COLUMBUS, Ohio - Child-welfare agencies around Ohio are finding success with new strategies that include foster children in the planning of their future. The Wendy's Wonderful Kids Program uses a child-centered approach that engages foster youth in the process of finding a permanent home.

Deb Downing, assistant director with Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services, says it's helped them to better identify the child's needs, and sometimes find a person in the child's life willing to provide care.

"First is to work with the children so they are ready for moving into an adoptive home," Downing says. "Then to look at what are some unique strategies to try to identify a family. Looking at where are that child's connections."

Since it began in Ohio in 2004, there have been more than 1,300 children served by the program and nearly 350 adoptions. Agencies are also using Permanency Round Tables as another strategy to eliminate barriers to placement and increase lifelong connections for foster youth.

Focusing on an open dialogue, Downing says the child is included in developing an action plan that can lead to a permanent home.

In Fairfield County, Kristi Burre, deputy director with the Protective Services Department, says the Permanency Round Tables have helped some kids connect with people from their past, and others find new homes.

She talks about one foster child who was temporarily staying with his grandparents after years in foster care. She says during the roundtable everyone gave input and asked questions and the boy's future changed.

"By the end of the meeting, we had two grandparents and a 15-year-old child who were gung-ho about beginning the process of adoption," says Burre. "When we went into the meeting, we definitely were not going down that route."

Downing adds, the entire community needs to understand the urgency to find permanent connections for foster children. So, they are engaging the court system and other child-serving agencies in these new strategies.

"They have to understand what we're doing and to be on board with us as we really look at new ways of developing relationships and permanency for children in our custody," says Downing.

About 1,000 children age out of foster care each year in Ohio.


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Extra security is in place at a Minnesota school after one student was fatally stabbed by another. The staff, including social workers, is tasked with providing emotional support, and not just at the site of the attack.

This month's deadly incident occurred at St. Paul's Harding Senior High School. And while high-profile mass shootings at schools have gripped the nation in recent years, some campuses have had to overcome more isolated forms of violence.

Terrilyn Rivers-Cannon, board president of the School Social Work Association of America, said support staff will take charge to help students cope. She said that includes monitoring the "ripple effects" at other locations.

"We may notice that, 'Hey, this student has a sibling at another school,'"said Rivers-Cannon. "Or even further, we may look at their enrollment pattern and notice that, 'Hey, this child or these siblings attended another school also.'"

When connecting those dots, she said they realize there could still be deep connections with students at the other schools, prompting the need to see how they're responding.

In light of the documented increased demand for mental-health support in U.S. schools, the national group is providing toolkits with suggested resources for social workers to lean on.

Rivers-Cannon suggested that this more coordinated response - either to violence on campus or pandemic-fueled stress - is very timely, as a lot of students are still readjusting after periods of distance learning.

"Coming from being enclosed, it is more of a demand, more of a call to action," said Rivers-Cannon.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than one-third of high school students reported they experienced "poor mental health" during the pandemic.

Iowa lawmakers are considering a bill to allow teenagers to work in jobs which have historically excluded minors for safety reasons.

Supporters argued the measure would help alleviate staffing shortages, but critics said it would put Iowa teens in danger.

Senate File 167 would allow employers to hire children as young as 14, if they are enrolled in work-based learning programs at school.

Charlie Wishman, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, said the bill would allow young people to work jobs in places which could put them at risk.

"Meat coolers, loading and unloading equipment onto and off of vehicles, railroad cars, conveyors, hand tools, industrial laundromats," Wishman outlined.

He contended dangerous jobs -- such as those in meatpacking or mining with a history of deadly accidents -- are still restricted, but the bill would allow the state to grant waivers for jobs in those sectors if employers can make the case they need more workers.

The Iowa Restaurant Association supports the measure, saying it would help them replace workers lost during the pandemic. A Senate committee will consider the bill Thursday morning.

Wishman added there are plenty of opportunities for minors to work which do not put them at high risk of injury, such as bagging groceries.

Connie Ryan, spokesperson for the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, described the bill as "like taking a step back in time," when minors were unprotected from dangerous working conditions. She added it would hit especially hard in marginalized communities.

"Communities who experience poverty, and they may forgo their children's safety and take any number of these jobs," Ryan asserted.

Critics also pointed out there is no restitution provision in the bill should a minor be seriously injured on the job. Despite opposition from labor groups across the country, the efforts are part of a national trend to hire younger workers, prompted in part by low unemployment rates, making employees hard to find.

A new study shows despite a long-term increase in mentoring over time, there has still been recent backsliding with Generation Z, who appear to be less likely than millennials to have a mentor. More than 2,600 people participated in the Who Mentored You? study, which revisits the mentoring gap to see if the mentoring movement has succeeded in closing it.

Tim Wills, chief impact officer with MENTOR, said the report found fewer than half of baby boomers reported having a mentor, seven in 10 millennials had a mentor and one in three Generation Z youths reported growing up without one.

Willis said Pennsylvania needs Black male mentors most acutely.

"So there's a real gap for male mentors to step up," Willis said. "There's a gap when you look at African American mentors as well. So folks of color, stepping forward to be mentors, as well. And then just throughout the entire state, there's over 1,000 young people who are sitting on waiting lists today, waiting for mentors in the state of Pennsylvania."

The study noted the growth of mentoring has been slower in rural areas than in suburban or urban locations. Wills emphasized that young people in rural parts of Pennsylvania as well as those in foster care are less likely to have a mentor, and more mentors are still needed to close the gap.

The MENTOR study found that Americans attribute a little more than half of their success in life to the mentoring they had growing up. Wills said young people have experienced some trauma because of the pandemic, and having a mentor has helped some of them with their mental-health needs.

"Young people say time and time again that when there's a mentor in their life, the quality mentor in her life, more than half of them equate that to the success they've had in life," he said. "And so, young people need these caring adults to show up for them."

Wills encouraged Pennsylvanians interested in mentoring to visit mentoring.org, and review the resources document on Becoming a Better Mentor. It is a 12-part series on strategies and how adult mentors can provide quality relationships that help elevate youth in their communities.