Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience: A Framework for Understanding Community Trauma

The PMI 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. This issue focuses on community trauma, how it is different from individual trauma, its impacts, and possibilities for initiating healing in communities. Thank you to Dana Fields-Johnson, a Director with the Prevention Institute, for editing this Spring 2024 issue.

FRIENDS and our PMI partners rotate editing each edition. The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

There is more known about the impact of trauma than ever. If unaddressed, at the individual level, trauma makes it hard to succeed in school, interferes with work productivity, damages relationships, increases the risk of suicide and other forms of violence, and is associated with shorter lifespans. When it manifests as a community phenomenon, trauma damages community cohesion, fosters damaging norms, and exacerbates individual trauma. For communities, this can mean compromised academic achievement; diminished economic productivity; and shorter, less healthy lives causing human suffering and increased healthcare and other systems costs. Fortunately, there is more than ever known about how to address and prevent trauma at both the individual and community levels, making communities stronger and more resilient to cope with, and address, the next potential adverse community experience. (Source: Prevention Institute’s Adverse Community Experience and Resilience Framework)

Idea #1

Trauma extends beyon individuals to impact communities and manifests as symptoms in the community Environment. There is a growing understanding about the prevalence and impact of trauma. Prevention Institute’s Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience (ACE|R): A Framework for Addressing and Preventing Community Trauma was the first framework of its kind to advance an understanding of trauma at the community level and to work toward community resilience and prevention. The framework advances the understanding that adverse community experiences contribute to individual and community-level trauma. Community trauma is not just the aggregate of individuals who have experienced trauma in a neighborhood or community. It is the impact of chronic adversity in a community and manifests as symptoms in the socio-cultural, physical, and equitable opportunity environment. Community trauma symptoms include disconnected social relations and support networks, low sense of political and social efficacy, deteriorated built environments, lack of access to healthy foods, inadequate schools, limited employment opportunities, community disinvestment, and intergenerational poverty, to name a few. Trauma—individual and community—serve as a barrier to effective solutions to promote health, safety, and well-being and requires collective action across systems to put in place solutions to prevent and address community trauma.

Idea #2

Healing is a starting point for family and community agencies addressing trauma. It’s very challenging to get families and communities dealing with trauma to act without healing first. A community that experiences community trauma without healing does not necessarily have the full capacity and efficacy to organize effectively around solutions to address threats against being a healthy community. This means that while addressing the underlying reasons for community trauma it is critical to support thriving communities and a key element of this transformation necessarily includes addressing and preventing community trauma so that communities themselves have the agency to identify and achieve their own solutions. Supporting community healing and building community resilience fosters families and communities that can thrive and creates conditions for effective collective action by communities to find solutions that improve health, safety, and wellbeing.

Idea #3

There are strategies to address community-level trauma. Community trauma can be addressed through action at the community level to foster more resilient communities and at the systems and policy level to alter the factors that are contributing to community trauma. At the community level, preventing and addressing community trauma requires a comprehensive approach. It can be integrated into community planning efforts designed to address multiple issues such as safety, mental wellbeing, healthy eating/activity environments, and community and economic development. The planning process itself can help support healing and build resilience. At the systems level, systems, such as education, housing, justice, and child welfare, must recognize their tremendous impact – historical and present day – on the communities they serve to achieve better outcomes. Trauma-informed systems transformation will require authentic, healing-centered engagement and power-sharing with parents, caregivers, and families in the system. Examples of power-sharing strategies include participatory budgeting, shared leadership and decision-making, and co-design of policies, programs, and strategies to promote family and community resilience.

“A healing-centered approach views trauma not simply as an individual isolated experience, but rather highlights the ways in which trauma and healing are experienced collectively. The term healing-centered engagement expands how we think about responses to trauma and offers a more holistic approach to fostering well-being.”

~ Dr. Shawn Ginwright, Author, Professor, Activist
Source: “The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement”

“Our systems don’t recognize how trauma impacts people, and as a result decision makers in those systems create trauma and hold people in a space of trauma……. If we don’t talk about it and acknowledge it, then it’s very difficult to bring about change.”

~ Allison Wainwright, CEO of Family Life, Australia’s largest family services providers working with vulnerable children and families
Source: Laura Calderon de la Barca, Katherine Milligan, and John Kania. Healing Systems: How recognizing trauma in ourselves, other people, and the systems around us can open up new pathways to solving social problems. February 12, 2024, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Retrieved March 29, 2024. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/healing-trauma-systems”

In what ways is your agency/organization working to advance policies and strategies that support healing in children, families, and communities? As you consider systems transformation, where do you see the biggest opportunities to promote healing and resilience in children and families?

Three Key Ingredients to Building Communities of Support and Well-Being

Idea #1

Idea #2

Idea #3

Our Focus is on Families and Children – What Do Families Need and
How Should Systems Change?

