By Karen Johnson and Kelly Martin

A mid our day-to-day work to partner with families and children, especially during an ongoing pandemic, it often is challenging to stay apprised of and incorporate the advancing knowledge, research, and evidence around brain science. However, brain science holds great promise in helping us to increase equity, support all families, and strengthen our workforce. The science is clear—adversity and toxic stress can change the brain’s architecture—and preventing and mitigating both are critical in every facet of our work (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2005/2014).

The Texas Change in Mind initiative, convened and led by Social Current, supports 10 community-based organizations that are working to create impact through intersecting levels of change (Social Current, n.d.). Funded by the Episcopal Health Foundation, The Powell Foundation, St. David’s Foundation, and an anonymous donor, the initiative uses a learning collaborative model that allows the organizations to learn from one another, Social Current, and other experts. The Texas organizations are using brain science and equity practices to effect transformative change by promoting the foundations of safe, stable relationships; positive childhood experiences; healthy development; and individual and collective resilience.

This work is guided by the Texas Change in Mind initiative’s theory of change that includes six key areas: Brain science, racial equity, organizational resilience, community impact, communications, and evaluation. Through a wide array of learning engagements over two years, the teams are incorporating new knowledge into their own organizational theories of change and determining their paths forward.

Staff and Organizational Resilience

As the initiative launched in spring 2021, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the participating organizations noted this opportunity could not have come at a better time. They already had been working to embed brain science and equity and were eager for additional support in building capacity and resilience in their workforces.

“So many staff have experienced firsthand inequities regarding COVID-19 in their families and personal lives,” said Nadine Scamp, CEO of Santa Maria Hostel. “We have been thinking about how we can support our staff so they can support our families. Change in Mind is an opportunity to put thought and resources behind this question.”

To equip staff with resilience-building tools, organizations are teaching them brain science concepts, including executive functioning (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2020), and the sequence of engagement: regulate, relate, reason (Perry, 2020). These concrete strategies are being integrated into work with families and helping staff to stay regulated, build psychological safety, and engage in conversations that advance equity practices.

Hand in hand with embedding brain science principles, the Texas organizations are advancing their equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) journeys by administering the Intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI®; see www.idiinventory.com) to key staff. This cross-cultural assessment of intercultural competence is a first step in developing a plan for personal growth. In addition, the organizations’ executive leaders are receiving consultative support from Social Current’s EDI experts on advancing their organizational efforts. This work is stretching teams to, “reach across the organization, be inclusive of staff and team up with cultural proficiency and inclusion folks,” noted Dr. Teri Wood, a Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) clinician and coordinator with the Austin Ed Fund, which supports the Austin Independent School District (AISD).

“Working to grow our EDI skills can be uncomfortable at times and is often hard, but we know you can’t have trauma-informed, brain-based learning/services without EDI. They are interwoven,” said Karen McWhorter, director of development at Family Service Center of Galveston County, who is seeking funding to expand administration of the IDI® across the organization.

Children’s Museum Houston (CMH) has been advancing the work of its Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) Committee, which was started before the pandemic and seeks to make improvements to how it designs and provides programs. The CMH team is adding brain science modules to its new employee onboarding and equity training and regularly engaging with all staff in advancing racial equity.

Texas Change in Mind

“We think of this as a journey—a process. It’s called “Change in Mind” for a reason—it’s really a shift. It makes us put things in perspective,” said Lisa Williams, director of gallery programs at CMH. “Children in this pandemic have suffered in a way that we don’t even know at this point. We are trying to position ourselves to give our families and communities what they need from us.”

Child and Family Well-Being

By focusing on supporting staff, building capacities, and strengthening organizational resilience—all through the lens of brain science and a commitment to equity and justice—the participating organizations are already seeing positive impacts in organization culture shifts and their ability to support children and families.

“We have appreciated the intentionality of bringing the equity, diversity and inclusion conversation into brain science conversations,” said Scamp. “Having the space for staff to wrestle with their perceptions and to support participants in moving beyond stigma and bias regarding their substance use and mental health challenges is foundational change.”

Santa Maria Hostel primarily works with mothers who are experiencing the interwoven challenges of substance use, housing insecurity, and mental health concerns. Santa Maria Hostel’s recent work has focused on supporting healthy relationships between parent participants and their infants and toddlers. They also are building out-of-schooltime programming to focus on school age children.

Originally this looked like a traditional afterschool program. However, given what the team is learning about brain science and intentionally centering families in their children’s development, the program is morphing into a family-based afterschool program with an emphasis on strengthening attachment and serve-and-return communication (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child., n.d.).

