Websites with Relevant Information for GAL/CASA Volunteer Work
Law
& Advocacy
American
Bar Association Center on Children and the Law
The goal of the ABA Children’s Law Division is to improve the lives of children through advances in law, justice, knowledge, practice, and public policy. This site includes child welfare tips and a lot of great child advocacy links. www.abanet.org/child/home.html
Best
Interest Newsletter
This newsletter offers news and resources for professionals and volunteers who advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children. The site includes information on legal issues, medical topics, web resources, and legislation. www.childadvocacy.com
Children
Now
Children Now utilizes the mass media to make children a top priority across the country. They work to improve the quality of news and entertainment media for children and about children’s issues. www.childrennow.org
Foster
Care Youth United
This is a teen-written foster care magazine that discusses issues facing children throughout the foster care system. Their goal is to train, inform, and provide a voice for teens through print journalism. This site has samples of teen writing and order forms for their books. www.youthcomm.org
Foster
Parent Community
This foster parent resource provides articles, website links, and information on local foster parent associations. Links include grandparent and relative caregiver links, attachment disorders, medical links, adoption, HIV, educational issues, FAS, and ADD/ADHD. www.fosterparents.com
Hear
My Voice
Hear My Voice is a unique coalition of volunteer child advocates and professionals in the areas of law, mental health, and the media. The site lists the recent success stories of difficult child advocacy cases. www.hearmyvoice.org
Indian
Child Welfare Law Center
Their mission is to work with the Indian community to preserve and reunite Indian families by providing culturally appropriate legal services to Indian children, parents, extended family members, and tribes in cases governed by the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, and to serve as a community development resource for ICWA education, advocacy, and public policy. www.glrain.net/icwalc
Juvenile
Justice Center
The ABA Juvenile Justice Center is dedicated to monitoring the legislative, fiscal, policy, and administrative changes rapidly emerging in juvenile justice systems across the nation. www.abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/home.html
The National Association of Child Advocates (NACA) is the only national organization devoted to building the capacity of state and local child advocacy organizations. Founded in 1984, NACA is a nationwide network of child advocacy organizations working at the increasingly critical level of America’s statehouses, county commissions, and city councils. www.childadvocacy.org
National
Association of Counsel for Children (NACC)
NACC is a nonprofit professional membership organization dedicated to quality representation and protection of children in the legal system. Their purpose is to assist attorneys and other professionals in their work with children in the legal system. At the same time, NACC carries out a policy agenda designed to improve the legal system for children. This site provides advocacy links and upcoming events. www.naccchildlaw.org
National
Center for Youth Law
NCYL provides information, training, and consultation on youth law matters to legal services for attorneys and other professionals serving poor children and youth. Its areas of expertise include abuse and neglect, termination of parental rights, public benefits for children, children’s health, and the rights of children living in institutions. www.youthlaw.org
National
Children’s Alliance
NCA’s Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) are community-based programs that bring together representatives from law enforcement, juvenile court counselors, mental health, and other service providing agencies to address the investigation, treatment, and prosecution of child abuse cases. www.nca-online.org
National
Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association
The website for the national child advocacy organization, this site includes information about the work of CASA programs as well as a library with links about several important topics impacting children including HIV, cultural awareness, and advocacy. www.casanet.org or www.nationalcasa.org
Office
of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention
This site offers links to the latest facts and figures on juvenile justice,
delinquency prevention, and violence, and includes many of their publications,
grant options, and local resources. www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org
Social
Work and Social Services Website
This is a comprehensive site with many links to issues relevant to social welfare. This site offers a wide variety of online resources of interest to social workers and those in the social services fields. www.gwbweb.wustl.edu/websites.html
Voices
for the Children
This site provides a link to a summary of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, as well as a link to a chat room for others interested in this topic. www.voicesforthechildren.homestead.com/main.html
Cultural
Information
Appalachian
Focus
Appalachian Focus is a nonprofit organization intent upon involving
those persons most immediately and directly impacted by the problems of Central
Appalachia in defining the cause of the problems, identifying barriers to
solutions to the problems, and designing actions to solve the problems. Truly a
great series of articles which analyze in detail the problems of the area. www.appalachianfocus.org
Biracial
Identity
This website gives the legal definitions of biracial individuals, along with testimonies and children’s school issues. There are a variety of fact sheets and statistics on biracial families. www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/1103
Center
for the Study of Biracial Children
The Center for the Study of Biracial Children produces and disseminates materials for and about interracial families and biracial children. The center provides advocacy, training, and consulting. Its primary mission is to advocate for the rights of interracial families, biracial children, and multiracial people. www.csbc.cncfamily.com
Cultural
Competence Website
This site contains information, resources, and links to other sites,
provided by the Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice.
