An Individualized, Strengths-Based Approach in Public Child Welfare Driven Systems of Care

		Email Follow these Steps to email a friend or colleague a link to this information. An Individualized, Strengths-Based Approach in Public Child Welfare Driven Systems of Care Year Published: 2008 http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/acloserlook/strengthsbased/ Among the strategies that are critical for increasing the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families involved with child welfare is tailoring services to unique needs by building upon strengths. As child welfare agency administrators and policy-makers continually strive to improve services and outcomes for children and families, establishing child welfare policies and practices that promote and facilitate an individualized, strengths-based approach is essential. Policy is crucial to sustaining strengths-based practices, because without it such practices may be inconsistently applied and diminish with staff turnover. Step 1: Recipient email address(es) (First one is Required) To Email Address 1: To Email Address 2: To Email Address 3: To Email Address 4: To Email Address 5:   Step 2: From Email Address (Required) From Email Address:   Step 3: Verify You are Human (Required) Are you Human? True False   Step 3: Send the link Print (PDF 1370KB)  Share
Author(s)	National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center for Systems of Care.
Year Published	2008

Defining an Individualized, Strengths-Based Approach

An individualized, strengths-based approach refers to policies, practice methods, and strategies that identify and draw upon the strengths of children, families, and communities. Strengths-based practice involves a shift from a deficit approach, which emphasizes problems and pathology, to a positive partnership with the family. The approach acknowledges each child and family's unique set of strengths and challenges, and engages the family as a partner in developing and implementing the service plan. Formal and informal services and supports are used to create service plans based on specific needs and strengths, rather than fitting families into pre-existing service plans. An individualized, strengths-based assessment focuses on the complex interplay of risks and strengths among individual family members, the family as a unit, and the broader neighborhood and environment. The individualized, strengths-based approach is an overall philosophical view supported by policies and standards that encompasses a range of concrete practices of child welfare caseworkers and other service providers at various points from the time the child and family enter the system to when they leave (see Figure 1).

Historically, child welfare systems (and other human services) emphasized efficient provision of services with little attention to family systems and approached clients from a deficit model. Traditional practices, focusing on what was wrong with the child or the family, resulted in a child welfare system that was punitive and stigmatizing in its approach and often produced passive and resistant responses from clients (Waldfogel, 2000). Beginning in the early 1980s, strengths-based case management was first implemented in community mental health centers (Brun & Rapp, 2001) and since then has been implemented in many other health and social service settings.

A review of the literature suggests at least three pathways by which strengths-based practices benefit clients: 1) by influencing the extent of clients' engagement in program services; 2) by increasing family efficacy and empowerment; and 3) by enhancing families' relationship-building capacity and social support networks (Green, McAllister, & Tarte, 2004).

Although there is limited research on the effects of an individualized, strengths-based approach on child and family outcomes for the population of child welfare clients, prior studies of other service recipients (e.g., early intervention, mental health, elderly services) have found that a family-centered, strengths-based approach is associated with increased service engagement (Green et al., 2004; Shireman, 1998), increased parenting competency (Green et al., 2004; Whitley, 1999), and enhanced interaction among family members (Green et al., 2004; Huebner, Jones, Miller, Custer, & Critchfield, 2006).

Figure 1: Individualized, Strengths-Based Approach and Practices

Descriptive text of Figure 1

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