The multi-generation approach, a hallmark of brain science-based strategies, is also being used by the Austin Independent School District. As Becky Murillo, LCSW and TBRI clinician, said, “This is going to make our support to schools, students, and families even stronger.” They are working with a group of parents to help them learn about brain development and how they can support their children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. “Parents understand how it better equips them as caregivers and as parents,” said Murillo. “As they learn, they say, ‘We need to get more parents at this table!’ It feels like an empowerment model to me.”

As the work of the initiative continues, NORC at the University of Chicago (see www.norc.org) is overseeing multiple evaluation objectives, including evaluating the effectiveness of the Change in Mind learning collaborative model in helping sites achieve positive results at individual, organization, and community system levels; building the capacity of sites to use developmental evaluation; and assessing the uptake of racial equity at organizational and community network levels.

We will know more about impact of this work as evaluation results come in. For now, we can attest that the Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative is an exciting opportunity to accelerate the application of brain science and equity into systems change efforts in the communities served by the 10 participating organizations. These leaders are being supported to rethink, reflect, and reimagine at all levels of their work—personally, organizationally, and systemically. They’re sharing ideas, supporting each other, and creating a ripple effect in their networks. As Dr. Wood says, “This has brought life, excitement, and hope to our work. Our team is excited for every meeting and asking, ‘What can we do next?”

Karen Johnson, MSW, LCSW leads the development of Social Current’s Change in Mind Institute (see https://www.social-current.
org/engage/change-in-mind-institute/) and the Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative.

Kelly Martin, MS, is the Director of Practice Excellence at Social Current. Her work focuses on applied developmental psychology,
educational success, policy, and advocacy, and supporting the work of the Change in Mind Institute.

References

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This article was originally posted in CWLA’s Children’s Voice Magazine – Vol. 32 #1, 2023. To read through the entirety of Vol, 32, purchase the issue on the Child Welfare League of America’s website.

Social Current is dedicated to the growth and overall success of the social sector, and as workforce challenges continue to hinder human service organizations, we remain committed to offering solutions that will support staff and build resilience.  

In our upcoming learning series, “Building a Resilient Workforce,” Social Current experts will delve into core strategies and tactics for supporting staff, such as increasing accountability, managing conflict, nurturing relationships, embracing equity, and achieving excellence.  

Participants are sure to gain knowledge and tools to set them, and their organizations, up for success. From utilizing brain science in the workplace to fostering psychological safety to creating culture and community, this learning series will provide concrete action steps to support staff who are emotionally and physically exhausted.  

Join us for this four-part webinar series to ensure staff remain connected to the mission and vision of your organization. Register by Aug. 14 to receive the early bird rates, a savings of $15 on an individual webinar or $35 on the entire series. View full event details and register online:

Envision a workforce that feels stable, secure, and capable of thriving in the face of daily challenges. Learn more about our upcoming series and workforce resilience consulting services.

Social Current submitted a statement to the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee from President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson and Senior Director of Government Affairs Blair Abelle-Kiser on the challenges faced by the nonprofit social sector in responding to federal grants. Among the challenges highlighted were federal contracts that don’t cover the actual cost of service delivery, the complexity of the contracting process, and a lack of funding flexibility that hampers the ability of nonprofits to innovate and address root causes. The testimony highlighted a number of solutions, including simplifying the application process, offering more consistency and transparency regarding grant application procedures and criteria, and allowing greater flexibility in the use of grant funds. It comes on the heels of an article by Jody Levison-Johnson that was published on March 30 entitled “An Urgent Response is Needed to the Dire Staff Shortages Facing NonProfit Government Contractors.”

The Senate hearing “Improving Access to Federal Grants for Underserved Communities,” took place on Tuesday, May 2, at 10 a.m. ET. For those of you who couldn’t make it, read the key takeaways Social Current put together from the hearing.

READ STATEMENT

Last week, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) released his long-awaited proposal to increase the debt limit, now standing at $31.4 trillion. In exchange for lifting the debt limit by $1.5 trillion until March 31, 2024, the plan proposes a series of budget cuts McCarthy says will decrease budget deficits by $4.5 trillion over the next decade. President Biden has dismissed budget negotiations, calling for a “clean” debt ceiling increase and delaying any negotiations about the federal budget until after. The Treasury Department says the debt ceiling must be raised as soon as possible and the government could run out of money as soon as June, setting up a tense few months on Capitol Hill.

