Sharing reflections on U.S. and Russian child welfare and disability services with my graduate students
Recently, I have been wrapping up my Social Expertise Exchange grant from the Eurasia Foundation. This grant allowed me to engage in an exchange with a Russian colleague who was also interested in youth with disabilities and the child welfare system. As part of my grant, I was able to report back on my experiences and observations to my graduate social work students. We discussed the ways in which the U.S. and Russian child welfare systems were similar (policy structures) and different (different timeframes for policy implementation. We also discussed the nature of disability services for youth in the U.S. (widespread, community inclusion-focused but still in need of improvements) and in Russia (not as widespread, not yet focused on community inclusion, development is on the upswing). Finally, I told them all about the visits I had made to organizations working with youth with disabilities – and about the evidence-based practices I saw there. These practices included support groups for parents of youth with disabilities, family foster care for youth with disabilities, animal-assisted therapy for youth with ADHD and Autism, and the implementation of universal design. Slides from this lecture are available below:<iframesrc=”//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/Ikph0vdp2E3EeA” width=”595″ height=”485″ frameborder=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” style=”border:1px solid #CCC; border-width:1px; margin-bottom:5px; max-width: 100%;” allowfullscreen>