Institute for Child and Family Well-Being

Join us on Friday, March 14th from 12-1pm to unpack the Overloaded: Understanding Neglect podcast and its third episode,?Guaranteed Income: Rethinking Poverty and Prevention with Blake Roberts Crall and Dr. Allison Thompson. Register?here: https://lnkd.in/euthzCQb Join us for an interactive and inspiring conversation with?Blake Roberts Crall, Program Manager for the?Madison Forward Fund, and?Dr. Allison Thompson, Executive Director of?Penn’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, and changemakers from across the country to reflect on ideas presented in ICFW’s Overloaded: Understanding Neglect Podcast. Then interact directly with Blake Roberts Crall and Dr. Allison Thompson to ask questions about Guaranteed Income and how we might think differently about poverty and prevention. Listen to the episode?here: https://lnkd.in/eDffxXt3 Blake Roberts Crall Allison Thompson University of Pennsylvania University of Wisconsin-Madison Economic Mobility Pathways - EMPath Zilber Family Foundation The Bridge Project Children's Wisconsin Children's Home Society of America Casey Family Programs University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Luke Waldo

In this final episode of season 3, I invited Kate Luster from Rock County to help us bring many of the strategies from this season together. As you have heard throughout this podcast, too many children and families, especially Black families, are being investigated and separated by child protective services. As part of our Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities initiative, we review the data from all the counties across Wisconsin to see what counties are meaningfully addressing issues like racial disproportionality or reducing the number of children separated from their families and placed in foster care for reasons of neglect. This past year, Rock County jumped off the page as we saw a significant decrease in the number of children entering foster care. We wanted to know why and how this had happened. So we reached out to Kate, and she shared the story of Rock Families First, which we will explore today. While you are listening to Kate, I encourage you to look for examples of how she and Rock County bring to life many of the strategies that you heard earlier this season. How have they disrupted system mindsets? How have they reimagined engagement and embedded community leadership? How have they invested in their workforce? Then, ask yourself, how might we do something like this and where can we start? Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gXPVYMdi Rock County Human Services, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, Chapin Hall, Children's Wisconsin, Children's Home Society of America, Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Children's Home Society of Florida, Marlo Nash, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare #LivedExperience #MentalModels #SystemsChange #SystemsTransformation #WorkforceInclusionandInnovation #CommunityLeadership #CommunityEngagement #PowerSharing #Collaboration #ChildWelfare

Have you ever asked, "How might we create a better alternative to reporting overloaded families to Child Protective Services, so that they receive the targeted support and resources that they need to thrive?" Or "How might we empower teachers, police officers, social workers, doctors and nurses who are on the frontlines of supporting overloaded families to build trust through referrals and connections to prevention services and resources rather than suspicion through reports to Child Protective Services?" If so, join us on Monday, March 10th from 2-3pm to unpack the Overloaded: Understanding Neglect podcast and its second episode, Changing the Odds: Building an Aligned and Comprehensive Prevention Ecosystem with Jennifer Jones. Register?here: https://lnkd.in/g_BM3UyM Join us for an interactive and inspiring conversation with?Jennifer Jones, Chief Strategy Officer of Prevent Child Abuse America, and changemakers from across the country to reflect on ideas presented in ICFW’s Overloaded: Understanding Neglect Podcast. Then interact directly with Jennifer to ask questions about?Prevent Child Abuse America's Theory of Change for a Primary Prevention Ecosystem. Listen to the episode?here: https://lnkd.in/gg-hMjXF Jennifer Jones Prevent Child Abuse America Children's Wisconsin Children's Home Society of America Children's Home Society of North Carolina Children's Home Society of Florida Casey Family Programs

