Parents and caregivers who engage with child welfare often feel uncomfortable, unheard, and powerless to make decisions about what is best for themselves and their children. Power sharing refers to giving parents authority and influence over decisions that need to be made about the health and well-being of themselves and their children. This page offers resources on how to partner with parents and empower them to partake in decisions that impact the well-being of their family.
8 Principles for Engaging and Centering Parent Voices
Creamer (2021)
Aspen Institute
Recommends ways that child- and family-serving agencies can better engage and listen to families using a two-generation approach.
Episode 1: What Do We Mean by Sharing Power? [Podcast]
Capacity Building Center for States (2022)
Discusses the meaning of power sharing, lived experience, and lived expertise from the perspectives of two individuals with lived experience.
Family Engagement: Partnering With Families to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes
Including Family Power and Family Voice Into Family Engagement
Dowell (2020)
Possip
Discusses the need to empower families by giving them a voice in their children’s education decisions.
‘Just Shut Up and Let Them Talk: Participation, Power, and the Parent Voice in the Child Protection System
Gibbons & Connolly (2020)
Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 22(1)
Proposes recommendations on how child protection systems can better engage parents when making decisions that directly impact the well-being of themselves and their families.
Radical Family Engagement: Journey Map (PDF - 2,200 KB)
Logan & Cummins (2020)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Early Childhood Development
Discusses the role that meaningful family engagement has on the essential growth and development of young children, including lessons learned from facilitated conversations.
Team Decision Making May Empower Child Welfare Decision Making and Improve Outcomes for Families
Rushovich & Hebert (2021)
Child Trends
Provides an overview of team decision-making (TDM), including the five essential elements that make TDM effective in engaging families in important decisions about the well-being of their children.