Professional Development

Recorded Webinars

ESSA Essentials Webinars

2024 Education for Students in Foster Care Check-Ins

Learn more about the ongoing efforts of colleagues across Pennsylvania to ensure educational stability for children and youth in foster care. You will hear from your state education and human services points of contact on program updates and previews.

2022 Foster Care Point of Contact Mid-Year Check-In

Hear about reminders, updates, and available tools to support school stability for students in foster care. Learn from each other by sharing challenges, successes, and strategies. Gain an understanding of efforts to ensure educational stability for students in foster care throughout Pennsylvania. Learn about new resources from the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law.

To and Through: Creating Conditions that Support Higher Education Success for Youth with Experience in Foster Care

Hear from members of the Pennsylvania Youth Advisory Board (YAB) about their journey to and through higher education. The Pennsylvania YAB is comprised of current and former youth in foster care, ages 14-21. YAB youth leaders educate, advocate, and form partnerships to create positive change in the substitute care system. This training will feature a moderated panel of YAB alumni discussing their experiences transitioning to higher education as well as how educators and child welfare professionals can create conditions that support youth with experience in foster care to and through higher education. The webinar will also highlight key information pertaining to Pennsylvania’s new Fostering Independence Tuition Waiver Program (FosterEd). Act 48 and NASW credits are available for those attending the webinar in its entirety.

Making Quality Best Interest Determinations: Implementation of BIDs during COVID and Beyond

Four years into the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act’s protections for students in foster care, we have made great strides but ongoing efforts and planning are needed to successfully implement school stability policies to support students in foster care. This session features an in-depth discussion of the Best Interest Determination (BID) process, including an overview of tools to help schools and child welfare agencies collaborate around these important decisions, review of BID best practices by school district and child welfare agency points of contact, and discussion on COVID-19’s effect on BIDs and ways to help students in foster care now and in the upcoming school year.

Employing Self-Compassion and Relationship Building to Address Trauma in Youth

“Trauma-Informed PA: A Plan to Make Pennsylvania a Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered State” was released July 2020 by the Office of Advocacy and Reform. The plan presents a continuum starting with becoming trauma aware and moving toward being a healing-centered state. This presentation will utilize the continuum presented in the plan to address relationship strategies when working with youth, as well as strategies to move from compassion fatigue to compassion resilience to assist adults who are working with youth who have experienced trauma.

Begin the Journey: The Pennsylvania Department of Education Equitable Practices Hub

The Pennsylvania Department of Education released the Equitable Practices Hub in September 2020. The hub is organized by six equity pillars of practice: 1) General Equity Practices, 2) Self-Awareness, 3) Data Practices, 4) Family and Community Engagement, 5) Academic Equity, and 6) Disciplinary Equity. This session will provide an overview of the hub and the importance of equity in Pennsylvania schools.

Creating and Exploring Local Tools to Ensure Educational Stability for Youth in Foster Care

Attendees will explore tools and procedures created locally to aid in the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act’s foster care provisions. Discover why these local tools help to ensure educational stability for youth in foster care and take away ideas to create new procedures or to integrate into existing practices. Attendees will also learn how the Educational Stability Regional Foster Care Offices can assist local education agencies and county children and youth agencies in reaching their goals to provide educational stability.

ESSA’s Foster Care Provisions 101

In this webinar attendees will be provided with an overview of the protections LEAs and child welfare agencies must provide to youth in foster care to ensure educational stability. The presenter will also review the history and implementation of ESSA’s foster care provisions in Pennsylvania as well as introduce best practices regarding implementation.

The Every Student Succeeds Act: Educational Stability for Foster Care Youth in Pennsylvania — Local Points of Contact Responsibilities

This webinar reviews and reinforces the responsibilities and best practice expectations of Pennsylvania local education agency foster care points of contact for ensuring the educational stability for foster care youth, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015.

Ensuring Educational Stability for Children in Foster Care: Transportation Procedures

Signed into law on December 10, 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and includes new provisions for children in foster care that complement requirements in the Fostering Connections Act of 2008. These provisions take effect on December 10, 2016. (You can learn more about these new provisions and what they mean for states, districts, and schools through joint guidance released on June 23, 2016, from the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services.)