The PMI 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. We thank Teresa Rafael, Executive Director of the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance, for editing this issue.

FRIENDS and our PMI partners rotate editing each edition. The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

Idea #1 

The COVID-19 pandemic, economic recession, and recognition of the role of systemic racism in driving disparate outcomes for families of color have accelerated momentum toward reshaping the social safety net. 

While numerous policies and initiatives designed to promote improvements have emerged in the area of child welfare, promoting the well-being of children and families requires that we address challenges far upstream of child protective services. Just as we recognize that the role of emergency rooms is not to prevent but to triage and treat acute, severe problems, responsibility for the prevention of child maltreatment lies beyond the child welfare system alone…It is more efficient and cost effective to provide families with the supports they need to have stable and supportive homes for their children than to raise them in a system that has fallen short of achieving positive outcomes…Misperceptions and values about poor families and the historical separation of child protective services from the mechanisms of financial support have resulted in vast and pervasive disagreements about the optimal role of direct financial support to families…The child welfare system cannot accomplish this shift alone. Whether child welfare system involvement represents the culmination of family stressors and unmet needs or the inadequacy of existing pathways to obtain support to preempt risk, addressing system shortcomings will require a multidimensional approach… These are all concerns that should be addressed by other systems—those best equipped to support well-being. These include local health departments, schools, local mental health departments, and sister human services agencies like housing and benefits. Shared accountability is critical for a well-being system to work, and it cannot be accomplished without major reforms to mandated reporting laws and the reporting process.

Weiner, D.A., Anderson, C., & Thomas, K. (2021). System transformation to support child and family well-being: The central role of economic and concrete supports. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.

Idea #2

Each of us must come to care about everyone else’s children.

We must recognize that the welfare of our children and grandchildren is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children. After all, when one of our children needs lifesaving surgery, someone else’s child will perform it. If one of our children is threatened or harmed by violence, someone else’s child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if a good life is also secured for all other people’s children.

Lilian Katz

Idea #3

Access to basic necessities — housing, food, clothing, medical and behavioral health care services, legal representation, transportation, and early care and education — is fundamental to the well-being and economic success of every family.

Providing these types of tangible resources can strengthen both families and communities by avoiding and de-escalating crises, reducing parental stress, increasing access to safe housing and reliable childcare, and ensuring children have the material items they need to thrive. Research on the use and effects of economic supports — and how they can prevent families from coming to the attention of a child protection agency — continues to grow. Studies show that supporting families to access and receive adequate and effective economic supports can prevent family separation, decrease time to permanency for children who have been removed from their parents, decrease the risk of subsequent abuse or neglect, and enhance child and family well-being.

Casey Family Programs, Transforming Child Welfare Systems, 2022, https://www.casey.org/media/22.07-QFF_TS-Economic-Supports_fnl.pdf

1. “As parents, the hardest thing in the world to face is not being able to meet the needs of our children and having to ask for help. We go back and forth in our thinking – should I pick up the phone and ask for help? Will you judge me for asking? Are you going to call child protective services? All we want to do is provide for our children.”

   Kimberly Mays, Parent and Social Services Worker, Washington State Office of Public Defense

2. “Change is more often a rapid transition between two stable states than a continuous transformation at slow and steady rates. . . Change occurs in large leaps following a slow accumulation of stress that a system resists until it reaches the breaking point.”

   Stephen Jay Gould

What would our communities look like if those who lived there and the systems serving them all worked together to ensure that families and children had economic supports when needed and opportunities to grow and thrive?

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

Rising to the Challenge of our Declaration of Independence and Centering Families over Systems

the disproportionate harm caused to families of color by the child protection system and challenges all of us to recognize and reduce trauma and build new versions of community conditions and institutions. We thank Corey Best, Founder and Community Curator of Mining for Gold, for editing this summer 2023 issue.

FRIENDS and our PMI partners rotate editing each edition. The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

Freedom and independence are celebrated on the 4th of July. While many recognize this tradition collectively, we have not held the truths of the Declaration to be self-evident. ALL bodies may have been created equally, however, the treatment of the most minoritized and marginalized remains eerily familiar to the days of yore. For countless Black families, the severity of exposure to child protective services (CPS) means a life filled with prolonged and exacerbated racialized trauma. This destruction has been researched, challenged, debated far too long. No one is “sleep.” The greatest fear is that we, in “prevention,” may be timid about building anew.

We have hope for those who openly acknowledge the need for our current institutions of oppression to be abolished – not to be replicated nor reformed. After all, the Declaration of Independence states that it is the right of citizens to abolish destructive governmental systems. And in the case of the family policing system, we have evidence of the abundance of harm. The costs associated with discriminatory child welfare policies have reached the magnitude of irreparable damage. Namely CAPTA. You know, where we warehouse ALL things CPS and prevention. Yes, this one federal law that did so much to get us to this place. It is CAPTA that has mandated that states create massive surveillance webs that include mandatory reporting laws and central registries; essentially “blacklists” for parents to support their climb out of poverty in which only racism has created and caused. Mandatory reporting laws have deputized therapists, doctors, teachers, and social workers to surveil and control families.

