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Strengthening Families and Essentials for Early Childhood
Essentials for Childhood Task Force
North Carolina Institute of Medicine
June 13, 2014
Cailin O’Connor and Juanita Blount-Clark
Center for the Study of Social Policy
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What we’ll discuss this morning
• Overview of Strengthening Families
• Social norms work related to the protective factors
– Building a movement for children / Connect the Dots
– Positive Community Norms work in other states
• Relationship between Strengthening Families and
Essentials for Childhood
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Strengthening Families: Not your ordinary initiative
• Implementing Strengthening Families is about:
– small but significant changes in everyday practice
and
– the shifts in policies and systems that allow/promote
those changes in practice
• Implementation funds come from existing dollars
• All national implementation tools are available free
of charge
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Big Idea #1: A Protective Factors Approach
Risk
Factors
Protective and
Promotive
Factors
• Protective Factors: conditions or attributes of individuals, families, communities, or
the larger society that mitigate or eliminate risk
• Promotive Factors: conditions or attributes of individuals, families, communities, or
the larger society that actively enhance well-being
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What we know: Families gain what
they need to be successful when
key protective factors are robust in
their lives and communities
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Big Idea #2: An Approach, Not a Model
• Applied in any setting that serves young children and their
families
• Implemented through small but significant changes
• Not parallel to, but integrated into existing practice
• Cross-sector implementation as core to the approach
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Big Idea #3: A Changed Relationship with Parents
• Supporting parents’ ability to parent effectively
• Involving parents as partners in achieving good outcomes
for children
• Engaging parents effectively through programs
• Engaging parents directly in mutually supportive
relationships that build protective factors
• Partnering with parents to help design systems and
policies that work for children and families
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Partnerships with Parents: How? • Recognize parents as primary agents of change for their
families: Parents strengthen their families.
• Support parents’ growth, learning, transformation
• Build positive relationships between parents and service-
providing professionals
• Promote positive, supportive relationships
between bio and foster parents
• Build and support foster parent leadership
• Collaborate to build parenting communities
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Big Idea #4: Alignment with Developmental Science
• Paying attention to what the research tells us:
– Critical periods of development – early childhood and
adolescence
– Importance of nurturing relationships in early childhood
– Effects of trauma on development, behavior and outcomes
• Providing tools and guidance to align practice with what
we know about child development
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Parent Protective Factors
Child/Youth Protective Factors
Birth
26
Applying a protective/promotive factors frame across development
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Five Protective Factors
PARENTAL RESILIENCE
SOCIAL CONNECTIONS
KNOWLEDGE of
PARENTING and CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
CONCRETE SUPPORT in
TIMES of NEED
SOCIAL and EMOTIONAL
COMPETENCE of
CHILDREN
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Co
re F
un
ctio
ns State, system,
agency, program and community leaders work across systems to:
• Build parent partnerships
• Deepen knowledge and understanding
• Shift practice, policy and systems
• Ensure accountability
Pro
gra
m P
ract
ice
Programs that serve children and families:
• Shift organization culture to value and build upon families’ strengths
• Make policy changes to support changes in worker practice
• Implement everyday actions that support families in building protective factors
Wo
rker
Pra
ctic
e Individual workers:
• Have knowledge of protective factors and skills to help families build them
• Change their approach to relationships with parents
• Implement everyday actions that support families in building protective factors
Pro
tect
ive
Fa
cto
rs Families are
supported to build:
• Parental resilience
• Social connections
• Knowledge of parenting and child development
• Concrete support in times of need
• Social and emotional competence of children
Res
ult
s Strengthened families
Optimal child development
Reduced likelihood of child abuse and neglect
The Pathway to Improved Outcomes for Children and Families
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Social Norms Work Related to Strengthening Families
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Co
re F
un
ctio
ns State, system,
agency, program and community leaders work across systems to:
• Build parent partnerships
• Deepen knowledge and understanding
• Shift practice, policy and systems
• Ensure accountability
Pro
gra
m P
ract
ice
Programs that serve children and families:
• Shift organization culture to value and build upon families’ strengths
• Make policy changes to support changes in worker practice
• Implement everyday actions that support families in building protective factors
Wo
rker
Pra
ctic
e Individual workers:
• Have knowledge of protective factors and skills to help families build them
• Change their approach to relationships with parents
