Zero to Three will convene its annual conference on October 5-8, 2020 as a virtual event. The conference will include sessions highlighting the latest research on early life adversity, early childhood programs, and supports for child well-being. Participants are eligible to earn CEUs. There is a fee to attend the event, and registration is required.

This blogpost covers how the comprehensive Child First program has implemented home visits during the COVID-19 pandemic by utilizing telehealth technology via phones or videoconferencing to provide treatment and deliver services. Key questions raised in the blogpost provide insight on telehealth accommodations made by home visiting teams working with families with limited technology or privacy concerns and how families have responded to these telehealth connections. The blogpost is drawn from interviews with Child First staff in 10 programs in Connecticut, North Carolina, and Florida.

This research-to-practice brief offers a blueprint of strategies to implement trauma-informed practices under the Family First Services Act. The brief illustrates key considerations in building a systemic approach to trauma-informed care to include: design access and delivery of prevention and kinship navigation services; use of functional assessments to analyze child trauma and traumatic stress when making placement decisions; incorporating trauma-informed treatment approaches and assigning residential facilities that support youth and their families; encouraging trauma-informed family reunification planning; and preparing child welfare professionals to address secondary trauma.

This blogpost reviews the operations and procedures of the Safe & Sound Family Resource Center in San Francisco. The blogpost notes the intake interview process where families identify what they perceive as their needs and helps to illustrate how the families are functioning, including their support network, what types of concrete supports they need, and what they see as their strengths. The blogpost also highlights “light touch” services offered to help enhance protection for parents and children, such as parenting and education classes, parenting support groups, counseling, and respite childcare. There is also discussion of the Integrated Family Services program, which offers a more intensive level of services to families living in conditions that create the highest risk for child abuse and neglect; many of these families have three or more adverse childhood experiences.

This fact sheet briefly outlines the top needs for kin families and potential funding sources to meet these needs. The funding sources include: Social Security Act Title IV-B kinship navigator grants, Family First Transition Act, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and new (and temporary) Federal Medical Assistance Percentage dollars. The fact sheet also offers some pointers on how to develop partnerships that recognize and enhance kinship care programs.

This research to practice brief from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation describes examination of findings from nine rural programs that serve child welfare-involved parents with substance use disorders. The examination was unable to provide information on program effectiveness but does focus on the range of services offered, the targeted population, how funding is blended, and collaborative approaches of these programs. Programs covered in this brief are: Children and Recovering Mothers (CHARM) Care Collaborative (Burlington, Vermont); Iowa Department of Human Services Parent Partner Mentoring Program; Kentucky Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams (START); Vermont Hub and Spoke Model; Women in Recovery (Tulsa, Oklahoma); The Arizona Families in Recovery Succeeding Together (FIRST) Program; Helen Ross McNabb Center (HRMC) Great Starts Program and Motivating our Mothers to Succeed Silver Linings and Rise to Recovery Models (Knoxville, Tennessee); and Parent-Child Assistance Program (Washington State).

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) disproportionally affect low-income, racial, and ethnic minority families. In an effort to improve health outcomes for poor families, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Office of Minority Health have released a grant opportunity that focuses on ACEs and whether earned income tax credit (EITC) education and outreach activities can result in increased EITC receipt and changes in risk for ACEs. Eligible organizations include state, county, and city governments; Native American tribal organizations; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; public housing authorities; nonprofit organizations; and nonprofit institutions of higher education. Up to 6 grants are expected to be awarded. The application due date is August 17, 2020.

This dataset from the Annie E. Casey Foundation is the 31st edition that follows and ranks states on metrics related to child well-being. The data reflects trends prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Particular focus is on four larger categories of trend analysis: economic well-being, education, family and community, and health. Additionally, there are individual state profiles with relevant data that are presented as user-friendly fact sheets.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation tool supports Tribal TANF-Child Welfare Coordination grantees and human service partners as they identify and operationalize collaboration approaches and monitor the effectiveness of these approaches. There is also guidance on how to measure and track progress on coordination among partners. The tool includes details on options for completing, scoring, and interpreting Collaboration Assessment Tool results; the entire assessment tool is included in an appendix and as a separate downloadable Excel file.

This guide offers a framework and process for establishing a multi-system trauma-informed collaborative that addresses the impact of trauma on children and families. The guide identifies the collaborative as including the health care system as well as child welfare, education, early child development, first responder, and related systems; these components must support each other in policies and practices to best serve children exposed to violence and other adverse childhood trauma. The guide is designed for public agency administrators, local and state policy makers, trauma professionals, and other service stakeholders.