www.air.org/cecp/cultural
Interracial
Voice
This site includes a variety of information on interracial people and resources. Included are poets’ writing samples, relationship forums, discrimination information, and information on building diversity. www.webcom.com/~intvoice/add_site.html
Native
American Links
National
Indian Child Welfare Association
The public policy section of NICWA’s website provides information on how specific child welfare laws impact Indian children. The site also provides links to other information on Native American culture. www.nicwa.org
NativeWeb
This site contains over three thousand links to various aspects of Native American culture and history. www.nativeweb.org
WWW
Virtual Library – American Indians
Virtual library of the Indian culture with an index of resources on the web, including culture, history, language, health, and art. www.hanksville.org/NAresources/
Black
Families
This site provides a wide array of information for African American families, as well as many links to other sites of interest. www.blackfamilies.com
Footsteps:
Celebrating African American History and Achievement
This online magazine celebrates the heritage of African Americans and explores their contributions to our culture. www.footstepsmagazine.com
National
Black Child Development Institute
NBCDI’s
website includes information on membership, public policy, resources, and a
calendar of upcoming events. www.nbcdi.org/
European American Children and Families
The Center for the Study of White American Culture supports cultural exploration and self-discovery among white Americans. It encourages a dialogue among all racial and cultural groups concerning the role of white American culture in the larger American society. The Center operates on the premise that knowledge of one's own racial background and culture is essential when learning how to relate to people of other racial and cultural groups. A premise of this site is that the task of building genuine and authentic relationships across racial and cultural lines is crucial to the future well-being of America. www.euroamerican.org/
Asian
American Children and Families
Asian
Community Online (ACON)
This site provides links to various aspects of Asian culture, including Asian studies, advocacy, culture, education, health, sexuality, and women. www.igc.apc.org/acon
National
Korean American Service and Education Consortium
This national organization seeks to educate and empower Korean American communities nationwide. www.nakasec.org
Latino
Culture
Hispanicbiz.com
This site provides information about the Hispanic culture, specifically in business. www.hispanicbiz.com/facts.htm
Hispanic
Online Latino Links
This site includes information on culture, entertainment, politics, reference materials, and other Internet sites. www.hisp.com/links.html
Latino
Link
Entertainment news, foods, and other hot topics for the Latino community can be found on this site. www.latinolink.com
UCLA’s Latino website offers a great library and links to all aspects of Latino culture. www.latino.sscnet.ucla.edu/
Gay
Men and Lesbian Women
Coalition
for Positive Sexuality
This site offers information about sexuality for teens, both homosexual and heterosexual. www.positive.org
Human
Rights Campaign
The largest national lesbian and gay political organization, the HRC envisions an America where lesbian and gay people are ensured of their basic equal rights. They lobby the federal government on gay, lesbian, and AIDS issues; educate the public; participate in election campaigns; organize volunteers; and provide expertise and training at the state and local level. This site has upcoming legislation and informational material. www.hrcusa.org/
Lesbian.org
Lesbian.org promotes lesbian visibility on the Internet, and includes political and cultural resources as well as additional links. www.lesbian.org
Lesbian
Mothers Support Society
This site includes parenting articles, children’s resources, adoption information, and other links. www.lesbian.org/lesbian-moms/
National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force
NGLTF is a national progressive organization working for the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Their site contains updated information on GLBT law and current issues. www.ngltf.org
National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force Youth Institute
The NGLTF Youth Institute offers young people the opportunity to learn the skills necessary to create change. www.youth.org/loco/ngltfyi/
Youth
Assistance Organization/Youth Action Online (YAO)
Youth Action Online is a service run by volunteers, created to help self-identifying gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning youth. YAO exists to provide young people with a safe space online to be themselves. http://youth.org/
Child
Welfare
Administration
for Children and Families (ACF)
This site provides online fact sheets that describe ACF-funded activities, projects, shelters, resource centers, community/school-based programs, Head Start, welfare reform, and much more. www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opa/facts/
Administration
for Children and Families (ACF)—Children’s Bureau
Part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the ACF Children’s Bureau provides federal reports on child maltreatment, current initiatives, and special events. www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/
American
Humane Association
American Humane Association is a network of individuals and organizations working to prevent cruelty, abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children and animals and to assure that their interests and well-being are fully, effectively, and humanely guaranteed by an aware and caring society. www.americanhumane.org
American
Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC)
APSAC would like to ensure that everyone affected by child maltreatment receives a professional response by providing scholarly and clinical materials. This site includes information on state chapters, legislation, and additional resources. www.apsac.org
Child
Abuse Prevention Network
This site is for professionals
in the field of child abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment, physical abuse,
