Actions by Providers of Programs, Services, and Supports

Child welfare agencies have the resources and supports to develop, expand, and strengthen their capacity to provide effective services to the children and families that come to their attention:

• Frontline staff have training, resources -- and often the relationships with families -- that help them identify developmental, health, and relationship concerns among the children and families they serve. Staff who interact with young children have skills to either directly address families' needs and risk factors or to identify them and mobilize appropriate responses. Staff have enough time to build trust with families, with providers of specialized services, and with police and the judiciary. They work in settings that also can address basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

	The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, NY is the community nucleus for immigrant families whose cultural, economic, and language barriers prevent them from getting services to help their children succeed in school. The program's centerpiece is intensive individual, family, and group counseling conducted in a nurturing, supportive atmosphere either in clients' homes or at the center. The center pioneered neighborhood-based foster care and provides emergency services such as crisis intervention, food, and clothing. Networking extends to the police, churches, and elected officials. www.cflsp.org

• Frontline child protection staff are selected, trained, supervised, and provided with resources and tools so they can make the best possible decisions about out-of-home placements, support services, and family re-unification. Protocols used by child welfare departments and courts have provisions that address the needs of children and families, including developmental needs and warning signs in children within their biological families and in out-of-home care.
  
  

	The Michigan Family Independence Agency, concerned with the large percentage of families re-referred for child abuse and neglect, sought to strengthen its initial assessment and service determination by developing and implementing the Structured Decision Making (SDM) case management model. The model improves decision making and service delivery in child protective service and foster care by guiding workers through each decision point with a structured assessment. The SDM model clarifies the purpose of each decision, focuses on the factors needed to make a decision, and helps the agency monitor compliance with established policies and procedures. www.innovations.harvard.edu/nonsectioncontent.cfm? activesection=8&activesubsection=12&nonSectionURL= awards/recipients/contents/finalists/SDM_2002.htm

• Managers track and monitor outcomes in ways that assure the safety of all children; they set priorities for services to children and families in a systematic, thoughtful way. Agency procedures ensure that abused children receive therapeutic services.
  

	The Family Builders Program allows child protective workers in several Arizona counties to refer selected low-risk child abuse reports to a network of community-based providers for family assessments and case management services, after triage by Child Protective Services. The program uses a strengths-based, family-centered approach to reduce the re-occurrences of subsequent substantiated child abuse and neglect supports. www.de.state.az.us/dcyf/opfs/annual.asp A similar program, Alternative Response, is an option used by child protective services in all Minnesota counties. www.dhs.state.mn.us/cfs/Programs/ChildProtection

• Agency procedures ensure that children receive comprehensive health and developmental screenings before adoption that fully inform adoptive parents of current and potential developmental issues and offer access to future assistance and support as needed.
• Agency procedures ensure that families involved in unsubstantiated child maltreatment reports are referred to family support services.

Child welfare agencies have a spectrum of interventions at their disposal, including:

• A full range of out-of-home care options (e.g., neighborhood-based foster care and adoption, kinship care, kinship respite care, and subsidized guardianship)
• Supervised residences in single and group homes for mothers and their infants, and for whole families

	Shared Family Care (SFC) in Contra Costa County, California prevents the separation of a child from his or her parents and provides a safe environment for reuniting families that have been separated. The program can temporarily place a family in crisis into the home of a trained and supportive host family, which helps the biological parents develop skills and supports necessary to care for their children and move toward independent living. http://aia.berkeley.edu/information_resources/shared_family_care.html Crossway Community in Kensington, Maryland provides education, training, support services, and transitional housing for families in the Washington metropolitan area. Its Family Leadership School is a two-year residential education program for single mothers and their children striving to overcome the risks of homelessness, poverty, domestic violence, and/or severe social isolation. www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mc/services/volunteer/iris/agenall/470isqj1.htm

• Support for families that can avoid out-of-home placement through in-home services, supports, and help meeting basic needs
• Post-adoption services