Despair will not get the last word. Therefore, the encouragement is to reflect on how serviceable CAPTA is, for the conditions we believe families require to actualize a sense of health, agency, and mastery over their own lives; to be inspired by activists and abolitionists who teach us that abolition is indeed practical and is principled in “what should be present.” At this point, I can imagine lots of resistance. Before ending, I suggest that we become firm in what our brand of rigidity may be and why we hold these truths, opposed to the truths of equality as written in one of the most famous founding documents. As you do, please ponder the following:

Abolition as the mainstay:

Idea #1

Organize and build coalitions with community members to realign CBCAP funding.

Idea #2

Build new versions of community conditions and institutions. While dismantling harmful, racist proclivities. This prototyping must be done with and in neighborhoods, because the most marginalized should not be a token or passive player.

Idea #3

Avoid more and more programs and services. Without safe-to-fail design thinking, we will not “train or service” our way out of racism. Abolition requires a rooted and intentional approach that attacks racism, while experimenting with new and prioritized relationships with “the people.” Most of the value in life and in business arises out of good relationships.

“CAPTA is where CPS lives, this is where child welfare began as a national system, so we must begin here. This is where we have to go to attack it. We have to go after federal funding, federal policies and laws.” (Angela Olivia Burton, Audio Nuggets podcast in December 2022)

“There are no popular documentaries about how violent family separation, toxic stereotypes about Black maternal unfitness, and financial incentives for dismantling Black families are shared features of chattel slavery and the modern foster care system. Nor is there the same degree of media scrutiny of the disproportionate percentage of Black families controlled through the foster care system as there is of the disproportionate control of Black bodies through the criminal legal system. Nor is there political discourse on what it would mean to abolish the foster care system. There is no obligation to address the erasure of the welfare state that places so many Black mothers in permanent states of poverty.” (Erin Miles Cloud, Toward the Abolition of the Foster System in 2019)

Why do we treat children who we snatch from their families the same way we treat prisoners who are incarcerated? Both are separated from everyone and everything they know and love. Both have set visit times and days. Both have oversight during visits. Both eat what they are served. Both change locations regularly. Both use garbage bags and pillowcases to change locations. Both are strip searched. Both are paroled back to their families. Both are supervised during their parole.” (Joyce McMillan, Audio Nuggets podcast in February 2023)

Does nurturing freedom dreams mean we must repeal CAPTA?

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

Creating a Family Support Movement: Lessons from Mental Health

The PMI 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. This issue focuses on learning lessons from the mental health movement to create a stronger family support movement. How do we normalize help seeking for all families? Thank you to Theresa Costello, CEO of Action 4 Child Protection, for editing this Spring 2023 issue.

Future issues that focus on topics relevant to shifting to a prevention mindset will be shared periodically. FRIENDS and our PMI partners rotate editing each edition.

The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

1. We have a fundamental problem in prevention because our society at large has characterized “asking for help” as a negative. In the child welfare arena, we would like to see more families reach out to community resources and supports as they see needs in their families, but many don’t because they are afraid to show weakness or need and fear that coming forward might expose them to the threat of referral to the child protective services system.
2. Help is not a form of weakness. We must somehow influence our systems and ourselves to see that asking for help is in fact an empowering act. Everyone goes through stages in life, we have a need for change, it is natural and good. And we often cannot make those changes alone, so it is a good and normal thing to seek help.
3. The mental health movement offers us some hope. Thanks to many efforts at different levels and from different audiences (athletes, celebrities, entertainers) ending the stigma of talking about and seeking help for mental health is happening. There are efforts to build technology to make it easier to seek help. Mental health wellness is being framed as everyone’s business. There are many parallels to families in need of supports and resources to prevent child abuse and individuals in need of mental health resources. The stigma is similar, the need to raise awareness and emphasize the importance of seeking help is similar.Just as we have begun to prioritize prevention of mental health disorders by promoting healthy habits such as exercise, sleep, and healthy eating; reducing exposure to toxic stressors; and fostering supportive relationships, we can prioritize child abuse prevention by promoting home visiting programs, diversion programs for at-risk families; and parent support groups, to name just a few.

   Just as we are seeing an expansion in access to mental health care and we are seeing increasing efforts to reduce barriers such as cost, transportation, and limited availability of services, we can invest in the expansion of resources and services to provide basic supports to families to meet basic needs; to increase access to health care and adequate housing as a couple of examples.