psychological maltreatment, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse and
neglect are their key areas of concern. They provide unique and powerful tools
for all workers to support the identification, investigation, treatment,
adjudication, and prevention of child abuse and neglect. http://child.cornell.edu
Child
Trauma Academy—CIVITAS Child Trauma Programs
Central to the Child Trauma Academy is its mission to improve the systems that educate, nurture, protect, and enrich children. Current research projects, training activities, publications, and progress reports are included in this site. www.childtrauma.org
Child
Welfare League of America (CWLA)
CWLA is an association of public and private nonprofit agencies that assist abused and neglected children and families through a wide range of services. The site offers information on their programs, publications, and upcoming conferences and trainings. www.cwla.org
Institute
for Children
The Institute for Children is a foster care and adoption think tank that would like to reshape foster care and adoption in America so that every child will have the chance to grow up in a permanent, loving family. Their site includes findings based on individual states and information about legislation. www.forchildren.org
Kempe
Center
This site was designed to provide a clinically based resource for training, consultation, program development and evaluation, and research regarding all forms of child abuse and neglect. The center is committed to multidisciplinary approaches to improving the recognition, treatment, and prevention of all forms of abuse and neglect. www.kempecenter.org
Missing
and Exploited Children’s Training Programs
The Missing and Exploited Children’s Training Programs serve law enforcement, social workers, prosecutors, judges, probation officers, and elected officials. Courses are offered on many topics, including child abuse and exploitation investigative techniques; child abuse and exploitation team investigative process; child sexual exploitation; and responding to missing and abducted children. www.foxvalley.tec.wi.us/ojjdp
National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website offers success stories, educational resources, and current events. The “About Us” section has a list of topics varying from child pornography to services for law enforcement. www.missingkids.org
National
Children’s Advocacy Center
This agency provides prevention, intervention, and treatment services to physically and sexually abused children and their families within a child-focused team approach. www.ncac-hsv.org
National
Clearinghouse for Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN)
NCCAN is a national resource for professionals seeking information on child maltreatment, all aspects of child abuse and neglect, prevention identification, treatment of child abuse, and other child welfare issues. Their excellent website provides informational databases, links, and current highlights. www.calib.com/nccanch/
National
Sex Offender Registry
Child Awareness Services opened this website of accessible links to individual states’ searchable databases of registered sex offenders in the United States and other select countries. www.sexoffender.com
Prevent
Child Abuse (PCA)
PCA is a nationally recognized organization for the prevention of child abuse through media, training, and technical assistance. The site has several links/resources, along with child abuse facts and special events. www.preventchildabuse.org
Transracial
Adoption Group
The TRA Group, a national nonprofit organization, serves as a research institute for the exchange of information on domestic and international transracial adoptive placements worldwide. The TRA Group functions as the first international support and advocacy organization for transracial adoptees and their families. Its goal is to find permanent homes for the thousands of minority children currently in various child welfare systems by promoting transracial adoptive placements as a viable form of adoption. Their site includes contact information, adoption statistics, and program information. www.transracial-adoption.org
School
Issues
Children
and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD)
CHADD works to improve the lives of people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder through education, advocacy, and support. Their site offers great information on ADD and disability issues in the legislature. www.chadd.org/
Learning
Disability Resource Guide
An interactive learning disability resource guide for parents, teachers, and students, this site provides a wealth of recent articles and legislation. www.ldonline.org
Medical/Psychological
American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry would like to assist parents and families in understanding developmental, behavioral, emotional, and mental disorders affecting children and adolescents. The website includes journal information, facts, resources, and information on legislation. www.aacap.org
American
Academy of Pediatrics
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) offers materials for professionals working in the field of child abuse, including policy statements, a program on the visual diagnosis of child physical abuse, and resources for prevention, recognition, and treatment. www.aap.org
The
Arc
This organization is devoted to advocacy for all people with disabilities, originally focused on mental retardation. The site includes topics such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, managed care, fetal alcohol syndrome, and the human genome project. www.thearc.org
The
Barr-Harris Children’s Grief Center
The center offers help for children facing the pain of death, divorce, separation, or abandonment, and provides a list of books/links for school professionals, parents, and advocates who deal with children’s grief. www.barrharris.org
Childhood
and Neurodevelopment
This is a useful overview of key early childhood websites and resources prepared by the National Governor’s Association. www.nga.org/HotTopics/ECIssues.htm
The
Child Development Website
Parents, educators, caregivers, Head Start and daycare center employees, child development specialists, therapists, and students join together to share and learn about child development and how to better serve and care for our children at home, in child care, and in early education settings. www.vicinities.com/children/
