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The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to award one cooperative agreement to develop a state-of-the-art foster/adoptive parent training program to include intensive preparation and development components that reflect the capacities required of successful foster/adoptive parents. This is intended to be a product that could be utilized by all states, tribes, and territories and consistently applied wherever implemented. Development of this program would include research on the common characteristics of individuals and their foster/adoptive families that have succeeded in terms of well-being and stability. Common characteristics of families that are more likely to foster and/or adopt harder to place children/youth and are successful and remain committed to the relationship will be identified and integrated into the program. The program would be inclusive of development, training, and capacity needs of individuals/families that are interested in becoming foster parents, as well as those who are interested in fostering with the intention to eventually adopt; therefore many concepts would be in common for foster and adoptive parents. There would be particular focus for foster parents on working on reunification efforts with birth parents and for adoption there would be particular focus on the common adoption issues pertinent to all types of adoption, i.e., child welfare, private domestic, and international. The initial year would entail an extensive review of all current training and preparation programs and include new intervention strategies that foster/adoptive parents should be skilled in as they develop as foster and adoptive parents. The initial year would also involve the basic development of the new intensive training modules.

The Brookdale Foundation is accepting applications for its Relatives as Parents program. Established in 1996, the program aims to develop or expand services for grandparents or other relatives who have taken on the responsibility of surrogate parenting when the biological parents are unable to do so. Through the program, up to fifteen programs will receive seed grants of up to $15,000 to start a new program or expand current services in response to caregiver needs. Services and assistance to relative caregivers and the children in their care must include regular ongoing support, educational or social groups, and at least two of the following: benefits and legal guidance, educational seminars, individual and/or family counseling, health care services, childcare, housing assistance, children's services, group recreational activities, transportation assistance, services to special populations, services with local schools, or mental health services.

When children are placed in out-of-home care (also called foster care), it is important that child welfare agencies find safe, permanent homes for them as quickly as possible. In many circumstances, children can be reunited with their families, but in some cases, children find homes with relatives or adoptive families. Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs) have consistently found that many child welfare systems need to improve their adoption work, as evidenced by their difficulty in achieving substantial conformity on permanency outcomes. These shortcomings include failure to make concerted efforts towards timely permanency for adoption and preserving family connections; inadequate engagement of parents, children and youth in case planning; limited and ineffective service provision; insufficient frequency and duration of child visitations/parenting time; punitive uses of visitation/parenting time; delays in establishing the goal of adoption; a lack of meaningful concurrent planning; and lengthy appeal processes for contested termination of parental rights. These permanency outcomes relate to basic social work, legal, and judicial practices that impact adoption outcomes and also have effects on the safety and well-being of children in care. The purpose of this funding opportunity is to award up to five 5-year cooperative agreements for the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies that focus on better adoption outcomes by improving basic social work, legal, and judicial practice in order to eliminate systemic barriers to: adoption; preventing entry into foster care; and other forms of permanency. Due to the intersection of permanency, safety, and well-being, an effective system reform effort focused on improving adoption outcomes by improving concurrent planning and reducing time to permanency will also require attention to safety and well-being outcomes.

The Brookdale Foundation Group works to advance the fields of geriatrics and gerontology and to improve the lives of senior citizens. The Foundation's Relatives as Parents Program provides support for the creation or expansion of services for grandparents and other relatives who have taken on the responsibility of surrogate parenting when the biological parents are unable to do so. Funded programs must include supportive services to relative caregivers and the children they are raising, with emphasis on families that are not in the formal foster care system. Programs must also include regular ongoing support, and educational or social groups for relative caregivers and the children in their care. Up to 15 programs will receive a seed grant of $15,000 ($10,000 and $5,000 respectively), contingent on progress made during year one and potential for continuity in the future. Nonprofit organizations from throughout the country are eligible to apply. (State agencies in selected states may also apply.) The application deadline is June 13, 2018. Visit the Brookdale Foundation Group's website to download the guidelines and application forms.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to establish, by awarding a cooperative agreement, one Quality Improvement Center (QIC) to develop a model program to assess and address the array of individual and collective needs of birth families to support timely, stable, and lasting family reunification and family well-being. The model program will: Create systemic change through intentional policy, practice, and culture shifts of agency and service provider staff that promote comprehensive, holistic family-centered reunification services and supports; align with the premise that foster care and foster families should serve as a support, not a substitute for parents and biological families; implement strategies and interventions that promote foster family and birth family engagement, mentoring, and support; provide for maintaining children's important connections and for children and youth's normalcy while in foster care; and engage local communities in developing a comprehensive array of services and localized family supports that allow families to build protective factors and thrive within their communities of origin. The QIC will install, implement, and evaluate the model program in 4-6 local sites. The QIC will incorporate information learned through a literature review, a pool of technical assistance (TA) experts, and the input of birth parents, foster parents, youth, courts, and community service providers/support organizations throughout development and implementation of project activities.

