Supporting Stability Through Schools: Advancing the Adoption & Foster Friendly School Movement
Permanency is not the end of a child’s story. For many children impacted by foster care, adoption, and kinship care, it is the beginning of a new and often fragile chapter. Long after placement, children may continue navigating grief, chronic stress, disrupted attachment, identity struggles, and survival-based behaviors that frequently surface at school through emotional dysregulation, conflict, shutdown, anxiety, school avoidance, or difficulty trusting adults. Yet schools remain one of the most influential and often overlooked environments affecting emotional well-being, educational success, and placement stability.
This interactive webinar explores how CASA professionals can help strengthen collaboration between schools, caregivers, mental health providers, and child welfare teams to better support children with complex family experiences. Participants will be introduced to the Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™ movement, practical healing-centered strategies, and tools from the iCARE4 Schools Connection Kits™ designed to strengthen emotional safety, regulation, belonging, and school stability for students impacted by foster care, adoption, and kinship care. The session will also highlight Illinois’ growing statewide momentum, including HB 4536, as an emerging model for prevention-focused, relationship-centered systems change supporting both educational and permanency outcomes