Child welfare agencies partner with community groups in neighborhoods that have a high concentration of families involved with the child welfare system, to make their services more effective and acceptable and to build a "community presence":

	As part of its fundamental reforms, the St. Louis Division of Family Services stationed assessment and investigative workers, service caseworkers, and a supervisor in the Sigel Elementary School. Sigel functions is the hub for an array of family support services and activities, including public benefits, Medicaid, food stamps, and referrals to other services. Being community-based has helped staff become more familiar with local resources; they work closely with other service providers and are better able to make referrals and follow-up. They know local residents and children because they see them in a variety of normal, neighborhood settings. www.cssp.org/uploadFiles/Doing_Business_Differently.pdf

• Agencies provide resources and information to parents involved in the child welfare system to alert them to possible developmental issues and other potential problems, and connect them to sources of help.
  
• Agencies convert selected parts of their programs into neighborhood-based services. · Agencies partner with community based institutions to make their services family-friendly
  

	The Families Together Therapeutic Visitation program is a partnership between the Providence, Rhode Island Children's Museum and the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families. The program addresses problems and opportunities related to visitation. The Children's Museum offers a carefully designed, normalized, and welcoming environment that invites positive parent/child experiences during visitations between parents and children of court-separated families. Families Together has worked with social workers to use visitation interactions as a way to help parents understand their own role and to make permanency plans. www.ksg.harvard.edu/press/press%20releases/2003/innovations_finalists_031203.htm

• Agencies develop neighborhood-based child protection teams and locate child protection workers in neighborhoods. They keep children who are in out-of-home placements within the neighborhood to the extent possible.
• Agencies involve family members and other concerned adults in monitoring children's placements and making decisions about children's placement and families' support. They work with all elements of the community and service system to minimize disruptions in out-of-home placements.

	The Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice, established by Casey Family Services, has made post-adoption services its priority. It uses an array of technical assistance strategies to help child welfare, mental health, and Medicaid systems plan, fund, and implement an array of post-adoption services. www.caseyfamilyservices.org/n_programs_that_work.html

They make information about resources and supports readily available in a form accessible to parents and kin.

	The New Jersey Department of Human Services created the Kinship Navigator Program to help kinship caregivers “navigate” their way through various governmental systems to find local supports and resources. Information is specifically designed for kinship caregivers and can include referrals about support groups, TANF, Medicaid benefits, child support, housing assistance, custody procedures and other legal issues, child care resources, and respite services. www.state.nj.us/humanservices

Child welfare agencies stimulate community support for neighborhood-based services and for foster parents by:

• Recruiting neighborhood foster homes; encouraging families to become foster and adoptive parents
• Facilitating frequent, structured contacts (in friendly settings) between birth parents and foster children so the foster parents can serve as "unification partners"
• Facilitating foster parent support groups, through foster parent associations or other mechanisms, to enable foster parents of young children to support and learn from each other and from experts in the field
• Providing respite care for foster parents who serve young children, especially those with multiple needs

Child welfare agencies partner with community organizations to ensure a full range of supports and services are available to prevent serious problems:

• Agencies link essential services across programs to ensure access 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Agencies integrate responses to child and family problems with primary services, so that access is seamless.
• Agencies integrate parent education and therapeutic services for children into substance abuse and mental health treatment for adults, recognizing that concern for their children can motivate change in parents affected by substance abuse, domestic violence, and depression.
• Agencies ensure that all services for children and families facing severe poverty, domestic violence, substance abuse, or depression go beyond the simple provision of advice, information, and support. They organize services to promptly address the effects of a child's experiencing and/or witnessing violence.

	Working with the St. Louis Neighborhood Network of the Community Partnership for Protecting Children, the Division of Family Services has developed a low-key response to situations that do not involve a specific incident of abuse or neglect (such as educational neglect). At the same time, to deal with some of the toughest issues presented by families reported to Child Protective Services, DFS created a number of specialist positions—staff members who provide case consultation, training, and hands-on help to families with specific problems such as substance abuse, sexual abuse, and medical needs. www.cssp.org/uploadFiles/Doing_ Business_Differently.pdf

• All services and supports that strengthen families, respond to difficulties before they become crises, and generally improve children's life prospects also reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect.
• Families at highest risk are likely to need specialized and intensive services and support.