   And finally, just as the mental health community is addressing systemic issues because mental health disorders are often linked to broader societal issues such as poverty, racism, and discrimination; this is equally true in family support/child abuse prevention. Addressing these issues through policy and advocacy can help to create a more equitable society and reduce the stresses on families, which helps to build strong families.

“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.”

~Bill Clinton

“Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”

~Sitting Bull

How do we create a family support movement that shifts the narrative from “shame” to everyone needs help now and then; from reporting families as neglecting to supporting families who are lacking basic needs; and from stigmatizing families to advocating for families?

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

The Prevention Mindset Institute Newsletter is intended to provide helpful information and resources and another method for keeping us connected in our systems change community. The newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder.

This edition focuses on ideas shared by the creator of the 3-2-1 newsletter, James Clear, as well as ideas from the first cohort of PMI states who started this journey with us during the winter, 2020. Clear authored Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.

1. Idea #1

   “Persistence and variety. These are the two primary ways to develop great ideas or to solve important problems.

   Keep leaning your head against a topic for a long time. Certainly, for weeks, possibly for years. And along the way, try many lines of attack. Continue to generate options, explore paths, and propose silly ideas. Copy and paste concepts from widely different disciplines and see if it gets you anywhere. All the while, continue to refine the best solution you’ve found thus far.

   What looks like genius may simply be the byproduct of persistence and variety.”

   ~James Clear, 3-2-1 Newsletter, 12.1.22 edition

   An excellent message and strategy to apply in creating a new continuum of services for families that is centered on positive support and primary and secondary prevention and keeping families together whenever possible.

   Idea #2

   The California PMI state team has focused on winning “hearts and minds” within their state department before working with external partners; and on expanding the understanding of what upstream prevention is among as many stakeholders as possible. How are they doing this?

   The California Department of Social Services, Strategies TA, and the California Training Institute is Reimagining Prevention through an initiative focused on comprehensive prevention planning and moving upstream toward primary prevention. Read more about the initiative and the series of webinars offered during 2022: https://www.caltrin.org/training-archive/reimagining-prevention-webinar-series-archive/

   Learn more about winning hearts and minds of collaborators and changing culture: https://preventchildabuse.org/resources/prevention-creates-the-future-by-transforming-culture-dr-jeff-linkenbach/ Dr. Jeff Linkenbach has researched and taught on the Science of the Positive and changing social norms for more than a decade.

   Idea #3

   “Every transaction is paid for at least three times. First, with the money you pay. Second, with the time you spend. Third, with the reputation you create through your behavior. Being pleasant, reliable, and easy to work with might cost you a little more time. Perhaps even a bit of extra money. But the long-term returns from a great reputation usually outweigh the cost of a single transaction.
   Most of the value in life and in business arises out of good relationships.

   ~James Clear, 3-2-1 Newsletter, 10.27.22 edition

Texas began its focus on raising public awareness and changing social norms around help seeking with a values statement, “we all benefit from community support”. Each of us raising kids or caring for adults, need people to help us, and we need community and systems to help us. We all face obstacles; some families face greater obstacles than others.

See the Children’s Bureau’s Learning and Coordination Center (CBLCC) Digital Dialogue on Changing Social Norms Around Help Seeking, featuring the Prevention Mindset Institute and work in Texas and Kentucky. https://friendsnrc.org/resources/digital-dialogue-asking-for-help-is-a-sign-of-strength-changing-social-norms-about-help-seeking/

______________________

“Our helping organizations for families should be like an AT&T store.” Families should not enter and hear, what do you need? Why are you here? Instead, there needs to be a welcoming climate, “what can I do for you today? How can I help?”. If I am not made to feel comfortable and feel there is a welcoming atmosphere, I am not going to ask for help. We should be neighborhood friendly.

~Valerie Lebanion, FRIENDS’ Parent Advisory Council member
and Kentucky PMI State Team

Do I need to spend more time searching for better information or do I need to spend more time acting on the information I already have? Is the bottleneck strategy or execution?

~James Clear

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

The PMI 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. This issue focuses on mindset shifts, complex systems change, and being brave and creative. Future issues that focus on topics relevant to engagement in the Prevention Mindset Institute will be shared periodically. Parents and our other partners will rotate editing each edition.

The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

1. 1) What We Mean When We Say “Systems Change”
   Given that a systemic approach requires intentional work at multiple levels—from the micro tothe macro—we also intend to bridge these concepts from the social sector to everyday life. Thework we’re talking about here is more than just collaboration and strategy setting withinorganizations or networks. It’s about our individual mindsets and values and how we act onthem. In every interaction. Everyday.An excerpt from an essay by Motaz Attalla, Jennifer Berman, Jessica Conrad, Ruth Rominger, and Eleni Sotos from the Garfield Foundation.

   ~Read more: https://bioneers.org/what-we-mean-when-we-say-systems-change-zp0z2107/

   2) One roadblock almost never ruins you
   There might not be 1000 ways to accomplish something, but there is almost always more than one way.

