YSO Insights serves two audiences with a shared purpose: keeping children safe and helping them thrive. For administrators and staff of youth-serving organizations, that means evidence-based guidance on child protection policy, mandated reporting, screening, and investigations. For Plan B parents — foster, adoptive, kinship, stepparents, and blended families — it means honest, practical guidance from people who have been there. For both, it means evidence-based ideas to encourage resilience and protect futures.
For many families, September 11th brings back fear, loss, and disbelief. Adults who watched the towers fall often relive that morning every year, even decades later. Foster, adoptive, and stepfamily parents recognize this pattern from a different angle. Our children have hard anniversaries of their...
Donna Caudell · September 10, 2026
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Tom Rawlings and I will be presenting “Planning Now for a Crisis” at CAFO’s 2026 Summit, September 23-25. This post hits the highlights of what we’ll be presenting, but we hope you’ll be able to discuss the topic with us in person in Atlanta. A crisis does…
The first weeks of school went fine. Better than fine. Then, somewhere along the way, everything changed. The easygoing kid who did homework without complaint now fights bedtime, melts down over math worksheets, and talks back to the teacher who was “the best” a few…
Many youth safety trainings tell organizations to keep two adults present with any child. The rule is a good one when an organization can staff it, but not many organizations can do that. The rule also breaks down fast for a mentoring program or a…
September 4 is Lazy Mom’s Day. I don’t love the name, because nothing about raising a child from a hard place is lazy, even on the days we do less. But I like the permission behind the day. Plan B parents feel a particular version of…
September is National Kinship Care Month. It recognizes caregivers who parent relatives’ children, a group that gets far less attention than foster or adoptive families, even in child welfare circles that specialize in this work. I spent several years fostering my foster/adopted child’s child. That sentence…
As summer programs wind down and school-year programs ramp up, many organizations have a natural pause between training cycles. That pause is the best time to audit what your training accomplishes, not just whether it happened. Many youth-serving organizations train staff once or at most…
In one month, we go live with “You Understand the Trauma. Now What?,” our free webinar for foster, adoptive, kinship, and stepparents. We’ll cover what trauma actually does to a child’s development, emotions, and thinking. The behavior you’re seeing is usually not the real problem,…
Earlier this week, I presented a poster at the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN)‘s 2026 World Congress, three days of sessions with people doing child protection work in dozens of countries. A few themes kept surfacing no matter who was…
I used to think praise was the one parenting tool that couldn’t hurt anybody. Tell a kid he’s smart. Tell her she’s talented. What’s the downside? It turns out there is one, and it hurts exactly the kids who need encouragement the most. Two Kinds…
If your field trip permission slip just says “permission to attend,” you are both missing an opportunity and taking on unnecessary risk. A permission slip is not a formality. It is a working document that protects children, informs parents, and gives your organization a clear…
On September 29, we’re hosting a free live training on trauma-informed parenting for foster, adoptive, kinship, and stepparents. We named it You Understand the Trauma. Now What? because understanding why a child struggles and knowing what to do about it in the moment are two…
Starting back to school can be both exciting and frightening, particularly for Plan B families. It is normal for students to experience a period of strong emotions, both positive and negative, as the school year begins. Trauma can add an extra layer to that stress….