Kin-First Courtrooms Resource Library

New resources are added regularly. Please share resource recommendations with us. 

Visit the Why Kinship Caregiving page to learn more about the benefits of kinship and how to build KinFirst culture in the courtroom. 

Visit the Engaging Families and Youth page to find materials about engaging families and youth, and family search and engagement resources. 

Visit the Resources for Families page to find kinship care resources for families and youth. 

Visit the Legal and Policy page to find material on legal guidance, bench cards, quality hearings, best and reasonable efforts. 

Welcome to the Kin-First Resource Library

I would like to welcome you to the Kinnect to Family Resource Library.  Inside this library, you will find a wide variety of family resources, practical courtroom assistance tools, research, and publications, all addressing the benefits of kinship placements for youth and families.

As youth and families enter the juvenile court or child welfare systems, families, courts, and service providers are oftentimes faced with the difficult task of locating suitable placement options for children.  Actively exploring and ordering kinship placements, provides a variety of demonstrated benefits for children and families. Maintaining family connections, providing greater stability, and reducing placement changes are all examples of benefits that can be derived from kinship placements. I have seen firsthand the positive impact which can occur when parents and youth see and hear that efforts are being made both inside and outside of the courtroom to maintain a family and kinship connection. Pursuing kinship care can be a strong step towards permanency for children and families.

Judical peer image

I encourage you to review and utilize the information within the resource library. Even better, I encourage you, when appropriate, to consider pursuing kinship placement when the opportunity may be available.

Judge David E. Woessner

Wood County Probate and Juvenile Courts

Join us in this work!

Sign up here to receive e-mail updates about this project and even join a committee if you'd like. If you have any questions, please contact Alyse Almadani at alyse.almadani@kinnectohio.org.