Collaborating With Your Community

Human services agencies, schools, faith-based groups, health-care facilities, businesses, and other agencies and organizations all have a stake in helping to prevent child abuse and neglect. Working in isolation, these groups often struggle to find the resources to make an impact on the lives of children and families. Working together, they can combine resources to prevent physical and emotional harm to children, build strong families, and help communities thrive.

Building and Sustaining Collaborative Community Relationships
Capacity Building Center for States (2017)
Highlights the importance of effective, ongoing collaboration between child welfare agencies and community-based partners to strengthen assessment and decision-making, increase understanding of the family’s needs, promote communication and information sharing across systems, and provide better overall support to children and families.

Collaboration
FRIENDS National Center (2018)
Provides information and resources on Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) programs and creating effective partnerships for child maltreatment prevention. The website includes activities that support collaboration and the 2016 CBCAP State Reports Summary.

Community Partnerships for the Protection of Children
Center for the Study of Social Policy
Works with jurisdictions across the country to improve society's response to protecting vulnerable children and strengthening families. This work engages public child protection agencies, human services providers, local organizations, the faith community, and neighborhood leaders, using the motto, "Keeping children safe is everybody's business."

Engaging Communities
Child Abuse and Neglect Technical Assistance and Strategic Dissemination Center (2018)
Provides video and audio stories to promote community engagement in supporting children and families and preventing child maltreatment.

The Evolution of Hope
Casey Family Programs (2017)
Provides information and resources on 2020: Community of Hope, a framework for safely reducing the need for foster care and improving the educational, employment, and mental well-being of young people.

Faith-Based & Community Initiative (FBCI)
Commonwealth of Virginia (2017)
Provides information and resources on the Virginia faith-based community collaboration, including a partnership guide for faith-based groups, a toolkit for faith and community leaders for the opioid epidemic, and the initiative newsletter.

Family Violence Prevention: A Toolkit for Stakeholders (PDF - 4,567 KB)
National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families & Center for Family Policy and Practice (2013)
Provides a toolkit with information and resources to assist stakeholders in incorporating domestic violence and child maltreatment awareness into service provision, including information that will increase service providers understanding of these issues and will also help them identify other beneficial resources or referrals in the community that may support their efforts to institute healthy relationship policies and practices.

How Collaboration Fosters Safer Communities for Kids
Davis (2018)
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Culture of Health Blog
Provides approaches that communities can utilize to help ensure children grow up in safe and supportive environments.  

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