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Child Welfare and Early Childhood: Cross-Systems Collaboration to Improve Outcomes for Young Children and Families: Using the Family First Prevention Services Act to implement Early Child Programs

May 18 2022
2:00 PM EDT

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Approximately 40 percent of all children entering foster care are age five and under. Addressing the needs of these children and their families is critical to helping child welfare systems and early childhood systems achieve better outcomes.

With the passing of the FFPSA, any state, territories, or tribe with an approved Title IV-E plan has the option to use funds for preventative services such as in-home parent skill-based programs, mental health services, and substance abuse prevention and treatment services to allow children eligible for foster care to stay with their parents or relatives. What opportunities does FFPSA create for early childhood programs and services? What are the opportunities and challenges for expansion of home visiting under FFPSA? What other interventions and practices approved under FFPSA target young children and their parents?

Panelists:

  • Clare Anderson: Senior Policy Fellow, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
  • Pfeffer Eisin: Director-Erikson/ DCFS Early Childhood Program
  • Thay Giurgius: Manager- Erikson/ DCFS Home Visiting Program
  • Andria Goss: Associate Vice President, Clinical and Community Services, Erikson Institute

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Early childhood professionals recognize that the child- and family-serving systems that are not generally considered to be under the umbrella of the early childhood system—like housing, economic development, and transportation—are less often viewed as opportunities for or barriers to child and family well-being. Each of these systems, and how they interact with one another, impacts a child’s outcome. It is up to early childhood systems builders to identify the barriers to positive outcomes that result from an issue with any of the elements within the overall system. This is one of the early childhood systems builders’ greatest challenges, as these barriers are deeply interwoven with our country’s history and ongoing practice of discrimination and disinvestment. This video describes how BUILD views an Early Childhood System that focuses on the whole child, the whole family, and whole systems.