The connection between protective factors and appropriate response methods in South Carolina.

1. The Connection Between
Building the Protective Factors
in the Community and
Appropriate Response
Alicia Luckie, TTA Coordinator
FRIENDS National Resource Center for CBCAP
April 17, 2013
FRIENDS National Resource Center for CBCAP
A Service of the Children’s Bureau, a member of the T/TA Network

2. FRIENDS NRC
The FRIENDS NRC is funded by
Administration on Children, Youth and
Families, Children's Bureau to promote the
purposes of the Community-Based Child
Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) program.
FRIENDS provides training & technical
assistance to lead agencies intended to
build their capacity to meet requirements of
Title II of the Child Abuse Prevention and
Treatment Act as Amended in 2010.

3. Child Maltreatment
Abuse and neglect of children occurs
across all ethnic, socioeconomic and
religious groups.
There is no single, identifiable cause of
child maltreatment; it occurs as a result
of an interaction of multiple forces
impacting the family.

4. Child Maltreatment Data
• In 2011, U.S. state and local child protective services
(CPS) received an estimated 3.4 million referrals of
children being abused or neglected that totaled 6.2
million children.
• For FFY 2011, more than 2 million reports were screened
in, had a CPS response, and received a disposition. The
national rate of reports that received a disposition was
27.4 per 1,000 children in the national population.
• CPS estimated that 676,569 children (9.1 per 1,000) were
victims of maltreatment.
• Of the child victims, 78.5% were victims of neglect;
17.6% of physical abuse; 9.1% of sexual abuse;
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on
Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment 2011. Washington, DC: Department of
Health and Human Services; 2012. Available from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/research-data-
technology/statistics-research/child-maltreatment

5. Risk Factors Individual
Parent
Family
Community
Individual
Child
A combination of
individual, relational,
community, and
societal factors that
contribute to the risk of
child maltreatment.
Risk factors are those
characteristics
associated with child
maltreatment—they
may or may not be
direct causes.

6. What we Know about Children
First 5 years are intense years of development
Brain Growth and Ability
Physical and Motor Actions
Speech and Language Development
Social and Emotional Interaction with Others

7. What we know about child
development
Continuous-orderly
process
Age-specific
developmental tasks
Individual variations
Heredity (nature)
Social-cultural
environment (nurture)

8. What we know about Families
Families gain what they need to be
successful when key protective
factors are robust in their lives
and communities

9. The Importance of
Relationships
Caregivers are the active sculptors of their children’s
growing brains.
An environment of relationships shapes—
intellectual, social, emotional, physical, behavioral,
and moral development
The caregivers emotional availability and empathic
responsiveness is an important part of that
environment

10. Traumatic Stress

11. Adverse Childhood Experience
(ACE) Study
Examined the relationship between current adult health status, child
maltreatment, and family dysfunction.
Categories of ACEs:
Emotional Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Physical Abuse
Emotional Neglect
Physical Neglect
Mother Treated Violently
Household Substance Abuse
Household Mental Illness
Parental Separation or Divorce
Incarcerated Household Member
http://www.cdc.gov/ace/about.htm

12. What we know about vulnerable
children and their Families
• Children under 5 are the fastest growing child welfare
population
• Children 0-1 are most likely to die from abuse or neglect;
they are 20% of the child welfare population
• The trauma of being abused or neglected is dramatically
compounded by removal from families at this important
stage of development
• Childhood trauma can have a cascading impact on
ongoing development
• Young children are among the most vulnerable for
having lower levels of attachment skills, social and
emotional competencies, self-assurance, confidence
and independence.

13. What does the research indicate?
• CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT, STRONG FAMILIES
AND OPTIMAL CHILD DEVELOPMENT ARE
OUTCOMES THAT ARE TIED TOGETHER
• RISK IS NOT PREDICTIVE—BECAUSE OF
PROTECTIVE FACTORS
• FIVE SPECIFIC PROTECTIVE FACTORS ARE TIED
TO CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT, STRONG
FAMILIES AND OPTIMAL CHILD DEVELOPMENT
• YOU CAN BUILD THESE PROTECTIVE FACTORS
IN MANY DIFFERENT SETTINGS

14. Therefore…..
• Children in families involved with child welfare
need particular focus on their developmental
needs
• Developmental supports for these children must
be informed by an understanding of the impact
of trauma on development
• There must also be intentionality about how to
support the capacity of families and caregivers
to keep children safe and support their early
development

15. THE STRENGTHENING FAMILIES
APPROACH
• Through small changes in everyday
practice, builds on family strengths, buffers
risk, and promotes better outcomes.
• Builds on existing strategies and systems,
and links them to community opportunities.
• Grounded in research, practice and
implementation knowledge from multiple
fields; links disciplines and service sectors.

