On Tuesday July 30, 2024, more than 800 people gathered in-person and virtually – including at over 20 watch parties across the country – to participate in a Convening on Child Welfare Transformation hosted by the White House Domestic Policy Council.
During the half day convening, Administration officials, Members of Congress, people with lived experience and program and foundation leaders discussed innovative ideas to help families stay together safely, ensure children have the opportunity to grow up in a home where they have a family member who loves them (whether they be their parent or kin) and highlighted examples of transformation, including the development of a new paradigm for older youth permanency.
Central to the discussion was how best to meet family needs and prevent unnecessary involvement in the child welfare system: the partnerships, research and innovations that are key to creating system shifts that benefit families.
Neera Tanden, the director of the Domestic Policy Council of the United States, opened the convening by discussing how leading with a family-centered approach is central to ensuring children thrive.
Representatives Danny Davis from Illinois and Gwen Moore from Wisconsin, leaders long-committed to policies that support vulnerable children and their families, discussed the bipartisan Congressional commitment to improving child welfare, evidenced most recently by the unanimous passage of the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families ACT out of the House Ways and Means Committee last week. The bill draws on 16 bipartisan bills introduced in recent weeks and offers vital assistance and funding to help among other things, strengthen and keep families together before foster care. The bill provides resources to help meet families’ economic needs and requires states to have policies in place to ensure that poverty is not the sole reason for child welfare involvement.
The summit featured many of the innovations that are central to the Doris Duke Foundation’s goal of creating a new prevention paradigm in child welfare, including disconnecting poverty and neglect, providing families with concrete and economic support at the first sign of need and practicing true partnerships with those who have been directly impacted by existing systems by including people with lived experience in the design and implementation of this new prevention paradigm.
Valerie Frost, a parent from Kentucky, shared her experiences with the child welfare system, movingly describing a time when her young children were almost taken away from her because she met certain risk factors. Her children are not alone. A shocking 53 percent of black children are investigated by Child Protective Services by the time they turn 18.
Valerie posed a series of questions that get at the heart of reimagining a changed system: What if the child welfare system was set up differently? What if a call to the hotline came from a place of care and not judgment? What if we tossed the checklist of risk factors and instead viewed well-being gaps as opportunities for preventative support? What if we reserved the foster care system for truly indisputable scenarios of physical abuse or serious neglect?
Valerie’s questions are central to the Doris Duke Foundation’s OPT-In for Families Initiative, which is being piloted in Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina and Washington, D.C., and aims to transform our nation’s response to children at risk of abuse and neglect by helping to build a prevention-oriented child well-being system that supports children and families within their communities. We believe that the two million families currently screened out by the child protection system are at an unacceptably high risk of unnecessarily descending into a cycle of ongoing child welfare investigation referrals followed by intensive and intrusive interventions. Instead, what these families need most is engaged, proactive help from trusted members of their community.
In conjunction with the convening, the White House and the Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services announced a series of new policies that make it easier to engage and support families seeking prevention services. In particular, the announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services clearly states that many of the engagement, case coordination and service support costs can be covered under the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) – even when the service itself is paid for through a different funding stream (e.g., FFPSA can pay for child care so that the parent can attend mental health counseling paid for by Medicaid). While there are some administrative requirements, this is a significant opportunity for states to use this funding stream to support families and children. In addition, tribes with a state IV-E agreement will now have increased flexibility in implementing a prevention program – this may be particularly relevant for Oregon and other states.
In closing remarks, Doris Duke Foundation president and CEO Sam Gill called on the group to seize this moment of change, saying that child well-being “is a problem that so many people write off as intractable, but it's profoundly soluble with the resources and the ingenuity that we have in this country. We have new generations of leaders who are ready to blaze trails. We have public and private institutions that are ready to deploy capital. At the Doris Duke Foundation, we are proud to be part of the philanthropic sector that invests $100 million a year in the people, organizations and ideas that promote innovation in prenatal and child and family well-being.”
It was an inspiring event that highlighted the voices and experiences of those making a real difference in the well-being of children and families. I believe that together we can build on these innovations to create a child and family well-being system that allows children to be safe with families and thrive.
JooYeun Chang is the program director for child well-being at the Doris Duke Foundation. She oversees the program’s grantmaking to promote children’s healthy development and protect them from abuse and neglect.