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Building Bridges to Improve Mental Health

The National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services aims to improve mental health outcomes for children and families impacted by child welfare by providing technical assistance that bridges the gap between child welfare and mental health systems.

Learn more about the National Center and our goals.
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Knowledge Hub

Our Knowledge Hub is the adoption competence capacity-building repository for child welfare and mental health professionals. Explore evidence-informed trainings, best practices, models of intervention and more resources to expand your adoption competent services.
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National Directory of Therapists

Access a nationwide network of adoption competent mental health therapists. The individuals listed in this Directory have successfully completed the training required by TAC and/or NTI.
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Capacity Building Services

Tailored and responsive technical assistance built around the needs and goals of your State, Tribe, or territory and intended to improve collaboration, enhance workforce competency, and increase accessibility of competent mental health services. Learn more about how our team of subject matter experts partners with child-serving systems to advance and sustain adoption competency.
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Youth & Family

Discover how adoption competent care and services can make a difference for you and your family. Access resources and learn how to connect with providers who understand the unique mental health needs of children and families impacted by child welfare.
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National Center + Centene Partnership
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LIVE WEBINAR

Sustaining Ourselves While Serving Others

If we want sustainable systems, we must support the workforce behind them. Join us on March 17, for a Live Q&A with Laura van Dernoot Lipsky—register now and invest in your capacity to care for others while caring for yourself.

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WEBINAR REPLAY

Creating a Community of Learning: NTI Coaching Integrated with Lived Experience

This webinar seeks to highlight the experience of developing transfer of learning opportunities through coaching and creating community among service providers. The learning is specific to integrating NTI content into practice and relying on the perspectives of lived experience when establishing community building through connection & collaboration, resource-sharing, and peer support.

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NEWS

Building Access Through Partnership

New research from the Center for Adoption Support and Education shows adoption-competent mental health services deliver stronger outcomes for families. Learn how the 2026 Illinois TAC cohort, launched in partnership with Centene, is expanding access.

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C.A.S.E. BLOG

Mental Health Access Is the Missing Link

Mental health access is one of the most urgent conversations happening in child welfare today. Across the country, families are encountering long waitlists, workforce shortages, and services that are not equipped to understand the complexities of foster care and adoption.

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Advancing Practice for Permanency & Well-Being!

The National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI)™ offers free, web-based training for professionals interested in improving outcomes for youth and families who have experienced child welfare.

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The ACN Workforce Brief

The Adoption Competency Network is dedicated to equipping providers and systems with the knowledge and skills needed to thoughtfully respond to the clinical and relational needs of children and families impacted by child welfare. Through this quarterly newsletter, we’ll share insights, resources, and updates that reflect this mission and the meaningful work happening across our network.

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Our Mission

We will support States, Tribes, and territories (STTs) in building bridges between child welfare systems and state mental health systems, which is key to bringing about systemic change to improve the mental health outcomes for children and families impacted by the child welfare system. 

Funded by the United States Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Children’s Bureau in October 2023, the  National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services will provide targeted technical assistance and evidence-informed training to strengthen coordination and capacity among child welfare and mental health systems to ensure that children, young adults, and families have access to mental health professionals who are trained to provide child welfare competent mental health services to address separation, grief, trauma, and other challenges that can arise. This National Center represents an important way that the Children’s Bureau provides technical assistance to State, Tribes, and territories. 

The National Center will work together with The National Center for Diligent Recruitment and The National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support on behalf of the Children’s Bureau to improve the safety, permanency, and well-being of children through productive partnerships with States, Tribes, and communities. 

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Approach

The National Center has a three-tiered approach to achieving success:

 

  1. Establish a Knowledge Hub for everyone involved with child welfare that will increase the use of evidence-informed state-of-the-art adoption competent training for mental health practitioners.

  2. Provide on-site technical assistance to assist States, Territories and Tribes as they build collaborations with the mental health system to improve availability and coordination of competent services.

  3. Integrate the expertise of youth, young adults and families with lived experience into the services.

The National Center will work with national leaders as well as parents and youth and young adults with lived experience to deliver new and enhanced support and training to States, Tribal Nations, territories, and professionals to meet the needs of children and families. The Center will provide intensive technical assistance to six States, Tribal Nations, and territories each year and will be funded at $4 million for each year of the five-year award.

Target Audience

  • Child welfare professionals and systems

  • Mental health professionals and systems

  • Children, youth, and families who have experienced the child welfare system

  • Allied professionals in relevant areas of work that are also impacted by improved collaboration between child welfare and mental health

 

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Technical Assistance

Read more about the technical assistance The National Center will provide.
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Child Welfare Competent Mental Health

Learn about child welfare competent mental health and the value in increasing accessibility and availability of competent mental health services for children and families.
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Connect With Us!

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Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

— Helen Keller

 

For two decades, the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) has been developing and providing specialized mental health services to thousands of foster, kinship and adoptive families. Through this pioneering work (and the work of our contributing partners), C.A.S.E. was a awarded a 5-year cooperative agreement to fund the National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services by the United States Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Children’s Bureau.

Meet all of our Partners