18. Protective Factors
Factors that can protect families and promote resilience.
Protective factors serve as a buffer against adversity and
when present in families, the likelihood of child
maltreatment goes down.
A Protective Factors framework focuses on prevention
strategies based on building strengths with families rather
than focusing exclusively on risks and deficits.

19. Mobilizing partners,
communities and families to
build family strengths, promote
optimal development and reduce
child abuse and neglect
What it is all about…

20. The Protective Factors
Knowledge of Parenting and of Child and
Youth Development
Parental Resilience
Social Connections
Concrete Supports
Social and Emotional Competence of Children
-Nurturing and Attachment

21. Knowledgeof Parentingand of Child and Youth
Development
Understanding and utilizing effective child
management techniques and having age-
appropriate expectations for children and
youth’s abilities.

22. Knowledge of Parenting and Child
Development
What we know:
• Knowledge of the normal
range of development
• Understanding how
parenting impacts
development
• Understanding of their
child’s particular
developmental needs
• Understanding discipline
What you can do:
• “Just in time” parenting
education
• Guided observation of their
child’s behavior
• Trusted authorities
• Safe environments
• Opportunities to try out
new strategies with their
child

23. Parental Resilience
Having adaptive skills and strategies to
persevere in times of crisis. Family’s ability to
openly share positive and negative experiences
and mobilize to accept, solve, and manage
problems.

24. Parental Resilience
What we know
• Hope and Optimism
• Problem solving skills
• Ability to
maintain/restore calm
• Self-care
• Help seeking
• Future orientation
What you can do
• Support for parental
decision-making
• Validation and
encouragement
• Support for self-care
• Training/support in
problem solving

25. Social Connections
Parent, Child
or Youth

26. Social Connections
What we know:
Social networks infused
with:
• Positive emotional
support
• Positive parenting norms
• Resource sharing and
mutual help
What you can do:
• Connect isolated families to peers
• Create group activities and
environments for social sharing
and mutual support activities
• Create a socially inclusive culture
• Help parents choose positive
social connections

27. Concrete Supports
Access to tangible goods and services to help
families cope with stress, particularly in times
of crisis or intensified need.

28. Concrete Supports
What we know:
• Many families do not get
the services they are
eligible for
• Stigma is a significant
barrier to families getting
CAN prevention services
• Navigation of service
systems is hard
• Service can be provided in
a way that undermines
families
What you can do
• Use trusting relationships
as the gateway to other
services
• Support families
knowledge of and ability to
access what is in the
community
• Serve as an advocate for
existing services
• Build service networks

29. Social and Emotional Competence of
Children
Children’s age appropriate ability to regulate their
emotions, engage with others, and communicate
feelings.

30. Children’s Social Emotional
Competence
What we Know:
• Social emotional
development is
foundation skill
• Early childhood mental
health issues are more
common than we think
• Supporting children’s
social emotional
development impacts
parents
What you can do:
• Social emotional
development activities
for kids
• Connections to children’s
mental health supports
• Help parents understand
children’s social
emotional issues

31. Nurturing and Attachment
The emotional tie along with a pattern of
positive interaction between the parent and
child that develops over time.

32. What Next?
• Ensure that children in AR are connected to
quality developmental supports
• Support parents-birth, foster, and adoptive in
their role as protective factor builders for
themselves and their children
• Respect parents as decision-makers for
their family and support them in that role

33. • Fundamental shift in worker family relationship
• Protective factors at the heart of a family-
centered, strength-based, trauma-informed
practice approach
• Applying the new brain science to create a
developmentally informed model
• Balancing risk mitigation with well-being
promotion
A Strengthening Families Paradigm
for Child Welfare

34. NEW “FAMILY VALUES”
• Recognition of importance of families
• Diminishing stigma and labeling
• Acknowledging diversity among families
• Reducing the distance between
professionals and families
• Partnerships among services and between
services and people are essential
• Everyone has a role and can play it!

