Grant received to study youth with disabilities in U.S., Russian Federation child welfare system
Social Support of Citizens:Youth with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System in the United States and the Russian Federation
Dr. Elspeth Slayter was awarded a grant from the Eurasia Foundation to consult with Russian colleagues about best practices to support youth with disabilities in the child welfare system.
The overarching goal of this project is to improve the lives of youth with disabilities involved in the child welfare systems in the Russian Federation and the United States. This population is marginalized in both countries, and social service professionals are often ill-equipped to support such youth. There are two short term and two long-term objectives of this project.
First, in the short term, the objective of this project is to gather knowledge about evidence-based approaches to the delivery of social services to youth with disabilities in the child welfare systems in each country.
Second, in the short term, the objective of this project is to develop a set of trainings on evidence-based approaches to the delivery of social services to youth with disabilities in the child welfare system. In addition, an evaluation survey will be developed to assess the impact of the trainings.
Third, in the long term, the objective of this project is to foster the development of an international network of disability and child welfare experts who can collaborate on social service problem-solving relevant to the challenges of supporting youth with disabilities in the child welfare system for sharing best practices and engaging in case consultations.
Fourth, in the long term, the objective for this project is to improve professionals’ skills in providing social services to youth with disabilities in the child welfare system, which will ultimately improve the lives of those youth.
Social service professionals in both the United States and the Russian Federation will be provided with presentations, trainings and resources for engaging in best practices with youth with disabilities in the child welfare system. This will improve service delivery to these youth, which will in turn improve their potential life outcomes.