The PAF program provides support for States and tribes to develop and implement programs to improve the educational, health, and social outcomes for expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers and their families. The PAF program provides funding to States and tribes to establish, maintain, or operate life-affirming services for expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers and their families in high schools, community service centers, and Institutions of Higher Education.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Head Start (OHS) announces the availability of approximately $5,900,000 to be competitively awarded for the purpose of operating a National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement (NC PFCE). The NC PFCE will provide training and technical assistance (TTA) that reflects current evidence, is research-informed and promotes best practices. The NC PFCE will strengthen professional development outcomes for staff and improve outcomes for children and families enrolled in Head Start and/or Early Head Start programs. The NC PFCE TTA efforts will lead to improved family outreach and recruitment; improved family well-being; expanded family engagement in children's learning and development; and enhanced community partnerships that support families. Because of the complex work the NC PFCE will conduct, the grantee will be expected to bring together knowledgeable subrecipients within the fields of human services, early childhood, social work, mental health, parenting, leadership, and family economic mobility.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will fund a Quality Improvement Center (QIC) that will support demonstration sites that establish or enhance collaborative community court teams to design, implement and test approaches to meet the requirements of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 2010 as amended by the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 (CARA) and that better meet the needs of infants and families affected by substance use disorder and prenatal substance exposure. This FOA is intended to build on and enhance the basic collaborative approach offered by the Quality Improvement Center for Research-Based Infant Toddler Court Teams (QIC-ITCT) to specifically address the needs of infants, young children, and their parents or caregivers affected by substance use disorder. The FOA is intended to produce sustainable approaches and strategies that will be useful nationally in addressing this epidemic.The QIC must support demonstration sites in assessing their current capacity to collaboratively address the health and substance use disorder treatment needs of infants, young children and their parents or caregivers, and create or enhance a continuous quality improvement approach for ensuring that local entities work effectively across systems and best understand whether and in what manner they are providing services in accordance with CARA's state requirements. The demonstration sites must involve intensive collaboration among the child welfare agency, Court Improvement Program, local courts, legal community, substance abuse treatment providers, preventative service providers, mental health providers, medical providers, and other key stakeholders.

The Office of Planning Research and Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to award up to ten cooperative agreements to fund research to conduct secondary data analysis of archived data, specifically the Building Strong Families (BSF), Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM), and Parents and Children Together (PACT) datasets. These datasets are from large-scale federal evaluation impact studies, which addressed questions related to healthy marriage and/or responsible fatherhood. Successful applicants will demonstrate a familiarity with the proposed data for their analysis and an adequate understanding of the variables, sampling, methodology, etc. used to construct the dataset necessary for completion of the work proposed in the application. Proposed research should address topics relevant to strengthening families to improve the lives of children and parents, as well as promote economic stability. Topics of interest include, but may not be limited to the following: mediators of healthy marriage, relationship education, and/or fatherhood programs; measurement issues related to healthy marriage, relationship education and/or fatherhood programs with low-income families; or father involvement in low-income families. .

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to award up to ten cooperative agreements to fund research to conduct secondary data analysis of archived data, specifically the Building Strong Families (BSF), Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM), and Parents and Children Together (PACT) datasets. These datasets are from large-scale federal evaluation impact studies, which addressed questions related to healthy marriage and/or responsible fatherhood. Successful applicants will demonstrate a familiarity with the proposed data for their analysis and an adequate understanding of the variables, sampling, methodology, etc. used to construct the dataset necessary for completion of the work proposed in the application. Proposed research should address topics relevant to strengthening families to improve the lives of children and parents, as well as promote economic stability. Topics of interest include, but may not be limited to the following: mediators of healthy marriage, relationship education, and/or fatherhood programs; measurement issues related to healthy marriage, relationship education, and/or fatherhood programs with low-income families; or father involvement in low-income families. .