McCarthy’s plan would immediately return the federal budget to FY 2022 levels, a $130 billion cut, as well as limit yearly increases to one percent for a decade. The plan doesn’t specify the programs that will be cut; however, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, Rosa DeLauro (C-Ct.), says different agencies have reported the 2022 level budget would lead to drastic impacts, including one million senior citizens losing nutrition services, 1.1 million families losing housing assistance, and 200,000 children losing access to Head Start.

Additionally, McCarthy’s plan would implement work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for adults without children until age 56, instead of age 49 under current law. Under the plan, Medicaid would also implement a work requirement of 80 hours per month, which could lead to millions being kicked off. Finally, President Biden’s student debt cancellation program, which is under consideration by the Supreme Court, would be scrapped.

Social Current will continue to monitor budget negotiations and aggressively challenge cuts to critical programs that support the health and wellbeing of vulnerable communities across the country.

HUD Selects Grantees for Choice Neighborhoods Program

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced $98 million in funds for the Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grants program. The Choice Neighborhoods program takes a holistic approach to developing housing and increasing wellbeing in marginalized neighborhoods. Its three-pronged approach – “housing, people, and neighborhood” – involves redeveloping HUD-assisted properties while simultaneously supporting health, education, and income services in the community. New grocery stores, parks, services, and jobs, for example, are included in the program’s approach. These neighborhood improvement programs lead to private financing and economic growth. Since its inception, the Choice Neighborhoods program has led to 11,000 new mixed-income units in 44 cities, with another 32,000 units under consideration. This batch of grantees come from states across the country, including Arizona, California, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia. 

CSBG Receives Third Funding Installment for the Year

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released $375 million to tribes, territories and over 1,000 local Community Action Agencies through its Community Services Block Grant (CSBG). CSBG is a federally funded block grant program in the Office of Community Services within the Administration for Children and Families tackling poverty head on in communities lacking resources. The Community Action Agencies have wide leeway to choose what types of services their communities need, including housing, nutrition, employment, education, or healthcare services. Over nine million people are served annually through CSBG. The $375 million installment is the third for FY 2023, bringing the total to $750 million.

New Opportunity to Provide Health Care to Individuals Transitioning Back to Community

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new program to allow states to provide health care to incarcerated individuals as they are about to reenter their communities. The Medicaid Reentry Section 1115 Demonstration Opportunities would allow the utilization of Medicaid funds to cover health services like substance use disorders and other chronic health conditions for up to 90 days prior to release. CMS cited a study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which says as much as 65 percent of people who are incarcerated suffer from substance abuse disorders. It goes on to say this population is at increased risk of overdosing in the first few weeks of reentry without treatment. Providing critical health care services to this population before release lessens the challenges of transitioning back to the community and reduces recidivism.

Subscribe to the Policy and Advocacy Radar to receive our biweekly policy roundup, which includes commentary on issues in Social Current’s federal policy agenda, opportunities to take action, and curated news and opportunities.

By: Verleaner R. Lane

April has long been recognized as Child Abuse Prevention Month. This year, the conversation around prevention has broadened to include family strengthening, in recognition of the importance of families and communities having access to resources that can lessen family stressors and prevent child abuse and neglect before it occurs.

Science shows us that children are more likely to thrive when their families have the economic and social supports that they need. Enabling these positive childhood experiences requires that we reimagine child welfare and focus instead on child and family well-being with upstream resources that can prevent child abuse and neglect before it occurs.

Federal and state policies that connect families to economic support services, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), housing assistance, and nutritional supplements have been shown to strengthen families and reduce child welfare interactions.

By shifting to a preventative child and family well-being system that offers upstream resources for families, the goal is to provide families with more services rather than more surveillance.

Federal policy is supporting this shift by authorizing more funding and more flexible funding for family-strengthening services through the Family First Prevention Services Act and the proposed reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).

What does a family-strengthening approach to child safety look like in practice? Answering that question is the impetus behind a national demonstration initiative launched by the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime in 2019.

The project, Child Safety Forward, engaged five sites across the United States in a multi-year focus that included research, planning, and implementation around strategies aimed at reducing child injury and fatality from abuse and neglect. The sites selected are Cook County Health in Illinois; Indiana Department of Health; Michigan Department of Health and Human Services; Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut; and Sacramento County, California’s Child Abuse Prevention Council. 

Each site is developing strategies that are unique and specific to their communities, honoring and reflecting the data they collected in the first year to identify community-led solutions that support resilient families and keep children safe in their homes. Each site is also working with a collaborative body of stakeholders and partners, including those with lived experience, to guide the work and is reviewing short- and long-term goals through an equity and diversity lens.

