SEATTLE – Washington state has seen a slight drop in the number of foster children being placed with families, according to a new report.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation says the proportion of kids in foster care who were placed with families rather than in group homes fell from 94% in 2007 to 91% in 2017. Still, Washington's rates are higher than the national average, which rose from 81% to 86% during the same decade.
Annie Blackledge is executive director of The Mockingbird Society, working with foster youth in the state. She says it's important to keep kids in families, and familiar settings.
"We, right now, put young people and children wherever there's an open bed,” says Blackledge. “Which may mean that you move five counties over and have change schools, and you lose everything that you know."
Blackledge says nationwide, the system is having trouble recruiting foster parents. Research shows kids who are placed in family settings are more likely to finish school and get jobs, and less likely to become early parents.
Last year, President Donald Trump signed the Family First Prevention Services Act, which prioritizes family placement.
The report shows children nationwide are more likely to be placed with people related to them, with numbers growing from 25% to 32% in a decade. Rob Geen, director of policy and advocacy reform with the Casey Foundation, says that has been an important development.
"No matter what that home environment was like, it is traumatic for a child to be removed from their home,” says Geen. “When they're placed with someone who already knows the child – who knows their likes, their dislikes, knows about their family background – that is less traumatic."
Progress has been slower for children of color. According to the report, 81% of African-American children were placed in families in 2017, compared with 78% in 2007. Blackledge says states should focus on how they can improve the system for these children.
"We've really got to get more culturally adept at the work that we do,” says Blackledge, “and involve the people with lived experience to really help us figure out how can we do this work better and more sensitively?"
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If the election season made one thing clear, it is neither side can hear what the other is saying and one expert believes it is because most of us were not taught "active listening" in school.
Christine Miles, founder of The Listening Path Classroom program, said only about 2% of schools offer formal listening skill development programs, which can handicap our success as adults. Miles believes too many of us listen half-heartedly, keen to share our thoughts or arguments the minute the other person stops talking.
"This is not new," Miles pointed out. "Since 1957, there's been talk about the fact that there's not formal education in schools on listening, and the reason I think it hasn't been solved is because listening has been notoriously hard."
Research shows students from kindergarten through 12th grade spend 50% to 75% of their classroom time listening, yet comprehend only 25% to 50% of what they hear. According to Miles, when it comes to politics, it is rarely effective to argue someone into adopting your position.
Miles believes technology is partly to blame for poor listening. Kids spend so many hours on their electronic devices, Miles explained some develop a natural form of attention deficit disorder, even if they don't have the condition biochemically.
"What the technology has done is made our brains even more impatient and more distracted than they already were," Miles contended. "If we don't help them learn how to have conversations about things they disagree about, how will they learn how to manage that?"
Miles noted becoming an adult without good listening skills can affect both academic success and social-emotional learning. To develop better skills, experts recommended being fully present in a conversation, showing interest by practicing good eye contact, asking open-ended questions, paraphrasing and reflecting back what has been said and withholding judgment and advice.
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The early childhood development initiative "Too Small to Fail" is expanding in Pennsylvania to boost children's brain and language development, preparing them for kindergarten and beyond.
Nearly 60% of children in the United States begin kindergarten unprepared, lagging behind their peers in essential language and reading skills.
Perri Chinalai, managing director of the Too Small to Fail program for the Clinton Foundation, said her organization is partnering with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and the United Way of Pennsylvania to implement 250 new early education programs over the next two years.
"We worked with laundromats and transforming laundromat spaces into literacy-rich environments, because we know that families are going to laundromats," Chinalai explained. "How can we think about really encouraging talking, reading and singing in spaces where families are?"
Chinalai added the Barbara Bush Foundation works with children in early learning all the way through school-age kids, and the Too Small to Fail focuses on children aged 0-5. The initiative has donated more than 1.4 million children's books to families in under-resourced communities.
Chinalai noted they partnered with the Department of Public Health and Office of Homeless Services to transform two health centers in Philadelphia and a homeless intake shelter. She added over the past 11 years, the program has worked with communities across the country and have launched more than 40 campaigns.
"For the first year of this project, through our partnership with the United Way location, we will be partnering with six different locations, including the Titusville region, Lycoming County, Wyoming Valley, Southern Allegheny Capital Region and Bucks County," Chinalai outlined. "To really think about how we can incorporate these strategies within the work that they're already doing for children and families."
She added they are also working with a local bookstore called Tree House Books to restock bookshelves. She emphasized the campaigns will focus on training trusted messengers, transforming learning spaces and distributing resources to families.
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Child care workers across the nation, including in Tennessee, are struggling with poverty-level wages according to a new report.
It revealed in Tennessee, the median wage for early childhood educators is less than $15 an hour.
Anna Powell, senior research and policy associate for the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California-Berkeley, said the median wage nationally for early childhood educators is just $13.07 an hour, which has resulted in some workers relying on public assistance.
"In Tennessee, we estimate the median hourly wage to be $11.57 for a person working in early care and education," Powell reported. "Meanwhile, the living wage in that state is about $15.03, so that means there's a gap of about 23%."
The 2024 Early Childhood Workforce Index showed pay scales are insufficient for a single adult to earn a living wage in any state. Alarmingly, nearly half of child care workers rely on assistance programs, such as SNAP benefits and Medicaid, to survive.
Powell pointed out the data also show serious inequities in wages.
"While the overall wages are low, we do find evidence that Black and Latina women are earning even less on average," Powell explained. "For example, up to $8,000 less a year, regardless of their education levels."
The study suggested boosting public funding for early childhood education, as the U.S. invests only $4,000 per child annually, far less than the $14,000 in other wealthy countries.
The pandemic highlighted the critical role of educators and Powell pointed out COVID relief funds showed potential solutions are within reach.
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