35. Building Partnerships with Parents
• Relationship-based practice in child
welfare
• Promoting parenting alliances and
parenting communities
• Shifting the balance of power / ‘agent of
change’ in family strengthening

36. Building Partnerships with Parents
Requires paradigm shift in child welfare:
• Parents are consciously building protective
factors in their families
• Staff are partnering with parents intentionally
and positively with respect and compassion
• Strengths-based, family-centered, trauma-
informed, and developmentally appropriate
• Family advocacy

37. Building Partnerships with Parents
Strategies include:
– Adopting decision-making tools and processes that
include parents as partners i.e. teaming,
– Collaboration with others who have partnerships with
parents
– Protective Factors-based Parent& Community Cafes (with
staff involved as parents)
– Protective factors training for parents
– Parent leadership training
– Parent-led advisory groups with power to affect systems
change

38. Applyinga ProtectiveFactorsFramework
Across the Child Welfare Continuum
Prevention/diversion
Intake/Investigation
Case Planning
In-home care
Out-of-home care
Permanency, Exit and After Care
SystemsInfrastructure

39. Protective & Promotive Factors in Practice
• Assess not just around risk, but around
protective factors
• Use the protective factors to inform planning
around differential response or other alternative
response activities
AND…
• Ensure that developmental progress is
assessed as part of early assessments
IntakeandInvestigation

40. Protective & Promotive Factors in Practice
• Include specific objectives around protective factors
within case plans
• Develop case planning tools that include an
orientation around building protective factors
• Engage partners that can support the building of
protective factors in family team meetings and other
case planning processes
• Engage courts, judges, attorneys and other staff
judges may use such as CASAs around a protective
factors framework
AND…
• Ensure that developmental supports are included as
part of the case plan
CasePlanning

41. • Ensure workers have understanding of
development stages and needs of children
• Realign training to include protective and
promotive factors as a part of family centered,
trauma-informed practice.
• Create opportunities for cross training of child
welfare staff with early childhood education,
family support and staffs from other disciplines.
• Support training of contract and service agency
partners
Professional Development

42. Employing a community approach to
child welfare
•Community Cafes
•Community Planning
•Building collaboration among service
entities

43. Bringing the ProtectiveFactors
Frameworkto Life in YourWork
• Online training to support
implementation of the
Strengthening Families™
Protective Factors
Framework in multiple
settings
• Systems may use for
awarding CEUs, credit
• Free of charge
• 7 courses,
each about
2 hours in length
o Introduction to the
Framework (also useful as
a stand-alone orientation)
o A course on each of the 5
Protective Factors
o A wrap-up course that
moves users from
knowledge to action
Find at www.ctfalliance.org/onlinetraining
Contact onlinelinetraining@ctfalliance.org

44. FRIENDS E-Learning Center
http://friendsnrcelearning.org/

45. FEDERAL PARTNERS
Administration for Children, Youth and Families:
Children’s Bureau, Office on Child Abuse and Neglect
Administration on Children and Families, Office of
Child Care and Office of Head Start
Maternal and Child Health Bureau (ECCS)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA), local Project Launch sites
Department of Defense, New Parents Program and
Family Advocacy Program

46. Map of implementing States
ID
AZ
UT
MT
WY
NM
CO
AL
FL
SC
TN
KY
IN
OH
NC
SD
KS
NE
MN
WI
IA
IL
MO
AR
MS
OK
ND
OR
CA NV
WA
TX
WV
PA
ME
VA
NY
LA
GA
MI
MD
AK
DC
N
H
HI
V
T
MA
RI
CT
NJ
DE
Active in SFNN
Not-active in SFNN, but some state level
Implementation strategy in place

47. Contact Information
Alicia Luckie, TTA Coordinator
FRIENDS NRC for CBCAP
aluckie@friendsnrc.org
www.friendsnrc.org
FRIENDS National Resource Center for CBCAP
A Service of the Children’s Bureau, a member of the T/TA Network

48. Questions