Few mechanisms exist to support successful collaboration between public schools and child welfare agencies. One unfortunate consequence is that the children ostensibly being served by either system often end up receiving inadequate services from both systems. Focus groups were held with caseworkers, educators, and students to learn how the two systems can work more collaboratively. This article reports on the barriers and successful practices identified by the participants that affect the educational functioning of students living in foster care. The article concludes with the participants' recommendations for practices and policies to improve collaborative efforts between the two systems.

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Social workers are becoming increasingly aware of the unique experiences faced by children of incarcerated parents. Little is known, however, about their experiences prior to their parents being incarcerated. Using data from a broader study of incarcerated women, we examined women's accounts of their children's exposure to violence prior to maternal incarceration. Open-ended interviews addressed family and relationship history, physical and psychological victimization, lifetime delinquency and crime, and interactions with service and justice systems. Interviews were analyzed using ATLAS/ti software and a grounded-theory approach. The emergent themes revealed a myriad of consequences experienced by the children, including child witnessing of violence, emotional sequelae, bodily harm from abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and birth defects from prenatal violence. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

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