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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
CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN CRISI""S"-- --' the Children's Mental Health Services Grant Program. Link efforts to prevent family violence to broader anti-erime initiatives. Be sure to tap both formal and informal supports to prevent family violence. • Support care by kin. Garner community support for the increasing numbers of grandparents and other relatives who are becoming surrogate parents. Work to change state or federal policies that threaten relatives' ability to safely care for children, rather than waiting until these children are forced to move to foster care with strangers. • Develop new resources. Engage businesses, religious organizations, and other community groups to contribute dollars, space, or volunteers to establish family resource centers in every neighborhood, whether at schools or other sites. Encourage local health, child welfare, and education agencies to jointly create home visiting programs to guide the parents of infants and young children in caring for their children appropriately. The benefits will be twofold: more children will receive the nurturing they need to thrive, and more child abuse and neglect will be averted. CHI L D R EN'S D E FEN S E FUN D 75
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About CDF he Children's Defense Fun
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Copyright © 1998 by Children's Def
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Acknowledgments Susanne Martinez, d
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THE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN YEA
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