These organizations and websites offer information on ways child welfare and child abuse prevention programs work with early childhood programs to improve services to children and families, including State and local examples.
Alliance for Early Success
Promotes policy ideas that support families in their parenting role and ensure positive early childhood development for at-risk children and their families. Website offers information on State-by-State early childhood legislation and policies, links to news and research, and provides an online discussion forum.
Center for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Offers resources that address the needs of Head Start staff and families for practical guidance on effective ways to promote young children's social and emotional development and reduce challenging behaviors.
Creating Collaborative Partnerships Between Early Care & Education and Child Welfare
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, & National Infant and Toddler Child Care Initiative @ Zero to Three (2016)
Identifies national and State approaches to connect early childhood and child welfare services and addresses strategies to improve referral and service coordination, capacity building, and policy coordination.
Collaborative Relationships and Improved Service Coordination Among Child Welfare and Early Childhood Systems
Brown, Klein, & McCrae (2014)
Child Welfare, 93(2)
Presents the findings of a study that examined inter-agency partnership outcomes for two early childhood and child welfare collaboratives. The study concludes with policy and practice implications.
A Developmental Approach to Child Welfare Services for Infants, Toddlers, and Their Families: A Self-Assessment Tool for States and Counties Administering Child Welfare Services (PDF - 491 KB)
ZERO TO THREE (2012)
Helps States and counties assess how child welfare policies and practices address the developmental needs of infants, toddlers, and their families; identifies how policies and practices can be improved; and engages partners in taking action.
Early Childhood-Child Welfare Partnerships
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families
Explores Early Childhood-Child Welfare partnerships and discusses the increased collaboration among child welfare and early childhood systems to support and amplify positive outcomes for children, prenatal to age 8, and their families.
Helping Young Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: Policies and Strategies for Early Care and Education (PDF - 6,912 KB)
ChildTrends & National Center for Children in Poverty (2017)
Explains the impact of early childhood trauma and promising strategies for meeting the needs of trauma-impacted children, including expanding early care and education programs that connect families with community supports and services.
How Can Child Protection Agencies Partner With Early Care and Education to Improve Outcomes for Children?
Casey Family Programs (2020)
Discusses how relationships between child welfare and early childhood systems are linked to positive outcomes for children and families and lists policies that support this collaboration. The resource also links to several projects and initiatives that are examples of successfully formed partnerships.
It's Not as Simple as it Sounds: Problems and Solutions in Accessing and Using Administrative Child Welfare Data for Evaluating the Impact of Early Childhood Interventions
Ayoub, Bartlett, Chazan-Cohen, Ende, Furrer, Green, Klevens, & Nygren (2016)
Child Youth Services Review, 57
Presents the findings of a study on the processes used to access administrative child welfare data from six States and the approach to using this information to evaluate the impact of the Early Head Starts program on child welfare youth. The study with lessons learned and policy implications for the field.
Making It Happen: Overcoming Barriers to Providing Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health
Cohen, Oser, & Quigley (2016)
ZERO TO THREE
Reviews scientific evidence for Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health (I-ECMH) policies; examines issues faced by national, State, and local program directors and mental health practitioners in providing I-ECMH services; and proposes a set of recommendations for policy improvements at the Federal level.
Making the Case for Early Childhood Intervention in Child Welfare: A Research and Practice Brief
Casey Family Programs (2013)
Examines interventions around the country that attempt to safely reduce the number of children in foster care, including cross-system collaboration approaches with integrated early learning and development systems.
Roadmap for Foster Care and K-12 Linkages
Data Quality Campaign (2017)
Highlights seven key focus areas to ensure that child welfare and education agencies can share data to improve education outcomes for students from K–12 in foster care.
State and local examples
Birth-to-Five Task Group: Recommendations for the Colorado Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare and Early Childhood Sub-Policy Advisory Councils (PDF - 386 KB)
Colorado Office of Children, Youth and Families (2017)
Provides four recommendations for improving support to families and preventing child maltreatment based upon two focus areas: screening decisions and through child welfare assessments and ways the early childhood system can partner with the child welfare system to prevention child maltreatment.
Child Welfare and Early Learning Partnerships (PDF - 291 KB)
Washington State Department of Early Learning (2015)
Describes the successes and challenges of the partnership between the Department of Early Learning (DEL) and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) to provide child welfare-involved youth with early learning and developmentally appropriate child care services.
System Change for Successful Children
Collaborative for Educational Services
Describes the collaborative project that connects training and early childhood mental health consultation to the Massachusetts child welfare system. The program developed two toolkits to support trauma-informed practice for child welfare professionals and early childhood professionals.