How to Use Adolescent Brain Research to Improve Your Legal Practice

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released a new report titled “Aligning Child Welfare Practice With Adolescent Brain Development.” This guide describes how adults who work with youth in foster care can better ensure that youth will reach self-sufficiency and successful adulthood. It contains information regarding brain development, brain growth spurts that occur well into a person's twenties, and differences in brain development by gender. This report then explains how to utilize this information to address the needs of foster care in a trauma-informed way to ensure that youths’ needs are met so that they can transition successfully into adulthood.

Cathy Krebs is the director of the Section of Litigation's Children’s Rights Litigation Committee in Washington, D.C.

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