   Know what you want. Be flexible about how to get there.

   ~James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones,
   October 16, 2018 https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

   3)

   

   ~Read more about each of these dimensions:
   https://atctools.org/toolkit_tool/wheel-of-change-planning-template/

“When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

~Audre Lorde, American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist

“Why are we so often more focused on solving problems and less focused on creating possibilities?”

~Heard in webinar on May 12, 2022, with Mining for Gold’s, Corey Best.

How can I make a difference in this complex system?

https://hbr.org/2021/04/6-strategies-for-leading-through-uncertainty

This article may offer some assistance in answering this question. Six Strategies for Leading Through Uncertainty, Harvard Business Review, April 2021. Rebecca Zucker and Darin Rowell offer six strategies that accelerate your ability to learn, evolve, and navigate progressively complex challenges.

• Embrace the Discomfort of Not Knowing
• Distinguish Between Complicated and Complex
• Let Go of Perfectionism
• Resist Oversimplifications and Quick Conclusions
• Don’t Go It Alone
• Zoom Out

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

This edition of the Prevention Mindset Newsletter has been edited by Corey Best, a consultant and founder of Mining for Gold, Inc., and Dana Fields-Johnson, an Associate Program Director with the Prevention Institute. Three ideas, four quotes, and one question are centered on racial justice, families, and child welfare practices. Mining for Gold and the Prevention Institute are partner organizations with FRIENDS’ Prevention Mindset Institute.

A future issue is planned for July, 2021.

The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

1. Years ago, I stumbled across a book entitled “Jim Crow Wisdom—Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940.” In this fascinating depiction of America’s adoration with othering, denial, marginalization, power and regulating families, IT was revealed. The IT being our country’s child welfare system is only a relic of the peculiar institution of slavery. And many of us who work to transform, advance racial justice, and preserve families through preventive approaches, are completely unaware that we support a system that consistently advantages those who have become known as white. While over-surveilling, separating, and creating prolonged trauma for Black and brown families.

   Since the 1960’s, Black children and their loving families have been given credit for their collective resilience, fortitude, and strength in the face of adversity. But not their collective humanity. It is time to level-UP. Families are growing weary of having to be knocked down, cut, wounded, and scarred because of white-dominant ideology that tolerates the “presumption of guilt”. Black families demand to be viewed as human beings and treated equitably. And it takes courageous leadership to cultivate a culture that recognizes how “history is perpetually suspicious of memory, and it’s true mission is to suppress and destroy it.” Race no longer must be the number one proxy for negative outcomes. Through courageous leadership, we can get closer to the aspiration of justice within our child welfare system by always telling the truth.

   Book referenced: Jim Crow Wisdom—Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940,
   Jonathan Scott Holloway, August 2015.

   Idea #1:
   Build relationships with communities and staff most harmed by the system of racial oppression. And vet all strategies and plans through their lens.

   Idea #2:
   Develop core guiding principles and measure authentic family engagement.

   Idea #3:
   Focus on process. Not projects

   ~Corey Best, Consultant, Founder, Mining for Gold, Inc.

“Race continues to play a defining role in one’s life trajectory and outcomes. A complex system of racial bias and inequities is at play, deeply rooted in our country’s history, culture and institutions. This system of racialization— which routinely confers advantage and disadvantage based on skin color and other characteristics—must be clearly understood, directly challenged and fundamentally transformed. If our nation is to live up to its democratic ideals—that all people are created equal and treated fairly—then racial equity and inclusion must be at the forefront of how we shape our institutions, policies and culture.”

~ Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide: Seven Steps to Advance and Embed Race Equity and Inclusion in Your Organization. Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014. Accessed at: http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECF_EmbracingEquity7Steps-2014.pdf

“The new politics of child welfare threatens to intensify state supervision of Black children. In the past several years, federal and state policy have shifted away from preserving families toward “freeing” children in foster care for adoption by terminating parental rights. Welfare reform, by throwing many families deeper into poverty, heightens the risk that some children will be removed from struggling families and placed in foster care.”

~Dorothy E. Roberts, 2002
George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania, Carey Law School

“In order to create policies that support children and youth of color, anti-racist policy approaches should focus on whole families. In the past, public policy has too often been siloed, and policies intended to support children have failed to address the larger struggles their families face. Policy has even actively undermined families in the name of protecting children—as we see with the child welfare system, which disproportionately threatens and separates Black and Indigenous children from their loved ones. Anti-racist policy must be designed to support and strengthen the whole family and ensure family economic security, so that families can thrive together. This requires supporting not just parents and siblings but also grandparents and other caregivers and loved ones who constitute a child’s family. It requires affirming children and families, building on their strengths, honoring and deepening their social connections, and connecting them to the basic supports they need.”

