About the QIC

Multi ethnic group of alternative friends using digital tablet and smart phone outdoors on city street.The National Quality Improvement Center (QIC) on Tailored Services, Placement Stability, and Permanency for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S) Children and Youth in Foster Care has been established in collaboration with the Children’s Bureau (CB), to develop, integrate, and sustain best practices and programs that improve outcomes for children and youth in foster care with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions (SOGIE). The QIC-LGBTQ2S is led by the Institute for Innovation & Implementation at the University of Maryland School of Social Work in Baltimore along with participating core partners: Human Service Collaborative; Judge Baker Children’s Center; and Youth M.O.V.E. National.

Aims

The QIC-LGBTQ2S has selected four Local Implementation Sites (LIS): Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, Cuyahoga County in Ohio, the state of Michigan, and Prince George’s County in Maryland. LIS will identify, select, adapt, implement, and evaluate evidence-based, evidence-informed, and/or promising programs and interventions that address the unique needs of children and youth with diverse SOGIE in foster care. Services, supports, and interventions provided will be comprehensive, culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and aimed at enhancing individualized services for children and youth with diverse SOGIE in foster care, the skills and abilities of caregivers of children and youth with diverse SOGIE (foster, kinship, and families of origin), the child welfare workforce, contracted providers, and/or system partners.

Each LIS, in partnership with the QIC-LGBTQ2S and the CB, will strive to improve placement stability, well-being, and permanency of youth with diverse SOGIE in foster care by:

  • creating safe and welcoming environments for children and youth with diverse SOGIE to self-identify;
  • enhancing assessment methods and processes that are strength-based, culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and that safeguard confidentiality (including data collection);
  • providing culturally responsive, individualized, accessible, and tailored evidence-based or evidence-informed services to meet the specific needs of the children and youth with diverse SOGIE in foster care;
  • establishing and implementing permanency innovations for those not reunified with families of origin; and, increasing knowledge, skills, and competence of and responsivity by the child welfare workforce, providers, and caregivers (foster and non-foster families and providers in congregate care settings) of children and youth with diverse SOGIE.

Application Process

The application process is now closed, and all LIS have been chosen. See below for more information on the process completed by all applicants and related tools:

Eligible applicants included state governments, county governments, Native American tribal governments, and private agencies responsible for administering the child welfare/foster care program throughout their jurisdiction. The competition was limited to the named entities because the purpose of these grants is to improve well-being, stability, and permanency of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S) youth in foster care and grantees themselves needed the access and authority to assess and make changes in child welfare agencies.

Applicants submitted proposals detailing how the primary applicant would coordinate and evaluate its evidence-based, evidenced-informed, or promising practices, programs, and interventions; maintain continuous quality improvement; and sustain reporting requirements with the QIC-LGBTQ2S. In addition, applicants were required to show multilevel support from agency and government leadership.

Application Materials