As I listened to Bryan Samuels in our last episode, I thought a lot about communities that drove their own transformation by collaborating with and changing the systems that should be serving them. Whether it’s the Harlem Children’s Zone that disrupted intergenerational poverty through community-driven Promise Academies, medical centers, and after-school and job training programs. Or here in Milwaukee where the Lindsey Heights Neighborhood Initiative increased homeownership, household income, and access to healthy food and quality healthcare through its Innovation and Wellness Commons all while empowering its residents rather than displacing them. In turn the community saw a decrease in crime and vacant lots as it trained more and more community leaders. We're talking about systems and community transformation that's more than statistics—though the numbers are powerful. But the true magic isn't in the data—it's in the strategies that these communities used to drive real change. In today’s episode, Bryan will share the 5 key strategies from Chapin Hall’s report “Systems Transformation through Community Leadership” that were developed from reviewing how people and leaders from communities like Harlem and Lindsey Heights changed the odds from the ground up for the kids and families that live there. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gXe_7JrQ Children's Home Society of America, Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Children's Home Society of Florida, Marlo Nash, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, Children's Wisconsin #LivedExperience #MentalModels #SystemsChange #SystemsTransformation #WorkforceInclusionandInnovation #CommunityLeadership #CommunityEngagement #PowerSharing #ChildWelfare #Collaboration

Join us at?Unpacking Overloaded: A Podcast Discussion Series?to keep the conversation going with changemakers from across our Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities initiative and the country with our Children’s Home Society of America network. In season 3 of Overloaded: Understanding Neglect, we explore how we might change the conditions so that we improve the odds for children and families to thrive. To do that, we ask, how might we transform our systems, create a prevention ecosystem, and center families as the experts they are and the changemakers they should be? In this season, you will also hear highlights from this past year’s Wicked Problems Institute. Join us after listening to the?first episode?for a guided and inspiring conversation with changemakers from across the country to reflect and act on questions and ideas presented in ICFW’s Overloaded: Understanding Neglect Podcast and Children’s Home Society of America’s Wicked Problems Institute. Register here for the February 25th discussion: https://lnkd.in/ghNpv-7N Children's Home Society of America Children's Wisconsin Children's Home Society of North Carolina Children's Home Society of Florida Prevent Child Abuse America Marlo Nash Luke Waldo

Over the past three episodes with Marlo, Sixto, Anthony, Bryn, and Samantha, we have explored how we might unlock the power of lived experience through true collaboration. Whether through shifts in our mental models as Marlo and Anthony proposed, or through policy and practice changes as Sixto and Bryn shared, or through power-sharing and trust-building as Samantha demonstrated, I hope that you discovered pathways that will lead you to better collaboration with people with lived experience. In these final few episodes of this season, we are going to attempt to bring many of these lessons all together. I invited Bryan Samuels back to the podcast for the next two episodes to help us do that through Chapin Hall’s years-long review of the best strategies and lessons learned that you can find in their report titled “Systems Transformation through Community Leadership.” In this first episode, we are going to explore why systems transformation through community leadership is needed, and why the conditions are right now. Bryan will also introduce the 5 key strategies to advance Systems Transformation through Community Leadership. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gEFj_m68 Bryan Samuels Chapin Hall Children's Wisconsin Children's Home Society of America Children's Home Society of North Carolina Children's Home Society of Florida Children's Home Society of California University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Marlo Nash #systemstransformation #systemschange #livedexperience #mentalmodels #communityleadership #communityengagement #powersharing #collaboration #workforceinclusionandinnovation #childwelfare

The history of peer support goes back long before we had formal systems like child protection or mental health. People in ancient societies overcame hardship like religious persecution or famine by coming together through shared experience and creating shared solutions. However, the rise of organized peer support comes in response to many systemic abuses and failures in the 19th and 20th centuries. Inhumane conditions and treatment of people living in asylums with mental health disorders led to groups like the Quakers and later people like Judi Chamberlin to create survivors’ movements that would transform how people with lived experience could organize their voices and advocacy to improve the systems that harmed and failed them. It wasn’t until fairly recently that these peer support and mentor models were translated to child welfare. So I wanted to learn more about the model that is being implemented in Wisconsin. Parents Supporting Parents is a peer support program designed in Iowa for parents involved in the Child Protection System that is now implemented here in a handful of counties across Wisconsin. Join me as I speak with @Samantha Copus, Parent Partner in Jefferson County, about why peer support programs such as parents supporting parents needed today. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gBPvPGpM Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, Think of Us, Anthony Barrows, Bryn Fortune, Nurture Connection, Children's Wisconsin, Children's Home Society of America, Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Children's Home Society of Florida, Children's Home Society of California, Marlo Nash, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare #LivedExperience #ParentPartners #ChildWelfare #Neglect #MentalModels #SystemsChange #WorkforceInclusionandInnovation #PowerSharing #Collaboration