~Principles for Anti-Racist Policymaking, Center for the Study of Social Policy, December 2020. Available here: http://bit.ly/Anti-Racist-Policymaking

“Do people really think that somehow the child welfare system targets Black people but targets them in a good way?” If we can agree that implicit bias and racism are at least part of why our society is more likely to shoot a Black person, call the police on Black people, or profile a Black body, why do we believe that there are more noble reasons for the disproportionate reporting of Black mothers and removal of Black children? The reality is that both the criminal, legal, and the foster systems are rooted in deeply violent historical narratives about Black bodies that do more to promote punishment than safety.

~Joyce McMillan, 2020, child welfare advocate

What are three tangible benefits for white people to advance racial justice?

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

This 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. In this edition, we focus on what a reimagined prevention services system will require and on families as important leaders of this new vision and transformation. A special thank you to Teresa Rafael, Executive Director of the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance, for developing this edition of the newsletter.

Future issues are planned for May and July 2021.

The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

1. 1) Creating a reimagined Prevention Services System in the United States will require a whole new approach not only to the services we deliver but also to the ways in which we deliver them…

   A robust, comprehensive prevention system would not just prevent tragedies before they occur, but it would also offer upfront, cost-effective strategies that could strengthen all families and reduce the need to remove children from their families in the first place. …

   We envision this new system being led by a dedicated agency or department that is adequately funded to ensure the coordination of prevention resources so that all families, regardless of where they reside, can access services to keep their children safe, healthy, and well. This prevention system would provide equal attention to the prevention of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the promotion of positive childhood experiences.

   This focus on prevention will need to be supported with a robust policy agenda, including policies that address the economic strain that affects all too many families… This prevention system must be constructed with the recognition that there are systemic injustices in our society that limit opportunity and access for some children and families.

   Many families do not trust the systems that have been put in place to “help,” because they often experience discrimination when they attempt to access those services. A new, comprehensive prevention system would fundamentally work to alter the conditions and contexts in which children and families live in order to produce equitable outcomes for all.

   ~The Chronicle of Social Change, It’s Time for State Prevention Services Systems, July 21, 2020
   Jennifer Jones and Bart Klika (Prevent Child Abuse America)

   2) We hope that in the future, it will be common practice for leaders, service providers, child welfare workers, and other stakeholders to respond to families’ requests and needs in a way that builds trust and strengthens the capacity of parents. As parents, we want to feel comfortable calling a service provider and being able to ask questions when needed. For example, one of us might have a question relating to our child’s limited use of words and wonder whether this is typical of the child’s developmental stage or something we should worry about? We are asking for help in fulfilling our role as providers and caretakers for our children. We are not asking for you to fix our problems but to help us identify what is best for our family. We want YOU to help US help our children in the best way possible…

   Our hope is that families are, ultimately, connected to appropriate resources through the prevention system and that we are able to prevent families from becoming involved with the child welfare system. Please be the person who gives us real hope, not because you have all the answers but because you help us believe in ourselves. We challenge you to join with those who already focus their work on building relationships with families, being dependable, and identifying strengths. As a service provider, always ask yourself, how have I worked in partnership with this family and supported them to reach their full potential? As a leader, ask yourself how have I partnered with family members to be sure our policies and practices reflect what will be most successful in my community or state. We, as parents need to be supported and guided in our journeys to address challenges that led us to reach out for support. Later, we want opportunities to use our life experiences to give back to the communities and agencies that helped us grow and change.

   We are working to expand the recognition that supportive communities can help build strong families willing and able to ask for help. We must join together to change public perceptions regarding families. We are recommending that systems create opportunities for parents to work in partnership with community service providers, systems leaders (including child welfare leaders), and other key stakeholders to promote a culture shift where asking for help is normalized and seen as a strength. We have seen how powerful it is when parents and service providers work with community, state, and national leaders to build a public perspective that values families and the importance of supporting their growth, including extended family, friends, and other supportive individuals. When we all work together, we can change public attitudes and build support for this approach.

   ~Children’s Trust Fund Alliance, Birth Parent National Network, 2020,
   What Parents Say About… Building a 21st Century
   Community-Based Approach to Strengthening Families
   https://ctfalliance.sharefile.com/share/view/s8d47a5c1da04de68

   3) The key to moving forward in transforming the current child welfare system into a new way of work that keeps children safely with their families is requiring systems to work together and in partnership with families and communities. Transformation is a goal too massive for any one person, organization, or system to do alone. True change will come when we work together to create community conditions where all people, especially children, and their families, can thrive. We don’t need to know exactly what to do to begin, and it’s not up to professionals or systems to figure this out by ourselves. We just need to take the lead from families—who know better than anyone else what their needs are—and start “doing.” Helping families to safely raise their own children is the key. Hero-based rescuing and removing and out-of-family placement must end. We simply know better; now let’s do better.

