Child Welfare and Early Childhood

How BUILD Provides Support

BUILD partners with state leaders, advocates, families, and communities to strengthen collaboration between early childhood and child welfare systems so that children can access the support they need as early as possible. Our work is grounded in the belief that equity and quality cannot flourish in siloed systems.

We recognize that both systems face deep challenges, including underfunding, workforce shortages, racial inequities, and policies that often fail to reflect the strengths and needs of communities. Black, Indigenous, and other families of color are disproportionately impacted by these inequities, particularly in child welfare systems where poverty is too often mistaken for neglect.

BUILD’s approach centers:

• Cross-system collaboration and shared leadership
• Family and community voice
• Prevention and family support
• Racial equity and systems change
• Peer learning and relationship building across sectors

Since 2020, BUILD has convened state and national leaders through interviews, webinars, learning communities, and thought leader summits to explore how child welfare and early childhood systems can better align. This work has highlighted promising strategies such as navigator programs, home visiting partnerships, and Plans of Safe Care that help connect families to meaningful supports earlier and more effectively.

A Facilitated Peer Learning Team, launched in May 2026, brings together 14 teams of state and local child welfare and early learning leaders from eight states, alongside national systems change experts and policy and research partners, for a six-month intensive learning experience. Through monthly convenings, participants will strengthen cross-system collaboration, examine proven models, and develop actionable practices, policies, and program improvements to advance their work.

BUILD is helping states move beyond fragmented systems toward coordinated approaches that strengthen families, reduce trauma, and improve outcomes for young children. We believe lasting change happens when leaders across systems learn together, build trust, and work in partnership with families and communities.

BUILD believes:

• Family support should come before family separation whenever possible.
• Poverty should not be treated as neglect.
• Strong relationships between systems lead to stronger outcomes for children.
• Communities and families closest to the challenges must help shape the solutions.
• Lasting systems change requires courageous leadership, collaboration, and sustained investment.

By bringing leaders together across sectors, BUILD works to create more equitable, responsive, and connected systems where all young children and families can thrive.