C7 – Every Student Succeeds Mean Students in Foster Care Too:  What Child Welfare Advocates Can Do to Ensure Education Success

This discussion will be led by the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law on the cross-section between education and child welfare. For children in foster care, education can be an important link to stability and community, but children in foster care face significant barriers to their educational progress. One barrier is the ongoing expectation that children in care move schools, when initially entering and during their time in care. School mobility causes disruptions with friends, teachers, classes, as well as academic credits, and takes an emotional and academic toll on youth in care who have already experienced trauma.  This session will highlight tools and resources to support school stability and success and identify potential solutions and strategies to support remaining in the same school, including identifying parental and educational decision-making, ensuring smooth transfer of records, and enhanced coordination between education and child welfare agencies and the courts.

Presenters: Kathleen McNaught & Emily Peeler, ABA Center on Children and the Law, Washington, DC