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Home > School-based Child Maltreatment Programs: Synthesis of Lessons Learned > School-based Child Maltreatment Programs: Synthesis of Lessons Learned: Lessons Learned
School-Based Child Maltreatment Programs: Synthesis of Lessons Learned
Grantee Lessons Learned
Author(s): Children's Bureau (DHHS)
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| Year Published: 2003 |
2 - Lessons Learned
The grantees discussed in this report overcame many challenges to meet their objectives of collaborating with schools to provide child maltreatment identification, prevention, and intervention services. As a result, they were able to offer recommendations that may be of use to organizations implementing similar projects.
2.1 General Recommendations
Several of the grantees' recommendations apply to the implementation of any comprehensive child maltreatment identification, prevention, and intervention project.
- Be flexible to accommodate the schedules of all participants, including school personnel, parents, teenagers, and children.
- Be sensitive to differences in language and culture in developing outreach and prevention education efforts.
- Be willing to eliminate a planned service or change an existing service in response to new information about participant needs and interests.
- Be realistic about participation levels. Most projects expected they would be serving more teachers, parents, and children than were actually served.
2.2 Collaboration with Schools
Challenges associated with collaboration with schools included lack of support from school administrators, scheduling conflicts with other school activities, and inappropriate referrals or requests resulting from misperceptions about the project's goals. Grantees cited the following lessons learned:
- Full commitment from the school system leadership or school principal is necessary to ensure effective collaboration. Consider including a school principal on the program advisory board.
- Schedule project activities involving teachers in advance and with the full support of school principals or administrators.
- Develop a shared understanding of the project's model, methods, and desired outcomes among school and project staff.
- Help school personnel see how the project contributes to the school's mission. This will result in more (and more appropriate) referrals to the project.
- Work to develop constant communication between project and school staff, and strive for visibility of project staff at the schools.
- Be persistent. Schools are under pressure to fulfill many agendas.
- Be aware of the challenges teachers encounter working in schools where the problems experienced by children and families often outnumber available supports and services.
- Seek to establish collaborative relationships with other agencies in the community (primarily, but not exclusively, social service agencies). A school-based prevention program works best when it engages all sectors of the community.
2.3 Project Staffing
Frequent staff turnover and difficulty recruiting qualified staff were common challenges reported by grantees. Recommendations included:
- Seek project directors with experience implementing Federal grants.
- Stress the importance of commitment and continuity when hiring staff.
- Offer project staff full-time positions and salaries commensurate with those of teachers and public health workers.
- Project staff must have extensive knowledge of and experience with the network of local providers in order to make appropriate service referrals.
- Project staff should include someone who is a member of the community being served, or should work to develop and maintain support from members of the community to establish trust between the community and the project.
2.4 Teacher Training
Demonstration projects reported scheduling conflicts and low participation to be common challenges associated with teacher training. They made the following recommendations:
- Schedule training as far in advance as possible; take the school calendar into account.
- Provide training that does not require an extensive time commitment from participants.
- Provide continuing education credits.
- Offer training off site; provide a stipend and lunch.
2.5 Direct Services
In implementing direct services for children and families, demonstration projects noted difficulties with ensuring project staff safety during home visits and with recruiting and retaining participants. Grantees cited the following lessons learned:
- Families may be more willing to participate if the program is perceived as being focused on family strengthening or support, rather than on child maltreatment prevention or intervention.
- Make direct services available to children and families outside of school hours.
- Consider providing one-on-one case management to families in their own homes.
- Develop procedures to keep program staff safe when making home visits.
2.6 Parent Engagement and Retention in Parenting Education
The key challenge associated with parent education was low attendance. For some participants, protecting confidentiality was a concern. Recommendations included:
- Be aware of other programs for parents being offered at the same time.
- Recruit volunteers to provide child care and transportation.
- Provide food or other incentives (such as gift certificates) at each session.
- Offer parenting education on a one-to-one basis if confidentiality is an issue.
- Work with schools to obtain commitments from parents to attend the program.
- Some attrition is to be expected. Recruit more participants (at least 30 percent more) than you need for the program.
This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare Information Gateway.
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