Our strategy includes bringing together a diverse group of community stakeholders that work with the most affected families in a variety of different settings. Our work has been focused on three Illinois counties: Cook, Peoria, and Vermilion, to identify the highest-risk geographic areas and target resources in these communities.

We began our efforts by using a data collection process that had been established earlier by Cook County Health in partnership with the Cook County Medical Examiner. The process automates data exchange between these two Cook County agencies allowing for the linkage of clinical data to mortality events among specific populations as determined by the medical examiner. Data sharing across these agencies is automated to identify risk factors for mortality among individuals experiencing homelessness, those impacted by the opioid epidemic, those with justice involvement, and the intersection of these experiences.

For Cook County, we reviewed approximately 300 sudden unexpected infant deaths over the past five years likely related to unsafe sleep conditions. We identified specific neighborhoods that had a higher rate of sudden unexpected infant death.

Based on these lessons learned, we are now able to appropriately target resources and educational interventions to protect families from these catastrophic events by creating the Safety for Children 0-5 self-paced educational curriculum and adding scenarios to the Simulation Labs and the MDT Training. We worked with pediatricians and community organizations to develop safe sleep messaging and interventions targeted to these high-risk neighborhoods. The program, led by 12 government and community agencies, including Project CHILD, aims to address sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), one of the leading causes of infant mortality.

Illinois Safe Sleep Support will focus on outreach and education to expand the community-based promotion of safe sleep practices, promote resources to improve safe sleep environments, identify SUID disparities, and address opportunities for improvement. The investments of this year-long campaign will continue to position Illinois as a leading state for children, families, and the early childhood workforce that supports them.

All of the strategies across the five Child Safety Forward sites share one common trait – they are predicated on demonstrating a public health approach to child and family well-being called for by the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. With a focus on increasing equity in systems that serve families, elevating parents into relationships of equal power, building protective factors, and supporting families who are having trouble weathering one or more of the storms impacting our country right now, each of the demonstration sites is working to create a body of knowledge about what works to reduce child fatalities.

As we celebrate Child Abuse Prevention, let us not forget that addressing community needs by giving families support prevents traumatic events from happening, has much more impact, and costs much less, than removing children from families and/or attempting to address the consequences of adversity after a child has grown up. 

We all have a stake in our kids’ future and shifting our focus from child welfare to child and family well-being will help us create a future where every child can thrive and reach their full potential.

Verleaner R. Lane, MA. is the Project Director for Project Child as a Visiting Project Specialist contracted employee within the Institute for Legal, Legislative, and Policy Studies (ILLAPS) at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Cook County Health established Project CHILD in 2019 to better understand and address infant deaths due to unsafe sleep conditions, or from abuse or neglect.

Disclaimer: This product was supported by cooperative agreement number 2019-V3-GX-K005, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Social Current and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) want to learn from human services leaders and individuals with lived experience to inform the way we work together.

We are conducting several focus groups on advancing equity, health, and well-being in our communities and need your help spreading the word to those who have accessed services from your organization. We seek to learn from their rich perspectives and experiences of feeling valued/heard, improving service access, and addressing racial disparities and inequities.

Focus groups are virtual, and will be offered throughout April and May:

People who have experience accessing services and resources offered by your organizations will be provided a participation stipend. Space is limited, so please register in advance. Only those who have registered in advance and received confirmation can attend.

We are truly excited about this work and hope the knowledge we gain from these focus groups will help us create a leadership framework for community-based and public sector human services leaders that will change the way we work together and across boundaries.

If you have questions or need further details, please contact Trinka Landry-Bourne at tlandry-bourne@aphsa.org or Michon Hicks at mhicks@social-current.org.

At the beginning of the pandemic, states began receiving substantially more Medicaid funds from the federal government to expand access to necessary healthcare coverage. In exchange, states paused reviews of beneficiaries, a practice that had allowed states to regularly determine whether individuals or families were still eligible. This arrangement led to a 28 percent increase in enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. However, in Dec. Congress voted to allow states to commence eligibility determinations after March 31.

Arkansas, Arizona, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Idaho will begin making eligibility determinations in April, while the rest of states will start this summer. Enrollees will be forced to provide information and documentation, like income and household size, to continue receiving health care benefits. Kaiser believes between 5 million and 14 million people could lose health coverage, while the Department of Health and Human Services estimates up to 15 million could be terminated. Georgetown University Health Policy Institute predicts almost 7 million children and teens could potentially lose coverage.