The NIH Research Project Grant supports a discrete, specified, circumscribed project in areas representing the specific interests and competencies of the investigator(s). This Parent Funding Opportunity Announcement is for basic science experimental studies involving humans, referred to in NOT-OD-18-212 as prospective basic science studies involving human participants. These studies fall within the NIH definition of a clinical trial and also meet the definition of basic research. Types of studies that should submit under this FOA include studies that prospectively assign human participants to conditions (i.e., experimentally manipulate independent variables) and that assess biomedical or behavioral outcomes in humans for the purpose of understanding the fundamental aspects of phenomena without specific application towards processes or products in mind. Studies conducted with specific applications toward processes or products in mind should submit under the appropriate Clinical Trials Required FOA. The proposed project must be related to the programmatic interests of one or more of the participating NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) based on their scientific missions.

The NIH Research Project Grant supports a discrete, specified, circumscribed project in areas representing the specific interests and competencies of the investigator(s). This Parent Funding Opportunity Announcement requires that at least 1 clinical trial be proposed. The proposed project must be related to the programmatic interests of one or more of the participating NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) based on their scientific missions. Applicants should note that some ICs (see Related Notices) only accept applications proposing mechanistic studies that meet NIH's definition of a clinical trial through this funding opportunity announcement.

he CCAMPIS Program supports the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education through provision of campus-based child care services. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number 84.335A. Applications for grants under the CCAMPIS Program, CFDA number 84.335A, must be submitted electronically using the Governmentwide Grants.gov Apply site at www.Grants.gov.

Society for Research in Child Development Patrice L. Engle Dissertation Grant for Global Early Child Development The Patrice L. Engle Dissertation Grant provides support for students interested in a career in global early child development who are from or doing research in low- or middle-income countries. The Grant includes US $5,000 to support dissertation research and a 2-year student membership to SRCD. Applicant Eligibility and Responsibility 1. Dissertation research in global early child development with a one-year Grant for $5,000. The developmental focus of the research should include children, prenatal to 6 years of age living in low- or middle- income countries, as defined by the World Bank.  Potential topics could include (but not limited to): The effectiveness of different models of parenting support on early child development. Examination of how child care programs promote child development and family involvement. The effectiveness of 2-generation programs that provide maternal and child support. Innovative strategies to integrate programs that promote early child development with health or nutritional services for young children. Innovative strategies to integrate child development interventions with social protection services or programs to promote maternal mental health or education. Innovative strategies to involve fathers and other extended family members in early child development programs. Development of measurement strategies, indicators, and assessment tools for children and family interactions that can be implemented with reliability in low resource settings. Strategies for effective scale-up of demonstration programs.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is soliciting applications for the establishment of a Responsible Fatherhood Research Network. A lead entity that receives the award will oversee a multi-year plan that aims to disseminate information about good fatherhood parenting practices by building research and practice knowledge and capacity; leading and supporting further development and evaluation of evidence- or theory-based interventions to increase positive father involvement in the lives of their children; and increasing collaboration, knowledge sharing, and capacity building among investigators and practitioners. The Network will be expected to have a primary focus on economically disadvantaged fathers and families and other under studied population groups. The Network also will be expected to develop and disseminate research products and resources to facilitate knowledge sharing among multi-disciplinary researchers and among investigators, practitioners, program officials and policymakers.

