Home > Strengthening Families and Communities: 2009 Resource Guide > Chapter 1: Laying the Groundwork - Levers for Change: Deepening and Sustaining a Protective-Factors Approach

Strengthening Families and Communities: 2009 Resource Guide

Author(s):  Child Welfare Information Gateway, Children's Bureau, FRIENDS National Resource Center For Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention

Year Published:  2009

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You are in section: Table of Contents Letter From the Children’s Bureau About the Resource Guide Protective Factors for Strengthening… Levers for Change: Deepening and Sustaining… Using Evidence to Support Efforts… Promoting the Five Protective… Nurturing and Attachment Knowledge of Parenting and… Parental Resilience Social Connections Concrete Supports for Parents Tools for Engaging Your Community Engaging Community Partners Tips for Working With Specific Groups Talking Points Temas de conversación Sample Press Release for National… Ejemplo de boletín de prensa Sample Public Service Announcements Ejemplo de anuncio de servicio público… Sample Letter to Legislators Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Child Maltreatment National Child Abuse Prevention Partners Federal Interagency Work Group on Child… Using the Tip Sheets for Parents and Caregivers Bonding With Your Baby Usted y su bebé: El lazo que los une Dealing With Temper Tantrums Los berrinches Connecting With Your Teen Cómo relacionarse con su hijo adolescente Teen Parents...You’re Not Alone! Hay muchos padres adolescentes como usted Ten Ways to Be a Better Dad Diez maneras de ser un mejor padre Raising Your Grandchildren Cómo criar al hijo de un pariente

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Chapter 1: Laying the Groundwork
Levers for Change: Deepening and Sustaining a Protective-Factors Approach

Adapted from the Center for the Study of Social Policy's Strengthening Families Initiative

Implementing a protective-factors approach to child abuse and neglect prevention is more than just implementing a model or starting a new prevention program. It means changing the way we think about prevention and inventing new strategies across programs, services, and systems that are already supporting and working with children and families.

To do this, States participating in the Strengthening Families National Network are using five "levers for change." These are high-level approaches to effecting sweeping changes in how we support communities and families to become stronger and better able to provide children with safe and happy childhoods. The five levers for change are:

• Parent partnerships
• Infrastructure changes
• Professional development
• Family strengthening child welfare practice
• Cross-systems integration

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Parent Partnerships

Parent partnerships are one way to make sure that prevention strategies are (a) responsive and relevant to all kinds of family needs and choices and (b) model the relationships among families, service providers, and community resources that can promote the best possible environment for children's development. Parent partnerships work when many parents are consistently involved as decision-makers in program planning, implementation, and assessment.

Suggestions for implementing parent partnerships:

• Partner with parent organizations.
• Create and maintain prominent leadership roles for parents.
• Provide leadership training and support for parents.
• Designate specific resources for parent engagement, participation, and leadership.

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Infrastructure Changes

Integrating a protective-factors approach into regulations and procedures that govern everyday practice in child and family services can be an important way to create broad and sustainable change. Infrastructure changes create the scaffolding for a shift in the values, beliefs, and practice of people who work with children and families at all levels.

Potential infrastructure changes:

• Integrate the protective factors into performance standards, agency evaluations, and licensing standards.
• Develop memoranda of understanding and contracts between agencies that encourage family-strengthening approaches.
• Create specialized staff positions and job requirements that incorporate family strengthening principles.
• Revise tools, assessment forms, and performance contracts to reflect a protective-factors approach to working with children and families.

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Professional Development

Training and learning opportunities that educate professionals about the protective factors produce a workforce with a common goal and language. Professionals at every level, from frontline workers to supervisors and administrators, require protective-factors training that is tailored to their role. Such training should impart a cohesive message focused on strengthening families.

Strategies for enhancing professional development:

• Integrate strengthening families themes and the protective factors into college, continuing education, and certificate programs for those working with children and families.
• Incorporate family strengthening concepts into new worker trainings.
• Develop online training and distance learning opportunities.
• Provide training at conferences and meetings.
• Reinforce family strengthening training with structured mechanisms for continued support, such as reflective supervision and ongoing mentoring.

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Family Strengthening Child Welfare Practice

Infusing the everyday practices and policies of child welfare agencies with family strengthening themes has the potential to transform practice, especially in the area of child abuse and neglect prevention. The emphasis on partnering with families to support and build families' protective factors allows child welfare workers to engage families in ways that support children's safety and also strengthen the family. This approach provides continuity of family strengthening practice across a continuum that extends from prevention into the child welfare system.

Ways to incorporate family strengthening into child welfare policy and practice:

• Integrate the protective factors into new and established child welfare practices, such as differential response systems, family team meetings, and family decision-making models.
• Incorporate the protective factors into the family assessment process so that assessment focuses on both risk and mediating factors.
• Enhance mandated reporter training to include information about identifying protective factors and supporting families at risk of abuse and neglect before it occurs.
• Train foster care families, kinship families, and other caregivers on family strengthening principles.

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Cross-Systems Integration

An effective protective-factors approach includes coordination across diverse initiatives, using common language and goals for families in all community systems. Such a broad-based community effort requires coordination so that the family strengthening message is clearly understood and promoted in each venue. Building protective factors in families for the optimal development of children becomes the focal point.

Strategies for promoting cross-systems integration:

• Create multidisciplinary leadership teams and governing structures for prevention efforts.
• Identify a shared set of desired outcomes for families across systems and disciplines.
• Identify the State agencies that fund early childhood initiatives and engage these agencies in planning and implementing family strengthening activities.
• Use a protective-factors approach to evaluate existing initiatives and help them meet goals and requirements.

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previous

You are in section: Table of Contents Letter From the Children’s Bureau About the Resource Guide Protective Factors for Strengthening… Levers for Change: Deepening and Sustaining… Using Evidence to Support Efforts… Promoting the Five Protective… Nurturing and Attachment Knowledge of Parenting and… Parental Resilience Social Connections Concrete Supports for Parents Tools for Engaging Your Community Engaging Community Partners Tips for Working With Specific Groups Talking Points Temas de conversación Sample Press Release for National… Ejemplo de boletín de prensa Sample Public Service Announcements Ejemplo de anuncio de servicio público… Sample Letter to Legislators Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Child Maltreatment National Child Abuse Prevention Partners Federal Interagency Work Group on Child… Using the Tip Sheets for Parents and Caregivers Bonding With Your Baby Usted y su bebé: El lazo que los une Dealing With Temper Tantrums Los berrinches Connecting With Your Teen Cómo relacionarse con su hijo adolescente Teen Parents...You’re Not Alone! Hay muchos padres adolescentes como usted Ten Ways to Be a Better Dad Diez maneras de ser un mejor padre Raising Your Grandchildren Cómo criar al hijo de un pariente

next

To view or order materials available from the 2009 Resource Guide, please visit our website at: http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/res_guide_2009/

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Please comment on this publication by taking our brief survey. Your answers are anonymous and will help us better meet your future information needs. Give Us Feedback on This Publication

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Updated on October 9, 2009