child care - Digital Library Collections

THE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN YEARBOOK 1998
laboration among community agencies and to the
development of specific techniques to promote
community-based child protection services.
Support for the concept ofcommunity partnerships
to deal with child abuse and neglect also
carne from other sources. A 1997 paper issued by
the Executive Session on Child Protection at Harvard
University's Kennedy School, Child Protection:
Building Community Partnerships-Getting from
Here to There, outlines a new vision for protecting
children and seven steps for communities to take to
move toward this vision (see box 5.1). The goal is
to encourage family members, informal support
networks, community organizations, and teams of
multiple service agencies to collaborate with child
protective services and local law enforcement agencies.
Under the new community partnership, the
child protection agency maintains a central but less
autonomous role, helping to catalyze, organize,
and lead other partners in activities to keep children
safe.
Partnerships developed in response to the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program. Establishing
partnerships has been an important part of
the work undertaken by states over the past four
years to implement the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families Program (formerly the Family Preservation
and Support Services Program). Preliminary
reports from 1997 surveys indicate that this program
has helped bring together groups at the state
and community levels to assess the needs and
strengths of communities and decide where new
dollars can best be spent to improve outcomes for
children. Implementation efforts in Michigan and
Florida are particularly noteworthy:
• With federal and extra state funds, Michigan's
Strong Families/Safe Children Program established
coordinating councils in all 83 counties.
Councils include consumers, seniors, community
and religious representatives, prosecutors,
judges, and personnel from various agencies
who decide together what services to offer and
what changes to make. They have a mandate to
track and report their progress in achieving at
least four goals: increasing immunizations, decreasing
the number and duration of out~fhome
care placements, increasing adoptions,
and expanding services to relatives acting as
surrogate parents.
• Community-wide involvement is also the cornerstone
ofFlorida's family support and family
preservation programs and practices. Community
facilitators in each service district, in collaboration
with any established councils or
coalitions, help design plans to meet local
needs. "Asset-based mapping" identifies existing
community strengths and resources and
helps determine how to best use new
resources.
Partnerships for mental health. Local systems
of care established with funding from the federal
Children's Mental Health Services Grant Program
are another example of community partnerships.
The goal is to ensure that children with serious
emotional disturbances and their families receive
the help they need. The systems ofcare link various
child-serving agencies and draw in parents and
other family members to create a range of services
individually tailored to children.
Efforts are being made to transfer the principles
ofpartnership to early childhood development
programs. The value of partnership is described in
a 1997 publication of the National Center for Children
in Poverty and the American Orthopsychiatric
Association, Lessons from the Field: Head Start
Mental Health Strategies to Meet Changing Needs. It
highlights strategies used by Head Start programs
to assure the healthy emotional development of
young children. These strategies include emphasizing
staff training, finding new ways of engaging
families, and building stronger connections to the
community.
Needs of Special Populations
Another concern in 1997 was the need to increase
and improve services for two groups of
children particularly likely to end up in the
child protection system-children from families
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