Strengthening Families for a Smart Start

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Strengthening Familiesfor a Smart Start

• May 7, 2009

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Strengthening FamiliesThe Challenge

• Each year nearly 1,000,000 children are confirmed
  victims of neglect and abuse.

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Strengthening FamiliesThe Challenge

• Children ages birth to1 year have the highest
  rates of child maltreatment 84 of victims are
  less than one week old
• Children ages 1-3 have the 2nd highest rate of
  victimization
• Parenting young children is especially
  challenging and a critical time period where
  information, education, resources and support can
  make a difference

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Strengthening FamiliesThe Challenge

• Consequences for Child
• Poor physical health
• Poor mental health
• Social and behavioral issues
• Learning difficulties

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Strengthening FamiliesThe Challenge

• Consequences for Society
• In 2007, the cost to society for intervention and
  care of victims was 104 billion for
  hospitalizations, child welfare, special
  education, mental health, and criminal justice.
• This does not include intervention and treatment
  for family members, perpetrators, or the ongoing
  costs associated with children as they grow into
  adulthood.
• (Wang and Holton, 2007)

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Agenda

• Background
• The 5 Protective Factors
• Public awareness and advocacy
• Program and funding practices
• Parent engagement

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Strengthening FamiliesWhat is it?

• A new approach to CAN prevention that is grounded
  in research
• A framework for family support that has
  specificity and the flexibility to be applied
  across disciplines
• A structure for integrating family strengthening
  into existing service settings

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Strengthening FamiliesBackground

• Strengthening Families Model
• Early care and education centers are core to the
  Strengthening Families model and the beginning
  point for nationwide implementation.
• Access to a large number of young children and
  their families
• Can impact families before abuse or neglect ever
  occurs
• Already addressing Protective Factors to some
  degree
• Safe and trusting atmosphere for parents

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Strengthening FamiliesLooking Forward

• However, early education programs represent just
  the beginning. In order to end child abuse and
  neglect, it is also necessary to
• Integrate protective factors into all services
  for families (adult education, family supports,
  child welfare, etc.).
• Ensure that public policy and funding integrates
  the protective factors and supports families.
• Grow public awareness so everyone can support
  families.

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Strengthening FamiliesNational Network

• 29 States and DC
• Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California,
  Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii,
  Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine,
  Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New
  Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma,
  Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina,
  Tennessee, Washington, Washington, DC, West
  Virginia, Wisconsin
• 7 National Partner Organizations
• BUILD, FRIENDS National Resource Center for
  CB-CAP, National Alliance of Childrens Trust and
  Prevention Funds, NAEYC, NCCIC, Zero to Three,
  United Way
• 4 National Affiliate Organizations
• Midwest Learning Center for Family Support,
  National Registry Alliance, Parents as Teachers,
  Parent Services Project

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Strengthening Families5 Protective Factors

• Parental Resilience
• Social Connections
• Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development
• Concrete Support in Times of Need
• Social and Emotional Development

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Strengthening FamiliesThe 5 Protective Factors

• Programs and services that
• Facilitate friendships and
• mutual support
• Strengthen parenting
• Respond to family crises
• Link families to services
• and opportunities
• Value and support
• Parents
• Facilitate childrens social
• and emotional development
• Observe and respond to early warning signs of
  child abuse or neglect

Which . . . Prevents Child Abuse and Neglect

• Promote the Protective Factors
• Parental Resilience
• Social connections
• Knowledge of parenting and child development
• Concrete support in times of need
• Social and emotional development

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Strengthening FamiliesPutting the 5PF into
Practice

• Is SF aligned to your organizations mission?
• If so, around which of the 5 protective factors
  are you already doing work? Discuss the work.

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Strengthening FamiliesPutting the 5PF into
Practice

• How can you tell if your agencys
  mission/activities are aligned with the
  protective factors?
• The UWGHP has utilized an electronic data
  collection project of all of its local service
  providers in order to assess the their activities
  against the 5 protective factors in order to see
  what the communitys service climate is. How did
  we do this?
• Because the project is well-grounded in research
  there are tremendous amounts of national
  resources available. Our team worked with a
  variety of those to create a survey that assesses
  the agencys climate against the 5 factors.

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Strengthening FamiliesPutting the 5PF into
Practice
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Strengthening FamiliesPutting the 5PF into
Practice
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Strengthening FamiliesPutting the 5PF into
Practice

• What did we find and how are we going to work
  with it?

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Strengthening FamiliesPutting the 5PF into
Practice

• What we see is that our focus must be drawn in
  the order provided by the data
• Parental resilience
• Concrete support for parents
• Social Connections
• Nurturing and Attachment
• Knowledge of Parenting
• You can do the same within your own agency. We
  have the same survey results from staff at each
  of these agencies.