• Implement everyday actions that support families in building protective factors
Pro
tect
ive
Fa
cto
rs Families are
supported to build:
• Parental resilience
• Social connections
• Knowledge of parenting and child development
• Concrete support in times of need
• Social and emotional competence of children
Res
ult
s Strengthened families
Optimal child development
Reduced likelihood of child abuse and neglect
The Pathway to Improved Outcomes for Children and Families
![Page 18: Strengthening Families and Essentials for Early Childhoodnciom.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/OConnor-and-Blount... · 2017-09-21 · Strengthening Families and Essentials for Early](https://reader035.vdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062603/5f080c607e708231d4201283/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Co
re F
un
ctio
ns State, system,
agency, program and community leaders work across systems to:
• Build parent partnerships
• Deepen knowledge and understanding
• Shift practice, policy and systems
• Ensure accountability
Pro
gra
m P
ract
ice Programs that serve
children and families:
• Shift organization culture to value and build upon families’ strengths
• Make policy changes to support changes in worker practice
• Implement everyday actions that support families in building protective factors
Wo
rker
Pra
ctic
e Individual workers:
• Have knowledge of protective factors and skills to help families build them
• Change their approach to relationships with parents
• Implement everyday actions that support families in building protective factors
Pro
tect
ive
Fa
cto
rs Families are
supported to build:
• Parental resilience
• Social connections
• Knowledge of parenting and child development
• Concrete support in times of need
• Social and emotional competence of children
Res
ult
s Strengthened families
Optimal child development
Reduced likelihood of child abuse and neglect
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Building a national
movement for children
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Engaging the public in prevention and strengthening families
• Affirm
• Empower
• Educate
Individual Action
• Foster sense of connectedness
• Build relationships
Community Engagement • Engage in issues
• Mobilize
Policy Advocacy
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Step 1: Individual Action: #KidTips
• “I have a role to play – we all do”
• Sharing everyday actions people can take to build protective
factors
• A mix of things people probably already do, or could do easily,
and things that may be more outside their comfort zone
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movementforchildren.ning.com
facebook.com/movementforchildren
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twitter.com/movement4kids
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Step 2: Community building
• “We’re all in this together”
• Fostering a sense of connectedness and shared stake in the
well-being of children and families
• “Connect the dots”
• Helping people connect to others who care, including
community organizations that work on these issues
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Step 3: Policy Advocacy
• “Connect the dots”
– Helping concerned people see the relationship between public
policy and outcomes for children and families
– Building a base of people who will speak up when policies are
harming children and families
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Good Public
Policy
Electoral
Politics
Base
Building The Wellstone Triangle Wellstone.org
A framework for influencing public policy
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Example: Bullying
Individual
Community
Policy
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Positive community norms Spirit
Science
Action
Return
• Most Of Us
– Center for Health and Safety
Culture at Montana State
University
– Used for social norms
change around drunk
driving, substance abuse,
now child abuse prevention
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Positive community norms work related to protective factors
• West Virginia
– Provide communication tools to prevent child maltreatment and
promote positive outcomes for children in West Virginia by:
• growing positive parenting norms supporting safe, stable nurturing
relationships (broadly) – including questions about protective factors
• creating safe sleeping environments and behaviors
• reducing shaken-baby syndrome
• Wisconsin
– “Wisconsin’s in it for kids” with a focus on safe, stable, nurturing
relationships
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Strengthening Families and Essentials: Common goals
• Ensuring that children have access to safe, stable and
nurturing relationships with parents and other direct
caregivers
BY
• Shifting the environments around parents and caregivers to
make them more supportive of children and families
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The ecological model
Society
Institutions
Community
Family
Child
• Laws & Policy
• Culture and Norms
• Systems, Programs and Services
• Businesses, Schools, etc.
• Individual actions
• Community environments
• Parents/Caregivers Safe, stable
and nurturing
relationships
Environments
and context
that support
safe, stable
and nurturing
relationships
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Overlapping foci
Strengthening Families
• Parents
• Programs
• Services
• Systems
Essentials
• Laws and Policies
• Culture and Norms
• Businesses
• Schools
• Individual
Actions
• Community
Environments
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https://twitter.com/CtrSocialPolicy
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Center-for-the-Study-of-Social-Policy
www.cssp.org
www.strengtheningfamilies.net