The Role of Social Marketing in System Reform

Social marketing is an approach adapted from commercial marketing to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. The resources below include toolkits, reports, and practice models to help support organizations and communities in implementing social marketing and other outreach efforts in child welfare, including State and local examples.

Social Marketing
Rodriguez, Rubenstein, & Huff (2008)
In The System of Care Handbook: Transforming Mental Health Services for Children, Youth, and Families
View Abstract
Offers social marketing tips and strategies to help communities advance the implementation of systems of care.

Social Marketing and Analysis White Paper
Center for the Support of Families (2008)
View Abstract
Explains how to find common ground among stakeholders serving children and families, and provides case studies of social services agencies that have designed, executed, and evaluated outreach, recruitment, and public awareness campaigns.

The Social Marketing Approach: A Way to Increase Reporting and Treatment of Sexual Assault
Boehm & Itzhaky
Child Abuse and Neglect, 28, 2004
View Abstract
Uses a case study to demonstrate the effect of a social marketing approach on the number of sexual assault reports and the attitude of community members toward seeking and accepting treatment.

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State and local examples

Creating Adoption Neighborhoods: Final Report and Replication Manual
Legendre & Abarquez (2005)
View Abstract and Document
Describes the activities and outcomes of a 3-year federally funded program to increase the number of placements of African-American children in Harris County, Texas. The manual includes social marketing strategies and recommendations for communities interested in replicating the program.

Dissemination and Utilization of Research Findings from "An Analysis of Community-Based Services and Supports for Children and Young Adults With Special Needs in Hillsborough County, FL"
Hess (2005)
View Abstract
Examines researchers' and community members' use of a social marketing framework to disseminate study results effectively to a diverse group of stakeholders in Florida and to ensure the findings were used to improve services across multiple domains.

Florida's Strategic Plan for Infant Mental Health: Status Report (PDF - 1660 KB)
Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy (2007)
Discusses strategies used to improve and expand a coordinated system to meet the mental health needs of children birth to age 5, including a social marketing campaign to raise public awareness.

Reframing the Issue: A New Child Maltreatment Prevention Message (PDF - 92 KB)
Wrisley
North Carolina Medical Journal, 66, 2005
Traces the history of public service campaigns designed to prevent child maltreatment and explains types of public campaigns and strategies, including strategic framing and social marketing.

Targeted Community Outreach
Northeast Ohio Adoption Services (2006)
View Abstract and Document
Describes a program that used social marketing, community organizing, and targeted outreach to increase the number of prospective adoptive parents and the number of adoptions, decrease the time children wait to be adopted, and strengthen the community's support for waiting children and adoptive families.

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