Fetal
Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
This site provides information on fetal alcohol syndrome, fetal alcohol effects, and alcohol-related birth defects, as well as information on prevention methods and teaching students with these problems. www.sesa.org/fasalaska/
I
Am Your Child
The “I Am Your Child” campaign has involved the nation’s leading experts in early childhood and neurodevelopment in an ongoing effort to educate families, professionals and policymakers about the crucial role of early childhood in creating healthy children. This site has a wealth of information about early childhood and brain development. www.iamyourchild.org
Internet
Mental Health
This site contains links for common disorders, organizations, search engines, and medical sites. www.mentalhealth.com
National
Alliance for the Mentally Ill
This organization provides resources to improve the lives of people with mental illnesses and their families. Legal issues, medical information, and many other fact sheets are included in the website. www.nami.org
The
National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
This program of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers a broad range of activities, including research, training, and public information. The site includes an index of worldwide literature on PTSD. www.dartmouth.edu/dms/ptsd
Online
Medical Dictionary
This resource allows you to search for information on any medical term through a wide search and can also link you to a multilingual dictionary and a drug database. www.graylab.ac.uk/omd/index.html
Trauma
Information Pages
Dr. David Baldwin’s Trauma Pages focus primarily on emotional trauma and traumatic stress, including PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), whether following individual traumatic experience(s) or a large-scale disaster. Site includes information on trauma resources, bookstore, articles, and links. www.trauma-pages.com
Substance
Abuse
Addiction
Links Page (Directory)
This comprehensive site provides links to virtually every relevant topic on substance abuse, as well as links to fact sheets and statistics. www.drugnet.net/metaview.htm#general and this additional site is jammed packed with information www.smackfoundation.com
Bridge
to Understanding
This is the most complete resource on the web for information about programs, facilities, and schools helping young people who are not meeting expectations due to emotional, behavioral, or addiction problems. www.bridgetounderstanding.com
Center
for Substance Abuse Treatment
This site includes new forms of treatment, general information, and publications, and offers a link to area professionals. www.samhsa.gov/csat/csat.htm
Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse
Topics on this site include the economic and social costs of substance abuse and its impact on lives; what works in prevention, treatment, and law enforcement; individual and institutional responsibility for combating substance abuse and addiction; the tools helpers need to succeed; and the goal of removing the stigma of abuse and replacing shame and despair with hope. www.casacolumbia.org
National
Association of Children of Alcoholics
The mission of NACA is to advocate for all children and families affected by alcoholism and other drug dependencies. This mission drives all of their programs and materials to help children of alcoholics. www.health.org/nacoa/
National
Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information
This site includes the latest
research, facts and figures, upcoming conferences, an online catalog of
materials, and other links. www.health.org
Domestic
Violence
Family
Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF)
FVPF is a national nonprofit organization that focuses on domestic violence education, prevention, and public policy reform. This site includes fact sheets on the effects of domestic violence on children, full text articles, and other relevant links. www.igc.org/fund
The
Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse (MINCAVA)
MINCAVA operates an electronic clearinghouse that provides scholarly papers on battered spouses and their children, a searchable database on the link between child maltreatment and woman battering, and links to additional resources. www.mincava.umn.edu
Violence
Against Women Resources
This site includes documents that address provisions of the Violence Against Women Act; issues related to child custody and protection; the overlap between child maltreatment and abuse of women; and child witnesses of domestic violence. www.vaw.umn.edu
Other
Issues
Adolescence
Directory Online (ADOL)
This electronic guide provides information regarding adolescent issues and secondary education, including mental health risk factors for adolescents. www.education.indiana.edu/cas/adol/mental.html
Connect
for Kids
Connect for Kids is a virtual encyclopedia of information for adults who want to make communities a better place for kids. Most topics include information on substance abuse, schools, and media issues. www.connectforkids.org
Facts
for Families
Facts for Families offers information for parents and families on issues affecting children and adolescents, such as depression, teen suicide, step-family problems, and child sexual abuse. www.aacap.org/info_families/index.htm
Juvenile
Firesetting Intervention Resource Site
The goal of this site is to prevent youth fire tragedy through education, intervention, and mental health support, and to facilitate the exchange of information on the topic of youth firesetting. www.sosfires.com
KidSource
Online
This information service for parents and educators who focus on health, education, and recreation includes useful books, articles on learning disabilities, and links. www.kidsource.com
National
Association of Social Workers (NASW)
NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its
members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound
social policies. www.naswdc.org
Youth
and Family Directory
Search this directory to find youth and family programs and services in your own neighborhood and nationwide. www.youthtreeusa.com