Foster Care Community of Practice Summary

CoP Description: Children in foster care constitute a vulnerable population who have historically experienced poor education outcomes relative to their peers with more stable family situations. Additionally, they also tend to experience a higher frequency of unscheduled school changes compared to their peers. As a group, children in foster care have significantly lower academic achievement and high school graduation rates, and significantly higher rates of absenteeism, grade retention, and exclusionary discipline.

This CoP addressed the following topics:

• Overview of requirements of Fostering Connections and ESEA pertinent to improving educational stability for students in foster care
• Opportunities to learn from SEAs and state child welfare partners who have developed shared understanding, mutual commitments, clear collaborative processes, and common metrics for monitoring progress, improving methods, and demonstrating impact on significant student outcomes
• Examination of relevant state laws and policies related to serving children experience foster care and how different child welfare agencies within states can collaborate and share information
• Sharing of state plans, policies, and protocols to receive feedback from other CoP participants,
• Facilitation of activities that identify common issues across participants and sharing of practices/solutions peer participants have used to address those issues
• Opportunities to refine systems to support LEAs and community child welfare partners with their implementation

Participating SEAs: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington

CoP Duration: October 2019 through February 2020

Resources