RGK Foundation awards grants in the broad areas of Education, Community, and Health/Medicine. The Foundation's primary interests within Education include programs that focus on formal K-12 education (particularly mathematics, science and reading), teacher development, literacy, and higher education. Within Community, the Foundation supports a broad range of human services, community improvement, abuse prevention, and youth development programs. Human service programs of particular interest to the Foundation include children and family services, early childhood development, and parenting education. The Foundation supports a variety of Community Improvement programs including those that enhance non-profit management and promote philanthropy and voluntarism. Youth development programs supported by the Foundation typically include after-school educational enrichment programs that supplement and enhance formal education systems to increase the chances for successful outcomes in school and life. The Foundation is also interested in programs that attract female and minority students into the fields of mathematics, science, and technology. The Foundation's current interests in the area of Health/Medicine include programs that promote the health and well-being of children, programs that promote access to health services, and Foundation-initiated programs focusing on ALS.

The Lesbian Health Fund (LHF), a program of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality, was established in 1992 to define, study, and educate lesbians and their health care providers about lesbian health issues. LHF's mission is to improve the health of lesbians, other sexual minority women (SMW) and their families through research. Research areas include: Understanding social, family, and interpersonal influences as sources of stress or support Eliminating inequalities in health care, including barriers to care, and improving quality of care and utilization rates Development and testing of interventions to address mental and physical health needs of lesbians and other SMW, including but not limited to depression, identity related issues, eating disorders, substance abuse, obesity, cancer risks, cardiovascular disease and sexually transmitted infections Sexual and reproductive health, including family & parenting issues The deadlines for receipt of applications are May 15 and October 15.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) plans to solicit applications for Child Care Policy Research Partnership grants. These four-year cooperative agreements will be conducted through partnerships between CCDF Lead Agencies in states, territories, or tribes and researchers from institutions of higher education, research organizations, and other eligible organizations. Applications are invited from CCDF Lead Agencies, institutions of higher education, research organizations, and other organizations with proven expertise conducting policy research. The work supported by this grant program should be collaborative from start to finish. Specifically, the CCDF Lead Agency and their research partners need to work together throughout all phases of the project. Child Care Policy Research Partnership grantees will be expected to pursue research questions of national and state relevance. Therefore, grantees are encouraged to include other local and state child care stakeholders. These projects are intended to add to our knowledge about the efficacy of child care subsidy policies and quality improvement initiatives that support employment and self-sufficiency outcomes for parents, increase low-income families' access to high quality child care programs, and promote positive learning and school readiness outcomes for children. Examples of priority questions include, but are not limited to: effects of policy changes since the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014, supports for family child care providers, consumer education, licensing and monitoring, and efforts to build the supply of high-quality care. Funding is subject to availability of funds and the best interests of the federal government.

This program will fund project sites to develop a community-based, multidisciplinary, comprehensive approach to responding to youth with sexual behavior problems, their child victims, and their families as well as a training and technical assistance provider to support project sites in developing intervention models. The purpose of this program is to prevent sexual reoffending, promote healing, and provide services for victims and families. The program will focus on interfamilial and/or coresidential child victims and youth with problematic sexual behaviors. Examples of these types of sexual behaviors include, but are not limited to, sexual contact between children who do not know each other well (i.e., foster home or institutional setting); sexual contact between children of different ages, sizes, and developmental levels; aggressive or coerced sexual contact; sexual contact that causes harm to the child or others; and sexual contact that causes another child to be highly upset and/or fearful. Applicants should propose comprehensive, evidence-based intervention strategies for serving both the child victim(s) and the youth with sexual behavior problems and their parents/caregivers.

THE ADMINISTRATION for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families' Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) announces the availability of funds under the Transitional Living Program (TLP) and Maternity Group Home (MGH). THE PURPOSE of FYSB’s TLP and MGH grant programs are to implement, enhance, and/or support effective strategies for successful transition to sustainable living for runaway and homeless youth ages 16 to under 22 and/or pregnant and parenting youth ages 16 to under 22 and their dependent child(ren). Both projects must provide safe, stable, and appropriate shelter for 18 months and, under extenuating circumstances, can be extended to 21 months and provide comprehensive services that supports the transition of homeless youth to self-sufficiency and stable, independent living. Through the provision of shelter and an array of comprehensive services, TLP youth will realize improvements in four core outcome areas (i.e., safe and stable housing, education/employment, permanent connections, and social and emotional well-being.) GRANTS AWARDED under this announcement will have a start date of May 1, 2018 and the project period will be 41 months. The initial award will be for 17 months and run from May 1, 2018 through September 29, 2019.