Collaboratives create community "hubs" (centers for community activities) that include child protection in their missions and make close connections with providers of child protective services and with informal helpers.

	Hope Street Family Center, housed on the grounds of the California Hospital Medical Center, is a public-private partnership that provides services and supports, including community-based child welfare services, to young children and families living in inner-city Los Angeles. Families affected by child abuse and neglect receive intensive services, including home visits by professional social workers and public health nurses from a widely known and respected community-based setting.

• Participate in neighborhood interactions and planning for community activities and become part of deliberations on what strategies to undertake to achieve school readiness
• Participate in community discussions about children's safety and the best ways to support at-risk and isolated families
• Connect with the neighborhood by living where they work, and in other ways

Collaboratives forge community support agreements and community partnerships for protecting children. They build capacity among community organizations, institutions, funders, and other stakeholder groups to help families easily obtain the supports they need, including:

• Interventions that identify and provide follow-up services to children and families at high risk
• Diagnosis and full treatment services, at appropriate levels of intensity and in appropriate settings, for children with special needs and for families with problems such as maternal depression, substance abuse, impaired parent-child relationships, child abuse, and domestic violence
• Services and supports that reduce extreme social isolation, prevent and respond to abuse and neglect, and provide role models of high-quality parenting

	Parents Anonymous is a community-based parent education and support program through which parents and professionals form partnerships to share responsibility, expertise, and leadership for strengthening families and improving services and communities. Adult group sessions focus on parenting issues and challenges, with parents setting their own goals and timelines. Parents can expand their networks of support, reduce stress and isolation, and learn about community resources. While parents are meeting, children and youth can participate in leadership and problem-solving activities. www.parentsanonymous.org

Actions by Funders and Policymakers

Funders and policy makers mobilize funding, expertise, and the political support so welfare agencies and other partners can create an infrastructure and a stable, high-quality workforce that will effectively protect children who are not adequately protected by informal arrangements.

	The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Family to Family Initiative assists states and communities with a portion of the costs involved in both planning and implementing innovations in their systems of services for children and families. It makes available technical assistance and consultation throughout the process. The Foundation also provides funds for development and for transitional costs that accelerate system change. http://www.aecf.org/initiatives/familytofamily/overview/htm The California Department of Social Services, with the assistance of the Foundation Consortium for California’s Children and Youth, has convened a diverse group of key child welfare stakeholders to redesign the California’s Child Welfare Services and to change policies and practices so that every child in the state lives in a safe, stable, permanent home nurtured by a healthy family and strong community. www.foundationconsortium.org/what/redesign.html

Funders help programs and agencies use resources for training, including training that occurs across programs and agencies, and create and support networks of programs, not just individual programs.
Policymakers modify laws, rules, and regulations so they:

• Help child welfare programs make effective decisions and provide services and supports that protect children who are not adequately protected by informal arrangements
• Support the organization of child welfare programs as neighborhood-based services
• Facilitate the development of neighborhood-based child protection teams
• Support collaborations between formal agencies and community/neighborhood groups that make high-quality, neighborhood-based, residential out-of-home care available
• Facilitate collaborations that help to recruit, utilize, and support neighborhood foster homes

Policymakers support efforts to place children promptly in permanent homes, through adoptions, subsidized kinship care, and (where prospects of reunification are unrealistic) prompt termination of parental rights.

Policymakers require that every young child in out-of-home care receive a developmental screening by a trained developmental specialist, followed by appropriate services.

Policymakers establish within Medicaid a system of monitoring to ensure that EPSDT check-ups of children referred through the child welfare system are comprehensive in scope and address developmental issues and delays.

Policymakers make sure that zoning decisions support neighborhood-based services and supports.