All families can benefit from connecting with resources that offer information, guidance, and support to help them meet the challenges of parenthood and family life.
- Family support services are community-based services that assist and support parents in their role as caregivers. Family support services promote parental competency and healthy child development by helping parents enhance their strengths and resolve problems that can lead to child maltreatment, developmental delays, and family disruption.
- Family preservation services are short-term services designed to help families cope with significant stresses or problems that interfere with their ability to nurture their children. The goal of family preservation services is to maintain children with their families, or to reunify them, whenever it can be done safely.
Family support and preservation services may be provided to different types of families involved with the child welfare system—birth or biological families, kinship families, foster families, and adoptive families—to enhance family functioning and ensure child safety. In family support and preservation services, the worker assists the family in identifying strengths, needs, and current resources in order to create a plan to address their concerns and help them achieve their goals. Assessment is incorporated throughout the process and may take a number of different forms but always with the family as partners in the process.
The following resources provide an introduction to the field of family support and preservation services.
| Author(s) | Child Welfare Information Gateway;Children's Bureau;FRIENDS National Resource Center For Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention |
| Availability | Download (PDF - 2,732KB) |
| Year Published | 2019 |
Family Stabilization Programs
California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (2019)
Rates the effectiveness of programs that aim to preserve, support, and stabilize families in crisis or at risk of child removal.
National Family Preservation Network
Offers research-based tools, training resources, and technical assistance to public and private child- and family-serving agencies in the areas of family preservation, reunification, and fatherhood.
National Family Support Network
Provides resources for families using a family-centered approach to enhance parenting skills; prevent child abuse; increase school readiness; connect families to necessary resources; develop parent and community leadership; and promote the health, safety, and well-being of children.
National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice
Promotes family-centered, community-based, culturally competent practice within organizations involved in child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, substance use treatment, and similar fields. The center works across systems, including research and evaluation, training and technical assistance, and information dissemination.
Strengthening Families
Center for the Study of Social Policy
Describes a framework for increasing family strengths and enhancing child development by helping parents build protective factors in their lives and communities. The website offers resources for planning and implementation, community partnership development, research and evaluation, and more.