Children’s Home Society of North Carolina

The Children's Home Society of North Carolina (CHSNC) provides a range of services to youth, with an emphasis on child welfare. EMCF's investment will support two of these services: the Family Finding and Wise Guys programs. The first is an intensive intervention to identify and engage family members and other resources in the lives of youth who are in or aging out of foster care. Family Finding staff is specially trained, carry small caseloads (about five) and spend three to four months working with each youth. A focus group of NC Division of Social Services personnel described Family Finding staff as “detectives” able to learn things about family members that social workers had not uncovered in all the time they worked with a youngster.

Wise Guys is a 12-session teen pregnancy prevention program that informs middle-school males about appropriate sexual behavior, including abstinence and contraception, as well as communication and healthy relationships.

Evaluation Status: High-Apparent (Family Finding Program); Proven (Wise Guys Program)

The Family Finding program seeks to reduce foster care placements and substantiated claims of abuse and neglect while in foster care. CHS is currently participating in a random assignment evaluation, conducted by Child Trends, to determine the impacts of Family Finding services. The evaluation pools participants served by CHS with those served by the North Carolina Division of Social Services. Interim results will be available in 2012, and final results in 2013.

The Wise Guys teen pregnancy prevention curriculum is delivered in middle schools and community centers with parental consent. A random assignment study by UNC Greensboro was completed in 2011 and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of School Health. It reported greater knowledge of sex and reproductive biology and STD transmission, and higher rates of desirable attitudes toward sex and appropriate sexual behavior.

EMCF Investment

EMCF has approved a three-year investment in Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, with a first-year award of $2 million, to expand two innovative youth-serving programs -- Family Finding and Wise Guys -- throughout North Carolina. Awards in years two and three, which are contingent on grantee performance and renewal of federal SIF funding, will provide up to $4 million, for an overall investment of up to $6 million over three years.

For information on what this grant will support, see Details of 2012-2014 Investment.

To learn more about Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, visit www.chsnc.org.

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