Children do best in their families. Child welfare professionals’ authentic engagement and partnership with parents should be based on meeting them where they are and recognizing their strengths and resilience. Parents should be involved in case planning and decision-making, including in determining which services and supports they need to build on their strengths, reduce risk factors, and achieve their goals. Connecting parents to service providers and tailored resources and supports that complement their strengths and goals can help children stay in their home safely.
When children must enter out-of-home care due to safety concerns in their homes, child welfare agencies should engage members of a child's family, such as grandparents or fictive kin, to develop a deeper pool of potential caregivers and maintain family connections. Caregivers will need the support of the child welfare agency to navigate the child welfare and adjacent systems, access services for the children in their care, and maintain their own well-being.
By following the lead of parents and caregivers, helping them harness their strengths more effectively, and increasing engagement with them, child welfare professionals can cultivate a supportive family environment where all members thrive.
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Family Engagement: Partnering With Families to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes
Find information on the foundational elements of the family engagement approach, followed by strategies and promising practices for implementing it for frontline caseworkers who directly engage families to promote safety, permanency, and well-being.
Strategies for Authentic Integration of Family and Youth Voice in Child Welfare
Explore a tip sheet and other resources relating to authentically engaging families and youth as partners at the child welfare system and agency levels. The resources provide child welfare professionals with tips, strategies, and practice examples.
Family First Prevention Services Act: Implementing the Provisions That Support Kinship Families
Find guidance for child welfare professionals on how to use the Family First Prevention Services Act to support kinship families, and learn to authentically engage and consult kinship caregivers, youth, birth parents, and others on reform efforts.
Strengthening Families Using a Racial Equity Lens
Learn how professionals can use an awareness of power to adopt and embrace an antiracist mindset. Real case scenarios create an opportunity to learn how mindset impacts policy development and child welfare decisions.
Key Considerations for Applying an Equity Lens to Collaborative Practice
Learn more about helping collaborative teams formally assess existing policies to determine whether and to what extent they contribute to disproportionate and disparate outcomes for the families being served.
Transforming Child Welfare: Prioritizing Prevention, Racial Equity, and Advancing Child and Family Well-Being
Explore the need for a transformational shift of the child welfare system to become more focused on the prevention of child maltreatment and racial equity and learn how the child welfare system should improve and sustain child and family well-being.
How Can Child Protection Agencies Authentically Engage With Parents?
Discover a question-and-answer session with a professional from the Washington State Office of Public Defense and a birth parent and mentor from Morrison Child and Family Services in Oregon on how child welfare agencies can better engage parents.
Help Resource Caregivers Support LGBTQ Youth: Insights From a Young Person with Lived Experience
Explore strategies child welfare agencies can use to help youth identifying as LGBTQIA2S+ receive safe and appropriate placement and services that help them thrive.
How Can Parents and Caregivers Be Supported in Developing a Positive Co-Parenting Relationship?
Learn how coparenting can facilitate contact between the children and their parents and ways child welfare agencies can establish a culture of implementing policies that nurture these relationships.