   ~Building a New Way, Together, Dr. Amelia Franck Meyer, Chief Executive Officer, Alia,
   CBX, August/September 2020, Vol. 21, No. 6

“When parents seek resources, let us remove punitive system barriers and change the way we see and talk about helping families and ensure that our efforts build hope. If a child asked for support, we would comply without any hesitation. Let us be as motivated to support parents as we are children and acknowledge the importance of keeping families together.”

~Shrounda Selivanoff, birth parent (Washington)

“As parents the hardest thing in the world to face is not being able to meet the needs of our children and having to ask for help. We go back and forth in our thinking – should I pick up the phone and ask for help? Will you judge me for asking? Are you going to call child protective services? All we want to do is provide for our children.”

~Kimberly Mays, Parent and Social Services Worker, Washington State Office of Public Defense
Children’s Trust Fund Alliance, 2020, What Parents Say About… Building a 21st Century Community-Based Approach to Strengthening Families
https://ctfalliance.sharefile.com/share/view/s8d47a5c1da04de680

(Kimberly Mays, Parent who lost custody of nine of her ten children and they have now all reunited with her as adults. Kimberly now has an MSW and was instrumental in starting the first Parent for Parent Program in WA State. She is a social services worker with the Washington State Office of Public Defense and a caregiver for relative and non-relative foster youth.)

What would it look like if parents in communities across the country could seek and find help without fear of shame, blame or loss of their children?

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

This 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. In this edition, we focus on developing a prevention mindset and the impact of trauma and avoiding re-traumatization of families and communities. A special thank you to Theresa Costello, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Action for Child Protection for developing this edition of the newsletter.

Future issues are planned for March, May, and June, 2021.

The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

1. 1) “While child welfare has always had a focus on the physical safety of the child, a trauma-informed child welfare system must go further and recognize that psychological safety of both the child and his/her family is extraordinarily important to the child’s and family’s long-term recovery and social and emotional well-being. Psychological safety is a sense of safety, or the ability to feel safe, within oneself self and safe from external harm. This type of safety has direct implications for physical safety and permanence and is critical for functioning as well as physical and emotional growth. A lack of psychological safety can impact a child’s and family’s interactions with all other individuals, including those trying to help them, and can lead to a variety of maladaptive strategies for coping with the anxiety associated with feeling unsafe.”

   ~Essential Elements of a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System. (2014). From https://calswec.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/4-6_chadwickessentialelements.pdf

   2) “In recognizing the impact of childhood adversity on child and adult outcomes, trauma-informed services strive to build trustworthy collaborative relationships with children and the important adults in their lives, as well as improve consistency and communication across linked organizations and sectors, with the aim of mitigating the impact of adversity by supporting and enhancing child and family capacity for resilience and recovery.”

   ~Bunting, Montgomery, Mooney, MacDonald, Coulter, Hayes, & Davidson. (2019).
   Trauma Informed Child Welfare Systems—A Rapid Evidence Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(13), 2365. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132365

   3) Trauma-informed care redirects attention from treating symptoms of trauma (e.g., mental health disorders, behavioral problems) to treating the underlying causes and context of trauma. Trauma-specific interventions include medical, physiological, psychological, and psychosocial therapies provided by a trained professional that aid in the recovery from adverse trauma exposures. Treatments are designed to maximize a child’s sense of physical and psychological safety, develop coping strategies, and increase a child’s resilience. These treatments allow children to attain a sense of balance, make strides in meeting developmental benchmarks, heal deep emotional scars, and achieve stability in their foster placements [or at home with parent(s)].

   ~Klain, E., & White, A. (2013). Implementing Trauma-Informed Practices in Child Welfare. From http://www.centerforchildwelfare.org/kb/TraumaInformedCare/ImplementingTraumaInformedPracticesNov13.pdf

“Trauma Informed Systems’ principles and practices support reflection in place of reaction, curiosity in lieu of numbing, self-care instead of self-sacrifice and collective impact rather than silo-ed structures.”

~Epstein, K | Speziale, K | Gerber, E | Loomis, B (2014). From Trauma Transformed’s website: https://traumatransformed.org/communities-of-practice/communities-of-practice-tis.asp

“A trauma-informed child and family service system is one in which all parties involved recognize and respond to the impact of traumatic stress on those who have contact with the system including children, caregivers, and service providers. Programs and agencies within such a system infuse and sustain trauma awareness, knowledge, and skills into their organizational cultures, practices, and policies. They act in collaboration with all those who are involved with the child, using the best available science, to maximize physical and psychological safety, facilitate the recovery of the child and family, and support their ability to thrive.”

~Peterson, S. (2018, September 20). Creating Trauma-Informed Systems. From The National Child Traumatic Stress Network website: https://www.nctsn.org/trauma-informed-care/creating-trauma-informed-systems

How do we move from being “trauma-reactive” to minimally “trauma-informed” and ideally to a “healing organization/system”?

