YLC and AECF Host Forum on Group Care

On August 9th and 10th, the Youth Law Center and the Annie E. Casey Foundation hosted a two-day meeting on the application of research in child and adolescent development to child welfare placement practices. Leading researchers from as far away as Israel and the Netherland joined policy makers and advocates to discuss the implications of existing research that show the detrimental effect of group care on adolescent development. The group will develop a statement about whether and under what limited circumstances group care could ever be an appropriate intervention. It is the hope that the statement would be a tool to impact policy.