Plax named Ferring chair in pediatrics
Katie Plax, MD, who is recognized widely for an innovative youth outreach center she started and for her work advocating for children and teens, has been named the Ferring Family Chair in Pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Program to help girls in foster care prevent unwanted pregnancy
A study of Missouri girls in foster care found that about half of them had become pregnant or had given birth by age 19. To address this startling statistic, Washington University is launching a regional pregnancy prevention program for this high-risk population. The project will serve an estimated 600 teens in foster care in the St. Louis region.
Scathing critiques of mandated reporting laws, Child Protective Services have ‘little basis in reality,’ say child welfare services experts
Studying Child Protective Services’ effectivenessEfforts to improve Child Protective Services (CPS) would be more effective if they were based on evaluations of available data instead of assertions that are not supported by evidence, say two child welfare services experts. “While there is no doubt that the current child welfare system has flaws, we can find little empirical data supporting the scathing critiques of mandated reporting laws and CPS. We now have enough empirical evidence to scientifically evaluate many longstanding criticisms of CPS, and many of those criticisms appear to be without basis in reality,” write Brett Drake, Ph.D., and Melissa Jonson-Reid, Ph.D., in an article titled “A Response to Melton Based on the Best Available Data,” published in the current issue of the international journal Child Abuse & Neglect. More…
Foster youth desire college, study shows, but face roadblocks to learning
Mary Butkus/WUSTL PhotoFoster care teens have a desire to attend college, study shows.A solid education is considered the foundation for a productive future, but for teens in foster care, education beyond high school is rarely a reality. In fact, a Westat study found that only 44 percent of 18-year-olds leaving the independent living program of the foster care system completed high school. But despite common thought, this dismal percentage is not due to a lack of educational aspirations among teens in foster care. According to a recent study at the George Warren Brown (GWB) School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, a surprisingly high percentage — 70 percent — of teens in the foster care system have a desire to attend college.