The Child Welfare Community Collaborations (CWCC) initiative is designed to mobilize communities to develop and evaluate multi-system collaboratives that address local barriers and provide a continuum of services to prevent child abuse and neglect. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) brief describes the approaches to collaborative partnerships used in CWCC projects and is one of a series of products the evaluation team will produce as part of the cross-site process evaluation. Throughout this brief, OPRE explores the community collaborations (i.e., “partnerships”) that were part of the foundation of the CWCC initiative’s approach to preventing child abuse and neglect.

Although the relationship between hardship and child welfare system, CWS, involvement seems straightforward, it is far more complicated. On average, families encountering the CWS tend to have lower incomes, and rates of CWS involvement are highest in the sections of New York with the highest concentrations of families with incomes below the poverty level. Among those who are involved with child welfare services, co-occurring conditions such as substance misuse and mental health challenges, which hardships exacerbate, are also correlated with CWS involvement regardless of income. This Urban Institute report examines the relationships between hardship and CWS involvement.

The Urban Institute and the Berkeley Opportunity Lab are co-hosting a webinar on May 23, 2024 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET where presenters will explore the impacts of providing cash assistance to low-income families with children, including the impact of cash assistance on investments on early childhood outcomes, reductions in child maltreatment, and long-term employment and educational outcomes of children. There will be discussions on how policymakers and researchers can leverage these insights to improve the well-being of some of the nation’s most vulnerable children.

The YouthNPower: Transforming Care Collective launched the first direct cash transfer (DCT) pilot for youth transitioning from foster care in 2023 and designed with young people who have lived expertise in the child welfare system. This New York City pilot is part of a larger research and advocacy project to document the impact of unconditional cash support for young adults who have recently left the child welfare system to learn more about the conditions facing young people as they navigate life after foster care, and to advocate for policy and program changes that will enrich their lives and help them thrive. This Center for the Study of Social Policy recording highlights a panel that shared:

• An introduction to the intergenerational YouthNPower collective and its approach combining research, advocacy, and organizing;
• Information about the Direct Cash Transfer pilot design; and
• Preliminary findings of the pilot’s Participatory Action Research.

Peer support programs offer services and support delivered by individuals who have been through similar experiences - such as navigating the child welfare system or caring for relatives. However, despite their demonstrated efficacy and their unique ability to build trust with children and families, most peer support programs serving families in and around child welfare cannot access the key funding and support opportunities available to other programs. This Generations United resource explains what peer support looks like in child welfare and provides evidence of the effectiveness of peer support.

To truly take an anti-racist approach to prevention, child welfare and safety net policies must address the organizational structures and injustices contributing to and perpetuating underlying economic and concrete needs of children and families. This Center for the Study of Social Policy brief highlights policies that can make a significant impact for children and families when implemented as part of a multi-pronged approach to supporting the needs of children and families outside of child welfare.

In January 2021, Ascend at the Aspen Institute launched the Two-Generation Prenatal-to-Three Learning and Action Community (2GP3 LAC). The 2GP3 LAC set out to reimagine the child welfare field’s approach to child protection to reflect a preventive, strengths-based, whole-family orientation by drawing on provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act and local, state, and tribal efforts to more effectively align early childhood and health funding, systems, and services. This recording from the 2023 Ascend Forum includes the 2GP3 LAC researchers and their lessons for centering prevention and upstream solutions in systems of care for families. This recording is accompanied by their report, ‘Reimaging Child Welfare: A Networked Approach to Family Well-Being.’

This American Public Human Services Association and Chapin Hall “Evidence to Impact” tool provides examples of state policy options aligned with peer-reviewed research, organized by the policy levers at agencies’ disposal, including macroeconomic supports (Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, minimum wage, paid family leave, employment and job creation), concrete supports (child care, housing, health care, flexible funds, direct cash transfers), and public assistance programs (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children). Used in concert with meaningful policy and practice improvement efforts, this policy tool allows jurisdictions to assess their current policy landscape and consider future opportunities to expand access to economic and concrete supports as a primary prevention strategy.

Economic and concrete supports are “protective factors”—factors that prevent families from becoming involved in the child welfare system. The evidence indicates that increasing access to these supports may be an effective strategy to prevent child maltreatment, keep families together, and address racial inequities. For families who receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), experiencing material hardship (difficulty meeting basic needs) is associated with increased risk for both neglect and physical abuse investigations. This Chapin Hall policy brief highlights how increasing access to TANF decreases the risk of child welfare involvement.

Programs, organizations, and systems that provide services to address parents' and caregivers' needs (such as education and job-training services, substance use treatment centers, parent education programs, and others) often work exclusively with the adults, while those that serve the needs of children (such as schools and child care centers) often do not focus on advancing the well-being of the caregivers or other adults in their lives. Two-generation (2Gen) approaches bridge this gap by serving children and their families together through integrated and simultaneous services, with a particular focus on helping families achieve lasting financial stability. This Child Welfare Information Gateway brief provides an overview of 2Gen approaches and why child welfare agencies should use them to improve outcomes for the families they serve. The brief also describes the five core 2Gen approaches to help build parental capacity and protective factors within families, often with the explicit goal of interrupting generational cycles of poverty.