Highlights:
- To strengthen and support families, the Family First Prevention Services Act seeks to shift the nation’s focus toward developing community networks and partnerships and creating a child welfare system aimed at prevention. When children do enter foster care, new policies and practices support continual engagement with mothers, fathers, and other family members to bolster their capacity to care for their children and increase the chance of family reunification. Included in this vision of community-based, prevention-focused child welfare systems is an emphasis on protective factors, enabling a more complex understanding of child and family well-being that includes social, economic, educational, cognitive, behavioral, and relational functionality. By effectively engaging families earlier, child welfare agencies are more likely to achieve positive outcomes for children over time.
- To strengthen cross-system partnerships and focus efforts on preventing maltreatment, program administrators need tools, resources, guidance, and support. Mathematica’s work with these agencies, as well as its partnership with stakeholders at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, supports the following considerations for achieving a child welfare system that promotes justice and equity.
- Promote racial equity by examining how different policies, practices, and funding differentially affect subgroups of children in care.
- Provide support for states to use and build evidence to implement a range of programs.
- Train and support child welfare staff in the use of rigorous processes for continuous quality improvement.
- Promote cross-system collaboration and shared data.
- Link families with concrete resources (such as housing, employment, and child care) to maximize the benefits of programs addressing substance use, mental health, and parenting.
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