Announcements
Posted 2/25/2013
Phillip’s Story: Featured Foster Alumnus
Phillip Hodge, 28, of San Antonio, Texas, spent the majority of his childhood in foster care. Channeling the trauma and stress he experienced into music, Hodge has gone on to become a successful free style rapper known as Thuggizzle. Using his voice in hip hop, Hodge actively gives back to those in need through three different organizations that help families of children with special needs, parents whose children have been removed from their custody, and those with breast cancer.
Posted 2/21/2013
How to Use Customer Service Concepts to Enhance Recruitment and Retention of Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Families
Through our work with States, Tribes, and Territories, we have been on a journey to help public child welfare systems improve retention, engagement, and satisfaction levels of their foster, adoptive, and kinship families. Our new publication, Using Customer Service Concepts to Enhance Recruitment and Retention Practices (PDF – 852 KB), from the National Resource Center for Diligent Recruitment at AdoptUSKids has evolved because of this journey. It integrates and adapts lessons learned about good customer service from world-class leaders in business, child welfare, and the ongoing work of AdoptUSKids as it relates to the challenging and often stressful responsibilities of the child welfare system.
Posted 2/21/2013
New Book on Adopting from Foster Care by Writer and Actress Nia Vardalos
Writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos firmly believed she was supposed to be a mom, but Mother Nature and modern medicine had put her in a headlock. So she made a choice that shocked friends, family, and even herself: with only fourteen hours’ notice, she adopted a preschooler. With her signature wit and candor, she describes her and husband Ian Gomez’s bumpy road to parenting in her new book Instant Mom.
Posted 2/21/2013
Effective Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Interjurisdictional Placements
Various jurisdictional boundaries separate child welfare systems—cities, counties, boroughs, States, Tribes, Territories, and countries—and those boundaries can represent significant barriers in finding families for waiting children. Child welfare professionals, however, have the potential to facilitate the timely movement of children and youth across these jurisdictions to achieve what every child and youth need and deserve: a permanent family. Our new publication, Key Elements and Strategies for Effective Interjurisdictional Work (PDF – 2.2MB), from the National Resource Center for Diligent Recruitment at AdoptUSKids highlights how child welfare agencies can work with others involved in the child welfare system such as court systems, judges, and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) to make interjurisdictional placements possible.
Posted 2/5/2013
Deborah Motley Named AdoptUSKids' January Caseworker of the Month
Debora Motley, a post adoption case manager with Lutheran Services Florida in Port Charlotte, is our January Caseworker of the Month. Motley was able to retain a family ready to quit the adoption process by engaging them on a personal level while comporting herself as a professional.
