Overview
By ensuring the highest standard of quality care and best
practices in child welfare and filling the gaps in services
available to children at risk, Catalyst for CARE seeks to ensure
that every child has the resources a caring parent would
provide.
Project Transition
Project Transition provides critical support services for youth
who are aging out of foster care and transitioning to
independent adulthood. The average American child becomes
financially independent at age 27, but many youth in foster care
find themselves completely on their own at a much younger age
when they leave the foster care system at age 18. Project
Transition is designed to close the gap in services to these
youth and support them in a successful transition to independent
adulthood. Each year, the
Celebration of Excellence recognizes over 400
foster youth in Georgia who have overcome tremendous obstacles
to graduate from high school, college, and G. E. D. programs. At
this event, we award Excellence in Education college scholarships to youth who are
continuing on to college and vocational programs. Our
Lifeline program provides
emergency financial assistance to youth who are experiencing
crisis with housing, transportation, medical expenses, and other
urgent needs. The LINC (Leveraging, Impacting, Networking, Championing) mentoring
program is a career-based mentoring program that matches youth
aging out of foster care with community volunteers and caring
adults as a source of support.
Our Professional Development program provides an array of
training, networking, and credentialing opportunities for child
welfare professionals, foster parents, and volunteers. We host
two annual conferences each year. The
Catalyst for CARE Annual Conference
is designed for staff of service provider
agencies and provides continuing education on best practices in
service provision. The
Annual Child Placement Conference is a
multi-disciplinary conference that brings together private
providers, public child welfare and juvenile justice case
managers, juvenile court judges and attorneys, law enforcement,
foster parents, volunteers, and youth in foster care.
Attended by over 500 individuals, this conference is the state’s largest
multi-disciplinary child welfare training. Our weekly
Training program
provides half and full day training opportunities for those who
work in child welfare. Every other month, we host a
Licensing Orientation for those who are interested in
becoming child welfare providers in Georgia.
Through the
National Center for Professional Certification,
we provide certification for child welfare professionals who
adhere to the highest standards of best practice in service
provision.
Welfare Watch
Our Welfare Watch and other
child welfare information newsletters provide the latest
information on happenings in child welfare, industry trends, and
state policy and regulatory issues as they relate to child
welfare, juvenile justice, and mental health. Click here
to subscribe to Welfare Watch.
Referral Central
Referral Central is an online searchable database of
services for at-risk children and families in Georgia.
