YSO Insights serves two audiences with a shared purpose: keeping children safe and helping them thrive. For administrators and staff of youth-serving organizations, that means evidence-based guidance on child protection policy, mandated reporting, screening, and investigations. For Plan B parents — foster, adoptive, kinship, stepparents, and blended families — it means honest, practical guidance from people who have been there. For both, it means evidence-based ideas to encourage resilience and protect futures.
I once told one of my foster daughters something my grandmother had told me years earlier. She got quiet for a minute. Then she admitted that it had been so long since she’d seen her own grandmother that she’d forgotten what her face looked like....
Debbie Ausburn · July 23, 2026
Read Post →
I spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to figure out what my foster children were doing wrong, and what I was doing wrong, before I started asking a different question. The question wasn’t why they were behaving badly. It was why their…
June 26 is PTSD Awareness Day, but your legal obligations extend well beyond PTSD. When a child with any mental health diagnosis enrolls in your program and you see associated behavioral problems, the ADA governs what your organization must do next. It sets specific rules…
Recent revelations that a Maine US Senate candidate had an account on Kik, described by NBC as a “notorious chat app,” once again highlight the need for adults to protect children from the very real dangers of social media. In particular, Kik —where users can chat anonymously…
Juneteenth is one of those holidays I am never quite sure how to honor. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and told the last remaining enslaved people that the war was over and they were free. It was a remarkable moment…
Monday’s post covered what the research says about stress tolerance in children: that it is a learnable capacity, that adult relationships are the primary buffer between tolerable and toxic stress, and that youth programs directly influence the conditions that build it. This post covers what…
May I remind you—–it’s okay! Whatever it is that you are feeling, thinking, fearing, hating, or loving I want to offer you a reassurance in the fight towards resilience by saying–it is okay! We all need to hear this. May we all read it, speak it,…
Youth program staff spend a lot of time trying to reduce stress for the children in their care. That instinct is understandable, and within limits, correct. But a growing body of developmental research suggests the real goal should not be to minimize stress. We should…
Walking down that jam-packed aisle in a waving, senior gown with a dancing-tassel and blue, tilted graduation cap awkwardly angled at the side, wearing probably mismatched socks and semi-formal, semi-cool attire, I will see my son. In less than ten short years, he will be…
Most of the parents who walk into your office to complain about a staff member are not looking for a fight. They are scared, hurt, or confused about what their child told them, and they came to you because they trust that you take their…
Somewhere in the stack of training materials, agency handouts, therapist recommendations, and well-meaning advice you’ve collected as a foster parent, adoptive parent, or stepparent, there is research. Some of it has shaped how you think about your child. Some of it has shaped what you’ve…
You built your program to be a place where children thrive. Your staff show up every day because they care about kids. None of that protects you from one of the hardest realities in youth program work: children sometimes harm other children, and the conditions…
National Aging Out of Foster Care Awareness Day falls on May 31, and it is one of the observances I find hardest to let pass without saying something. Not because the statistics are new to me (though they remain stunning), but because the question underneath…