Safe & Sound senior adviser and former CEO, Katie Albright, has co-authored a powerful piece in the latest issue of Family Justice Journal setting out a guide for building pathways for supporting children and families in their own communities.
The piece discusses in detail the position advocated for at Safe & Sound. Creating a community pathway means supporting families in their communities and enabling them to access help in the moment and at the time they need it most, before (or avoiding the need for) intervention from child protective services. The current child welfare system is structured to react and respond after a crisis has occurred, whereas these community-based services seek to promote protective factors – parental resilience, child social-emotional competency, knowledge of parenting and child development, social connections, and concrete support – that research shows strengthens families and prevents child maltreatment. Currently, the funding reflects an inequitable allocation of priority between intervention and prevention: of the $11 billion in federal spending for child welfare in fiscal year 2024, only 2.3% ($253M) is allocated for prevention with the remainder spent on intervention [1].
The solution has two interdependent parts to it.
Safe & Sound has already taken some steps to address overreporting to the Child Welfare System, having established that in California over 80% of general neglect allegations were not substantiated [2], that fear of being reported was discouraging parents from seeking support, and that despite the fact mandated reporters often have the best intentions of trying to get the help the family needs, the vast majority do not receive services that result in greater family stability [3].
In 2022 Safe & Sound successfully navigated California Assembly Bill 2085 through the State Assembly and before the Senate. The bill limits the definition of general neglect to only include circumstances where the child is at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm or illness, and provides that general neglect does not include a parent’s economic disadvantage.
We also continue to deliver Mandated Reporter trainings across San Francisco – training for child-serving professionals on how to identify, respond to, and report suspected child abuse – in a way that is responsive to the research on overreporting and sensitive to its findings.
The other side to the coin is to operationalize the alternative – Pathways to Prevention. The article in the Family Justice Journal sets out three transformative actions that will enable this. At Safe & Sound, we have been instrumental in the formation and leadership of the statewide Mandated Reporting to Community Supporting Task Force, charged with developing key reform recommendations. Our Chief Policy Officer, Jenny Pearlman, is a key member of the Task Force and co-chairs its Legal Liability and Policy subcommittee. To date, we have delivered over 20 presentations on this work to local and state entities, further advocating for a shift towards a supportive, trauma-informed approach to child and family well-being.
Safe & Sound is also the backbone agency for the Family Services Alliance, a collective of Family Resource Centers that collaborate on advocacy and coordinate resources and services, creating the groundwork for a community pathway.
Safe & Sound’s efforts to date put us at the forefront of the local and statewide endeavor to safely keep families together in the communities where they will thrive. We will continue to move these initiatives forward in the coming year, with the support of experts and thought leaders.
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[1] Stoltzfus, E., Congressional Research Service (2024). Child Welfare: Purposes, Federal Programs, and Funding.
[2] California Child Welfare Indicators Project (2024).
[3] Chapin Hall (2024).