Head Start programs and an uncertain fate for an Emmy award-winning Reading Raindow are a few of the recent stories from Connect for Kids that drew reader responses. See what everyone had to say, and feel free to join the conversation.

For the estimated 500,000 U.S. children in foster care, moving from home to home and school to school has many costs—among them, the loss of valuable school time while awaiting the transfer of health and education records from one district to another. The Community College Foundation in California is using new technology to tackle the problem.

Urban Institute researcher Rob Geen found almost unanimous consensus among the administrators, supervisors, workers, judges, and kin interviewed that kinship foster parents receive fewer services for the children in their care than non-kin foster parents despite often greater needs. Child welfare agencies need to develop strategies to ensure that kinship caregivers have the necessary knowledge and resources to care for children entrusted to them, says Geen.

Though they may seem rebellious, teens have a strong need to belong in a family, to be taken seriously, and to be able to rely on continued community and family support as they move from adolescence to independence. Life skills alone are not enough. This University of Oklahoma National Resource Center for Youth Development monograph provides a starting place to begin developing assessment tools, policy and programming that responds to the needs and supports identified as essential in achieving safety, permanency, and well-being for adolescents in foster care.

The National Resource Center for Youth Development has state facts on programs and services for youth aging out of foster care.

A powerful argument in favor of keeping brothers and sisters together as they navigate the foster care system comes in the form of a lyrical memoir by poet Paula McLain. Connect for Kids Editor Susan Phillips reviews Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses.

For most of the people who write movie reviews, the award-winning documentary Love and Diane offers a gritty look at a far-off world of addiction, poverty, rage and broken families. But three teens from Foster Care Youth United in New York City had a different take on Jennifer Dworkin’s movie.

Over the last few years, the Internet has transformed the way adoption agencies and child welfare departments go about finding adoptive homes for children and groups of siblings. Kathleen Schuckel reports on how children, prospective parents and agencies feel about the change.

If foster children in general are a population at risk, youth aging out of the foster care system may be even more so. Child Trends charts the trends in foster care, racial and ethnic disparities among the foster care population and characteristics of children in and leaving the system. This research brief also offers program and policy options for reducing the numbers and supporting youth of all ages.

As many as 17 states have implemented programs to help youth in foster care earn college degrees through tuition waivers, scholarships and other assistance. The Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support has a comprehensive listing of resources.