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Strengthening FamiliesParent Education and
Engagement Tools

• Nurturing Parenting
• Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)
• Parent Services Project
• Parent Leadership Institutes
• Stronger Together curriculum (for EC field)
• Parent Cafes
• Community Cafes

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Strengthening FamiliesParent Education and
Engagement Tool

• Community Cafes
• Parent hosted
• Guided conversations based on needs and interests
  of community
• Builds community wisdom and parent voice

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Strengthening FamiliesParent Education and
Engagement Tool

• Community Café topics
• 5 protective factors AKA the 5 inalienable rights
  of every child
• Leadership development
• Community partnership

• Community Café partners
• Early learning centers
• Schools
• Faith-based organizations
• Family and social service programs

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Strengthening FamiliesPublic Awareness and
Advocacy

• United Way of Greater High Point Childrens
  Initiatives SFU
• Building the Foundation of Change
• Community Description
• Situation
• Assessment
• Strategies
• Keys to Success
• Benefits

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Strengthening Families Initiative United Way of
Greater High Points Childrens Initiatives was
one of only 6 United Ways in the United States
awarded a grant from United Way of America for
Strengthening Families United. The grant was for
99,000.

Anchorage, AK
Spokane, WA
High Point, NC
Atlanta, GA
San Antonio, TX
Brownsville, TX
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Strengthening FamiliesPublic Awareness and
Advocacy
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Strengthening FamiliesPublic Awareness and
Advocacy
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Strengthening FamiliesPublic Awareness and
Advocacy

• Local Advocacy
• City Government
• Court System
• County Government
• State Advocacy
• QRIS-Idaho, Pennsylvania,Tennessee
• 211
• Division of Child Development
• Department of Public Instruction
• Smart Start

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Strengthening FamiliesEvaluation

• What is Participatory Action Research?
• Participatory action research is a recognized
  form of experimental research that focuses on the
  effects of the researcher's direct actions of
  practice within a participatory community with
  the goal of improving the performance quality of
  the community or an area of concern (Dick, 2002
  Reason Bradbury, 2001 Hult Lennung, 1980
  McNiff, 2002). Action research involves utilizing
  a systematic cyclical method of planning, taking
  action, observing, evaluating (including
  self-evaluation) and critical reflecting prior to
  planning the next cycle (O'Brien, 2001 McNiff,
  2002). The actions have a set goal of addressing
  an identified problem in the workplace, for
  example, reducing the illiteracy of students
  through use of new strategies (Quigley, 2000) or
  improving communication and efficiency in a
  hospital emergency room (Eisenberg, Baglia,
  Pyrnes, 2006).

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Strengthening FamiliesEvaluation

• Participatory Action Research Approach for SF
• Strengthening Families United will utilize a
  participatory action research that emphasizes
  shared decision-making and mutual trust learning
  and ongoing improvement high levels of
  usefulness of evaluation data and building
  capacity to conduct evaluations at the local
  level. The goal of the evaluation process is to
  define a set of models and tools that United Ways
  and communities around the country can use to
  integrate protective factors into their work.
• This was required in the grant applicationwhat
  does that mean on the ground?

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Strengthening FamiliesEvaluation

• I think the most challenging, but probably the
  most powerful aspect of taking a participatory
  approach is the need to let the project actually
  define its own processes. (Just ask Barbara!)
• As a project director, this can be very
  difficult since we as a service sector are so
  used to taking a research based approach and
  running with it. Ironically enough, the
  Strengthening Families model is exactly such an
  approach.
• But, the UWA had the foresight to understand
  that communities vary and therefore a
  one-size-fits approach will not work.

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Strengthening FamiliesEvaluation

• Local communities, and even agencies, need to be
  allowed to do what they already do well and yet
  be given the guidance from the SF model to add in
  bits of improvement where they will be most
  effective.
• Because this approach is emergent among most
  service providers in the USA it is often
  necessary to partner with and evaluator who is
  trained in the approach.
• The benefit of the investment is that the
  improvement based on the process tends to be
  sustainable and long lasting instead of the
  typical latest reform fad that we are all used
  to.

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Strengthening FamiliesPutting it into Practice

• Identify one area in which your organization
  could be doing more intentional work to instill
  the protective factors even in todays
  environment of constrained resources.

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Strengthening FamiliesReferenced Resources
www.ctfalliance.org (Our Work?Effective
Partnerships with Parents?Community
Cafes www.friendsnrc.org www.strengtheningfamili
es.net www.nurturingparenting.com www.parentserv
ices.org www.preventchildabuse.org/index.shtml P
arent Cafes- www.strengtheningfamiliesillinois.org
www.triplep.net www.cdc.gov/injury
Samantha Wigand, United Way of
America Samantha.wigand_at_local.unitedway.org Barba
ra Frye, United Way of Greater High
Point Barbara.Frye_at_unitedwayhp.org Aimee
Sickels, Custom Evaluation Services aimee_at_customev
aluation.com
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Thank you