In our last episode, Marlo Nash shared many lessons learned from this past year’s Wicked Problems Institute national convening titled “Unlocking the Power of Lived Experience through True Collaboration,” hosted by Children’s Home Society of America and the Jordan Institute for Families at the University of North Carolina. One of those lessons came in the form of a memorable question – “How do we do this for real, for real?” Today you will get some answers in the form of practical frameworks, strategies, and actions from the three national experts that presented at the Wicked convening - Sixto Cancel, Founder and CEO of Think of Us, Anthony Barrows, Founder of the Network of Intersectional Professionals, and Bryn Fortune, Founder of Fortune Consulting and Coordinator for the Nurture Connection Family Network Collaborative. Today’s episode was recorded during last year’s Wicked Problems Institute. Each expert brought their unique lived experience along with the models, projects, and strategies that they have developed and/or implemented, so I hope you find practical tools that you can use in your work, organization, and systems to unlock the power of lived experience. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gXUsyJ3K Sixto Cancel, Think of Us, Anthony Barrows, Bryn Fortune, Nurture Connection, Children's Home Society of America, Marlo Nash, CJ Suitt, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Foster Club, Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, Project Evident, ideas42, Facilitating Power, Rosa Esperanza Gonzalez, Reach Out and Read, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, Children's Wisconsin #LivedExperience #IntersectionalProfessionals #ParentLeaders #ambassadors #ChildWelfare #neglect #MentalModels #SystemsChange #WorkforceInclusionandInnovation #PowerSharing #Collaboration #Crowdsourcing

Lived experience, lived expertise, context experts… For the past many years, we have seen a movement towards including or elevating or integrating the voice of lived experience into our work. But what does that really mean? What does that mean for the person that has lived through the child welfare system? What does that mean for the people working in the system? What are we trying to accomplish or change, and how might we do this better? Join me in conversation with Marlo Nash, managing director of CHSA, as we explore these questions through the lens of this past year’s Wicked Problems Institute Convening. Marlo Nash, Children's Home Society of America, Children's Home Society of Florida, Children's Wisconsin, Bryn Fortune, Anthony Barrows, Think of Us, Sixto Cancel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC School of Social Work, Casey Family Programs #livedexperience #collaboration #prevention #childneglect

In 2022, over 7 million reports of alleged child abuse or neglect were made to Child Protective Services. 3 million families were subsequently investigated, and around 85% of them were living at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. Ultimately, of those 7 million reports, 550,000 were substantiated for maltreatment, or somewhere around 1 of every 10. How might we apply a public health approach to address this crisis where too many families are overloaded by stress and vulnerable to CPS investigations? As we heard last episode from Jennifer Jones, Prevent Child Abuse America has a bold vision for what this could look like: an aligned and comprehensive primary prevention ecosystem that would empower all children and families to live a purposeful and happy life with hope for the future. One of its core aspirations is promoting economic stability, so that all families have the quality housing, childcare, and healthcare that we all need to thrive. Join me in conversation with Blake Roberts Crall and Allison Thompson as we explore how guaranteed income programs and other economic supports that alleviate financial stress might help us move further upstream as an important part of that prevention ecosystem. Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Pennsylvania, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, Stanford University, Children's Wisconsin, The Bridge Project, Zilber Family Foundation #prevention #childwelfare #poverty #guaranteedincome #economicstability #socialdeterminants #economocmobility #mentalmodels #policy #research