child care - Digital Library Collections

THE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN YEARBOOK 1998
gress. The partners eventually agreed to three desired
outcomes: reductions in child abuse and neglect,
less repeat abuse and neglect, and fewer serious
injuries to children.
The strategies now being undertaken to improve
safety for children include a new "family
solutions" approach for those working with families.
Parents get help identifying triggering events
that place their children at risk, and they learn
new skills for better responding to these triggers.
Family-group decisionmaking broadens the support
network for some families in trouble. Informal
neighborhood helpers work with other individuals,
agencies, and community groups. A
community-wide service network and a system of
staff training will address families' individual
needs for substance abuse services. At the same
time, work groups cochaired by community leaders
and agency representatives are examining the
current child protection agency response to families
in crisis. They are also pursuing new approaches
to ensuring child safety and developing a
decision-making mechanism that respects the different
roles and responsibilities of the various partners.
Communications and evaluation efforts are
under way as well.
Moving Forward: A 1998 Agenda
for Action
Keeping children safe depends on keeping them
in nurturing families and communities. That
will require action at the local, state, and nationallevels
and partnerships among all those with
a stake in protecting children-parents and other
relatives, foster families and adoptive families, public
and private child-serving agencies, community
and business leaders, religious organizations, educators,
and child advocates. It requires that we look
holistically at what is jeopardizing families' abilities
to protect their children, and at who can help to
prevent those problems and build on families'
strengths. No single agency alone can assume responsibitity
for keeping children safe. Nor is there
any single solution for keeping a child in a permanent
family.
During 1998 advocates at the state and local
levels must:
• Constantly seek better strategies to promote
safety and permanence for children. Collect and
establish basetine data so that the impact of
the new Adoption and Safe Families Act can
be assessed after a year and over the longer
term. Identify effective strategies, focusing on
what works best to treat children as individuals
with unique circumstances and needs. Work to
extend successful strategies to other communities
and states, and explore new approaches.
Evaluate the adequacy of existing resources
and the extent to which they are being used
efficiently; identify the gaps and craft the best
case for new investments. Push for systemic
reforms as well as services to reach more children
and families.
• Pay attention to special problems that threaten
children's safety. Alcohol and drug abuse, domestic
violence, and the mental health problems
of parents can all endanger children. To
ensure that families' needs are appropriately
assessed and addressed, encourage collaboration
between child welfare agencies and those
that treat substance abuse, mental illness, and
domestic violence. Include welfare and employment
and training agencies too, since
these same problems often pose serious barriers
to employment for families required to
work under the 1996 welfare law. Help the
public to better understand the connections.
Treating famities' problems and keeping parents
on the employment track can keep them
moving toward economic and social stability
and prevent them from needing to seek help
from the child welfare system.
• Forge partnerships. Learn more about the community
partnerships in Louisville and elsewhere,
and consider how you might foster collaboration
with the child protection agency in
your communHy. Build on the work already
done in some states to reach across agencies
and into communities to implement the Promoting
Safe and Stable Famities Program and
74 CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND