UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing program recently launched a new Open Access monograph. “The Future of Foster Care: New Science on Old Problems,” edited by Yo Jackson and Sarah Font, is a collection of expanded conference proceedings from the 2019 conference of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network, a national leader in research designed to influence public policy that better protects vulnerable children from abuse.

“Kids in foster care deserve a system that is driven by the best ideas and the best research evidence. Unfortunately, we’ve seen agencies circle around the same challenges for a long time,” said Font, an associate professor of sociology and public policy at Penn State. “The goal of the conference, and this monograph, was to provide some examples of what is working for some of the system’s most intractable problems.”

The monograph consists of a preface written by Font and Jackson, a professor of psychology at Penn State, and seven chapters written by various experts in the field of foster care, mental health care, and medical and behavioral health care of children in the U.S. foster care system. The chapters include graphics and tables to further emphasize their research. The monograph also includes PDF versions linked from each chapter for easy download.

Libraries Open Publishing, the University Libraries’ Open Access imprint, is a unit within the Research Informatics and Publishing department. Libraries Open Publishing provides tools and support for Penn State–affiliated authors and groups to publish full-featured electronic scholarly journals, searchable annotated bibliographies, monographs and topical web portals using a variety of digital platforms. All publications are free to view online and download. Copyright is retained by the individual authors, where possible, or by the journals or sponsoring entity. Almost all are licensed for use under a Creative Commons license. 

For more information about the program, visit openpublishing.psu.edu or contact the Open Publishing team at openpublishing@psu.edu.