. It features four multi-racial, child-size puppets that portray children with and without disabilities. Opportunities exist throughout the program for the children to interact with the puppets through dialogue and role-play. The scripts, geared for children in grades 1-4, address the definitions of physical and sexual abuse, how to get help and whom to tell, the need for children to talk about the abuse if they are in such a situation, and feelings of guilt, isolation and shame associated with abuse. In addition to the puppets, it includesLet’s Prevent Abuse: A Prevention Handbook for People Working with Young Families,which looks at child maltreatment risks, indicators, laws, prevention approaches, and resources. The handbook includes service issues unique to families of children with disabilities, Hmong families, and Spanish-speaking families. Also available is theLet’s Prevent Abuse Coordinator’s Handbook, a guidebook for organizations that assists in the development of a LPA program.