~Trauma Transformed website. October 2020 from:
http://traumatransformed.org/communities-of-practice/trauma-informed-systems-tis/

Click here to download a printable version of this content.

This 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. In this edition, we focus on systems change and shifting mindsets. We will send new issues in December, March, April, and June, prior to the in-person Institute.

The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits.

1) “In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought. In other words, when change works, it’s because leaders are speaking to the Elephant as well as to the Rider.” Change only works if the Elephant and Rider are working together.

Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, explain that we have two parts to us. We have the emotional side (the Elephant) and the rational side (the Rider). Most of us think that the Rider always controls the Elephant, but in most cases, it’s the other way around. The Elephant somehow ends up controlling the Rider. If the Rider can direct the Elephant down a well-prepared path then there is a good chance for change.

~Heath, Chip and Dan Heath. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.
Toronto: Random House Canada, 2010.

2) Shifts in system conditions are more likely to be sustained when working at three different levels of change: explicit, semi-explicit, and implicit. FSG sees these levels as 1. structural change (explicit-policies, practices, the flow of resources), 2. relational change (semi-explicit- relationships and connections, power dynamics), and 3. transformative change (implicit-mental models). FSG correlates transformative change with mental models or deeply held beliefs and assumptions that influence one’s actions. These three levels of change can be independently defined, measured, and targeted for change, and they are intertwined and interact with each other.

“Since the less explicit conditions are the most challenging to clarify but can have huge impacts on shifting systems, changemakers must ensure that they pay sufficient attention to the relationships, power dynamics, and especially the underlying mental models (such as racism and gender biases) embedded in the systems in which they work.”

~John Kania, Mark Kramer, Peter Senge. The Water of Systems Change. FSG:  Reimagining Social
Change, May 2018. https://www.fsg.org/publications/water_of_systems_change

3) In a conversation with two parent leaders, Valerie Lebanion and Joanne Hodgeman, who are both also full-time social workers and family advocates, several important ideas were shared. A few are offered here:

Child protection service providers and primary preventionists, need to continually ask themselves, “What is it that keeps families from asking for help sooner?

”Often family support services are available but it can be difficult for even trained professionals to easily identify and thereby access the services.  Ultimately, we need a full-time person in every state whose job it is to maintain an accurate, up-to-date registry of appropriate services that are available throughout the state. At a minimum, “If the state is funding you, the state should be promoting you.” Lebanion and Hodgeman have discovered that even state-funded services are sometimes not marketed in such a way as to be easily identifiable. How does your state or county share information on support services with agencies and families?

~Read more about Joanne Hodgeman and Valerie Lebanion:
https://friendsnrc.org/parent-leadership/parent-advisory-council/

“We must recognize that all of these systems are operating within, and often constrained by, an overall system that itself is built on a history of racism and lack of priority for children, poor people, and more recently, immigrants.” James-Brown said, in a letter to the Child Welfare League of American membership.

“I say go back to our founding – was the system founded by white men and funded by white men for racist reasons? Yes. The funding and policies of the CPS system in particular were developed by White men and reflect their values and views about families. But it is what it is. So now how do we go and root out the things that allowed the system to operate that way?

Our front door is very problematic, the way children get into the child welfare system and why. Who are the reporters to our hotlines? What does the hotline do with the information? How good is the training for reporters? How good are the alternatives and to what extent do we use them? Our group has had a lot of discussion about moving the system to understanding its role as strengthening families instead of being looked at as the ones who want to remove children.

We need to focus like a laser on keeping kids with their families and acting as advocates for them getting the dollars they need to do what they want to do. The guidelines and practices around the whole CPS area are important.”

~Christine James-Brown, CEO Child Welfare League of America interviewed in an article, Child Welfare League of America CEO: Field Must Confront Its Racist Roots, written by Michael Fitzgerald and posted on 8/2/202 in The Imprint: Youth and Family News. https://imprintnews.org/child-welfare-2/child-welfare-league-of-america-ceo-field-must-confront-its-racist-roots/45794

“One of the great errors that organizations make is shutting down what is a natural, life-enhancing process—chaos. We are terrified of chaos. As a manager, it signals failure. But if you move out of control and into an appreciation of natural order, you understand that the only way a system changes is when it is far from equilibrium, when it moves from the ‘quiet’ we treasure and is confronted with the choice to die or reorganize. And you can’t reorganize to a higher level unless you risk the perils of the path through chaos.”

~Margaret Wheatley – https://margaretwheatley.com/bio/

“Assume that more than one path exists to achieve your ideal life.”

~James Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter released on 7/16/2020

This would suggest that more than one path exists to change your child welfare system.

What would an alternative path look like?

Click here to download a printable version of this content.