2012 Webinar Series

Topic:

Running from Foster Care: Strategies for Assessing and Intervening with Youth who Run Away from Foster Care Placements

Date:

November 15, 2012

Materials:

Running from Foster Care slides (pdf)

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Synopsis:

Children in foster care are twice as likely to exhibit runaway behavior as children of the same age in the general population. This webinar will describe the basic elements and potential value of a functional approach in reducing the problem of youth running away from foster care placements. Both assessment and intervention strategies will be discussed.

The goal of addressing runaway behavior with youth in out-of-home placements is not only to reduce the rate of running away and duration of unsafe days, but, more importantly to stabilize these young people in settings that they would prefer or with arrangements that make their placements more livable.

The webinar should assist the fields of child welfare, mental health, and juvenile justice in examining their practices to prevent and ameliorate runaway behaviors.

This webinar hosted by Community Solutions at the University of South Florida is for educational purposes only. Webinar content may not be reproduced, downloaded, disseminated, published, or transferred in any form or by any means, except with the prior written permission of the Department of Child & Family Studies' Chair.

  

Delivered by:


Kimberly Crosland, PhD, BCBA, Research Assistant Professor in the USF Department of Child & Family Studies

Ruby Joseph, MPA, Assistant in Research in the USF Department of Child & Family Studies

Kim Crosland, PhDDr. Kimberly Crosland is an Assistant Professor and Board Certified Behavior Analyst in the Applied Behavior Analysis Master’s Program in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of South Florida.  Dr. Crosland was the research director for the Behavior Analysis Services Program (BASP) which was a statewide behavior analytic initiative to provide training and technical support for children and families in foster care.  She is currently the Principal Investigator for a federal grant funded by the Institute of Education Sciences to develop an assessment and intervention model for decreasing runaway behavior of youth in foster care and improving educational outcomes. 

Ruby JosephRuby Joseph is an Assistant-In-Research in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of South Florida. Her primary interests are in research, evaluation, and service implementation of programs that benefit minority populations and communities. She is particularly interested in issues that affect the mental, educational, and social development of youth. Ms. Joseph was the Principal Investigator/Program Director for the GEAR-UP program, which is a multi-year, federally and locally funded program that served low-income, minority youth by preparing them for graduation and placing them into post secondary careers in vocational/technical schools, community and four-year universities.