CFK Reports From: Not Just Talk: Incorporating Youth Voice into Juvenile Justice Reform and Practice
Event: Conference Call
Organized By: Connect for Kids
When: 3:00 pm EDT, June 21, 2006

Should systems that deal with and serve young people actively engage them in developing youth policies and programs?

CFK Reports From: The Impact of Meth on Foster Care, Children, and Families
Event: Panel Discussion
Organized By: Generations United
Where/When: June 8, 2006; Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC

The discussion at this congressional briefing on the impact of methamphetamine abuse on foster care, children, and families paid special attention to the role being played by grandparents who step forward to become legal guardians for children who are removed from their homes due to a parent's methamphetamine abuse.

CFK Reports From: Child Welfare and Well-Being: Building a 21st-Century System for Kids
Event: Panel discussion
Organized By: The Urban Institute and Chapin Hall Center for Children
Where/When: June 8, 2006; Urban Institute, Washington, DC

This event, the last in a series, was a useful discussion of one of the central tensions within the child welfare field: between the imperative to keep children physically safe from harm and the understanding that removing children from their parents, homes and neighborhoods damages them.

CFK Reports From: Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids
Event: Author presentation and discussion
Organized By: Cato Institute
Where/When: Cato Institute, Washington DC, April 20, 2006

Maia Szalavitz, the author of Help at Any Cost (Riverhead, 2006), spoke about what she learned in the process of researching and writing her book, which looks at the continued reliance by some states and parents on a "tough love" form of addiction treatment for adolescents that relies on physical intimidation, humiliation and isolation.

CFK reports from: Rayburn House Office Building
Event: Hearing on "Coordination Among Federal Youth Development Programs"
Organized by: The American Youth Policy Forum and the Campaign for Youth
Where/When: Washington, D.C., June 24, 2005

Witnesses and committee members at a hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Select Education discussed how coordinating federal, state and local efforts to help disadvantaged youth will increase efficiency and accountability.

CFK reports from: American Youth Policy Forum
Event: Presentation on the Gateway to College program at Portland Community College
Organized by: American Youth Policy Forum
Where/When: Washington, D.C., June 8, 2005

Portland Community College wants high school dropouts to continue their education—their higher education, that is.

CFK reports from:Capitol Hill
Event: press conference announcing bipartisan support for Federal Youth Coordination Act
Organized by: The National Collaboration for Youth
Where/When: Washington, D.C., February 16, 2005

Today on Capitol Hill, the National Collaboration for Youth held a press conference to show support for the passage of the bipartisan Federal Youth Coordination Act of 2005.

CFK reports from: "The Road from Foster Care to Adulthood: Experiences and Insights of Former Foster Care Youth" & "Solving America's Child Welfare Crisis: Former Foster Youth Speak Out"
Events: Informational briefing, panel discussion, dinner discussion
Organized by: Orphan Foundation of America, Freddie Mac Foundation, New America Foundation
Where/When: Washington, D.C., June 22 & 23, 2004
Report by: Diana Strumbos

Children in foster care face long educational odds: Only about 50 percent graduate from high school, only 11 percent of those high school graduates pursue post-secondary education and only 4 to 7 percent finish college or vocational school nationally.