Family Preservation Policy and Program Approaches

An ongoing challenge in the child welfare field has been managing the potential conflict between partnering with families to prevent out-of-home placement or reunifying children with their families while also addressing safety concerns. Federal laws such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act and amendments to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act called for a better balance between protecting children and preserving families. More recent legislation and policy guidance have sought to refocus program and practice efforts on ensuring child well-being and family connections as well as attending to safety and permanency.

Within this context, there remains considerable confusion about the essential elements of family preservation services and which types of programs fall into this category. Although family preservation programs share many common characteristics, they vary considerably with respect to auspices (public or private agencies), theoretical orientation, target population, identified problem, and primary location of service. Programs also vary dramatically in terms of intensity, duration, caseloads, and teaming with other professionals or paraprofessionals.

The following resources provide a broad overview of policies addressing family preservation services and program approaches to providing such services to families.

The Child Welfare Placement Continuum: What’s Best for Children?
National Conference of State Legislatures (2016)
Compares treatment and placement options for children and families involved in child welfare, including preserving birth families, kinship care, foster care, and congregate care.

A Complete Guide to the Family First Prevention Services Act
Kelly (2018)
The Chronicle of Social Change
Examines the Family First Prevention Services Act and offers an easy-to-understand analysis of its guidelines and implications.

Family Empowerment Leadership Academy (FELA)
Capacity Building Center for States (2016)
Builds capacity for empowering and forming partnerships with families. This learning experience consists of two key components: (1) a training curriculum package that develops knowledge and skills related to partnering with families at system, agency, and practice levels; and (2) eLearning modules that provide foundational information about how to promote agency change through empowering families, building meaningful family partnerships, and promoting peer-to-peer support among families. Registration is required to access this learning experience.

Family Preservation and In-Home Services
Capacity Building Center for States
Provides resources, publications, and podcasts on topics related to family preservation and in-home services.

Family Preservation or Child Safety? Associations Between Child Welfare Workers' Experience, Position, and Perspectives
Fluke, Corwin, Hollinshead, & Maher (2016)
Children and Youth Services Review, 69
Presents the findings of a study on the influence of individual characteristics, personal experience, and organizational environment on child welfare workers’ perspectives on child safety and family preservation.  

Improving Children’s Lives: Balancing Investments in Prevention and Treatment in the Child Welfare System
Ringel, Schultz, Mendelsohn, Brooks Holliday, Sieck, Edochie, & Davis (2017)
RAND Corporation
Identifies policies to increase preventive, family preservation, and kinship treatment services to improve system experience and long-term outcomes for children and families. The report concludes with implications for the field.

Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PDF - 301 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States (2016)
Describes the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program's purpose and objectives, legislative history, and funding mechanisms and requirements as well as provides relevant definitions.

State Guides and Manuals Results: Family Preservation and Support
Child Welfare Information Gateway
Offers State-specific information about a variety of child welfare topics, including family preservation and support manuals for professionals.

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