FAMILY SUPPORT

The Family Support oval of the Build Initiative website includes information and resources to integrate family strengthening principles and strategies into early childhood systems-building.  Family support programs and policies are designed to support and strengthen parenting and include such diverse efforts as home visiting, parent education, family literacy, income and workforce support, family preservation services, and extended paid family leave.

Parents remain their children’s first and most important teachers.  Ensuring that parents have sufficient support to provide nurturing homes and meet basic needs is essential to children’s development.  When combined with efforts to expand preschool, ensure health coverage, improve child care quality and affordability, and address children’s special developmental needs, these approaches can substantially reduce kindergarten readiness gaps.  

In 2006 Build began work on integrating family strengthening and child abuse and neglect prevention into state system building. With a planning grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Initiative launched a series of Learning Community events to increase awareness and understanding among the Build state teams of the strengthening families approach and the five Protective Factors pioneered by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP). Extensive research supports the common-sense notion that when these Protective Factors are present and robust in a family, the likelihood of child abuse and neglect diminish.

In addition to supporting awareness activities, the planning grant provided funds to work with a few state teams on a preliminary exploration of implementation strategies for embedding Strengthening Families into comprehensive state systems work.  Build teams in New Jersey, Minnesota, Michigan and Washington participated in the trial and conducted a preliminary assessment using an expanded assessment tool developed by Build in conjunction with CSSP.  Based on the assessment, the states are currently exploring the next best steps for moving forward with family strengthening work and working with Build to determine the technical assistance and support that will help them succeed.

Family Support Sections:

Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention | Family Strengthening | Home Visitation