By Amy Krueger, DSS Assistant Director
On November 28, the Board of Supervisors received a presentation on the Child Welfare Services Comprehensive Prevention Plan (CPP). What is that plan, and why is it important? Read on to learn more!
Background
The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), signed into law as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act on February 9, 2018, reforms the federal child welfare financing streams (Title IV-E and Title IV-B of the Social Security Act) to provide services to families who are at risk of entering the child welfare system. The FFPSA Part I, Prevention Services Program, aims to prevent children from entering foster care by allowing federal reimbursement for mental health services, substance use treatment, and in-home parenting skill training.
A new paradigm: prevention and early intervention
The Title IV-E Prevention Program established by FFPSA is a shift from the current paradigm, changing from a focus on reaction to a focus on prevention and early intervention. Goals include reducing incidences of abuse and neglect, decreasing entries into foster care, reducing disproportionality, addressing systemic and historical traumas, promoting the social determinants of health, and improving the lives of children, youth, and families.
The Title IV-E Prevention Program will complement California’s existing capacity to further the safety and permanency of children and youth who are brought to the attention of community partners, tribes, Child Welfare Services, or Probation. The program provides a valuable opportunity to serve children, youth, parents, and caregivers, as well as expectant and parenting foster youth, to promote access to other prevention services and programs to those who may have a high need for immediate supports and services to prevent entry into the foster care system.
In order to opt in to the program, counties were required to submit a Comprehensive Prevention Plan outlining a plan for primary, secondary, and tertiary services, including Title IV-E-eligible services. CWS intends to use Title IV-E prevention funding, alongside other available funding streams, and coupled with other parallel reforms, to build a comprehensive system of care which emphasizes prevention and early intervention services.
Primary services are at the community level: activities aimed at the general population to strengthen communities and improve child well-being by focusing on the social determinants of health. These social determinants of health encompass the conditions in which people live: education access and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhoods and built environments, economic stability, and the social and community context.
Secondary service are at the level of family resources: activities offered to populations that have one or more risk factors associated with compromised well-being or child maltreatment, in order to build protective factors and mitigate risk.
Tertiary services are at the traditional level of intervention to prevent further harm: activities focused on families where child maltreatment has occurred that seek to mitigate and reduce the negative consequences of the maltreatment and prevent its recurrence.
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The Together for Children collaborative
In order to meet the goals of the program, CWS launched Together for Children (TFC) in 2022: a collaborative committee of Santa Barbara County leaders and community-based organizations (CBOs) formed to promote the well-being of children, families, and communities in Santa Barbara County. During the last year, the collaborative took on the task of developing a comprehensive plan to promote community well-being and, most importantly, to prevent child abuse and neglect.
The key concept is "activating systems for community wellness." The vision of TFC is that children, families, and communities in Santa Barbara County are safe and thriving and have equitable access to resources and opportunities. The mission is to engage a comprehensive, collaborative network that promotes well-being and addresses root causes of adversity and child maltreatment; such that children and families who need extra support, including those who are system-involved, are nurtured and provided optimal care through coordinated service delivery.
The TFC team aims for cross-sector collaboration and engagement. It includes CWS, CalWORKs, Probation, Behavioral Wellness, Public Health, the Child Abuse Prevention Council and Network of Family Resource Centers, Parent Voice / Peer Parent Partners from Good Samaritan Shelters, the Santa Barbara County Education Office, the Santa Ynez Valley Band of Chumash Indians, the Tri-Counties Regional Center, and CBOs including CALM, Children's Resource & Referral, CommUnify, Cottage Health, Family Service Agency, LEAP, North County Rape Crisis & Child Protection Center, and Santa Ynez Valley People Helping People.
The Comprehensive Prevention Plan
The CPP is grounded in the charge to reduce the number of children placed into foster care by reducing the number of children who are maltreated. In order to achieve this goal, TFC will improve the systems that support families so that children are not abused or neglected, allowing CWS to shift to an up-stream focus on prevention and early intervention rather than the protection of children who have already been harmed. The approach is to support families as soon as possible when needs are identified so that children stay in safe, stable, and nurturing home environments and do not experience maltreatment.
The CPP, approved by the California Department of Social Services on August 10, 2023, includes two components: 1) recommendations for improving conditions for raising children in our county, and 2) a three-year plan to address the recommendations most needed to help children at risk stay safe.
The CPP incorporates family voice, racial equity, tribal consultation and collaboration, strength-focused and trauma-informed programs and services, community capacity building, workforce stability and excellence, integration and collaboration, monitoring integrity and continuous quality improvement (CQI).
With phased-in implementation over the next several years of a coherent, countywide, voluntary system of care that support families' self-selected goals, CWS intends to serve all eligible FFPSA candidacy groups, as well as children and families who do not meet candidacy requirements but may benefit from evidence-based prevention services. Initial efforts will prioritize support for Latinx, Mixteco, and Native American families.
By co-creating a community pathway for services with contracted CBOs informed by those with lived experience from communities disproportionately represented in the child welfare system, and by ensuring the services provided are culturally and linguistically relevant, CWS intends to increase equity and reduce disproportionality and ultimately, the number of system-involved families.