A stronger family is a healthier family. As April has long been recognized as Child Abuse Prevention Month, the conversation this year has broadened to include family strengthening. The importance of families and communities having access to resources can lessen family stressors and prevent child abuse and neglect before it occurs. This has been my passion for more than 25 years, as I’ve worked with organizations committed to helping families remain stable so their kids are safe and happy. The shift toward family strengthening is the most exciting and promising development I’ve seen.
Science shows us that children are more likely to thrive when their families have the economic and social supports that they need. Enabling these positive childhood experiences requires that we reimagine child welfare and focus instead on child and family well-being with upstream resources that can prevent child abuse and neglect before it occurs.
Federal and state policies that connect families to economic support services have been shown to strengthen families and reduce child welfare interactions. Examples are Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), housing assistance, and nutrition supplements.
What does a family-strengthening approach to child safety look like in practice? Answering that question is the impetus behind a national demonstration initiative called Child Safety Forward (CSF). The Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime launched the initiative in 2019.
The project engaged five local, county and statewide sites across the United States (IL, IN, MI, CT and CA) in a multi-year focus that included research, planning and implementation around strategies aimed at reducing child injury and fatality from abuse and neglect. While societal stigma for seeking support remains, the initiative is working to broaden awareness about the benefits of family strengthening policies and to develop more effective communication strategies to address this issue. In one of the Child Safety Forward communications strategy briefs, based on Child Safety Forward learning, Evaluation Plus notes the needed result is: “A sustained communications strategy that would unite child protection agencies, community, partners, neighbors, and families around a narrative that child adversity is public, preventable, and solvable.”
By shifting to a preventative child and family well-being system that offers upstream resources for families, the goal is to provide them with more supports rather than more surveillance.
Federal policy is supporting this shift by authorizing more funding and more flexible funding for family-strengthening services through the Family First Prevention Services Act and the proposed reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).
Each Child Safety Forward site is developing strategies that are unique and specific to their communities, honoring and reflecting the data they collected in the first year to identify community-led solutions that support resilient families and keep children safe in their homes. Each site is also working with a collaborative body of stakeholders and partners, including those with lived experience, to guide the work and are reviewing short- and long-term goals with equity and diversity in mind.
All of the strategies share one common trait – they are predicated on demonstrating a public health approach to child and family well-being called for by the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. As an evaluator, we were able to learn alongside the CSF demonstration sites and experiment with roadmaps to:
- Increase equity in systems that serve families
- Elevate parents into relationships of equal power
- Build protective factors
Each of the demonstration sites are working to create a body of knowledge about what works to reduce child fatalities.
As we recognize Child Abuse Prevention Month, let’s not forget that addressing community needs by giving families support prevents traumatic events from happening. Addressing community needs also has much more impact, and costs much less than removing children from families. That’s especially true when comparing the attempts to address the consequences of adversity after a child has grown up.
Child Safety Forward emphasized looking at not just how to prevent but how to proactively design our systems and work with families and communities to build protective factors in many forms.
We all have a stake in our kids’ future and shifting our focus from child welfare to child and family well-being, will help us reach a place where every child can thrive and enjoy their full potential.
Laura Pinsoneault, PhD, is president and CEO of Evaluation Plus