Social Current will continue to monitor these developments and work with our coalition partners in Washington, D.C., to mitigate the damage of these policy changes.

HUD Announced New Funding for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced $30 million in funding for public housing authorities to address housing instability for youth who have already left or are transitioning out of foster care. The funding is part of HUD’s Foster Youth to Independence Initiative, which provides public housing agencies with funding for housing choice vouchers that can be employed in partnership with local child welfare agencies. The program is geared toward easing the transition to independence and mitigating homelessness among young people, particularly foster care youth. The Biden-Harris Administration, as part of its goal of reducing overall homelessness by 25 percent by 2025, has proposed $9 billion in its FY 2024 budget to create a permanent housing voucher program for youth, ages 18-24, who are transitioning out of foster care.  

GAO Publishes Report on CCDF

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report on the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which is the main federal program that provides subsidies to states to assist low-income families access child care. The report analyzed data from FY 2019, the most recent data available, and found only 2 million out of the 8.7 million children who were eligible for CCDF subsidies participated in the program in an average month. GAO stated the discrepancy is caused by the lack of funding, requiring states to prioritize certain children over others. Also, some families are unfamiliar with the program or dissuaded from applying because of the procedural hurdles. GAO found that even families who did receive subsidies still struggle to afford child care, forcing difficult choices between child care and other priorities, like food.

New Ratings from the Family First Prevention Services Clearinghouse

The Family First Prevention Clearinghouse has posted new ratings for 12 prevention services. Two were found to be “supported,” three “promising,” and seven rated as “does not currently meet criteria.” The programs included mental health, substance abuse, and in-home parent skill-based services. So far, 141 programs and services have been reviewed, and 71 have been rated as promising, supported, or well-supported.

The new ratings are as follows:

Subscribe to the Policy and Advocacy Radar to receive our biweekly policy roundup, which includes commentary on issues in Social Current’s federal policy agenda, opportunities to take action, and curated news and opportunities.

Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, testified in front of the Senate Committee on Finance to tout President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget for the department. Health and Human Services (HHS) covers a wide variety of programs and services, including physical healthcare, behavioral healthcare, early childhood, child care, healthcare innovation, and the public health system. The proposed budget reflects the president’s continued pursuit of social policies that strengthen the care economy through investments in behavioral and substance use programs, home and community-based services, and child care. The secretary began his remarks with a focus on transforming behavioral healthcare. The president’s budget, he said, invests in the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, increases funds for community mental health and substance use prevention and treatment, and makes the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics program permanent. 

The secretary also stressed the need to meet the challenge of maternal mortality through increased resources to maternal and child health programs. Care for older adults and people with disabilities is a major focus for the administration, exemplified in a proposal to spend $150 billion over ten years on the Medicaid home and community-based services program. Pre-k and child care also gain prominence in the budget, with a $200 billion proposal for universal preschool and a $400 billion proposal for high-quality child care for families earning up to $200,000. 

Social Current will continue to monitor the negotiations on the HHS budget as it is debated in Congress throughout the summer and into the fall.

Contribute to Social Current’s New Voter Outreach Toolkit

Social Current is updating its Voter and Civic Engagement Toolkit, a collaborative project with NonprofitVOTE that provides guidance, advice, and tools for community-based human services nonprofits that want to begin or expand their voter outreach efforts.

For the updated toolkit, Social Current is searching for stories from network organizations that have run successful voter engagement campaigns. If your organization has led or participated in any voter engagement activities, either in the workplace or the community, please contact Derry Kiernan, our field mobilization and policy manager.

We’d love to feature you in the new toolkit, which will be an available resource for the network and the broader nonprofit community as we head into elections this fall and next year.

Aging Committee Hearing on the Care Economy

The Senate Special Committee on Aging hosted a hearing called “Uplifting Families, Workers, and Older Adults: Supporting Communities of Care.” Chairman Bob Casey (D-Penn.) opened the hearing by calling for the passage of two bills: the Better Care Better Jobs Act, which would invest funds in the home care workforce, and the Home and Community-Based Services Access Act, which would allow everyone eligible for long-term Medicaid care services to also access home-based care. Ranking Member Mike Braun (R-Ind.) drew attention to the Prioritizing Evidence for Workforce Development Act, which supports education and workforce programs that help workers build skills in high-demand sectors, like health care. The first witness, Kezia Scales of the Paraprofessional Health Institute, explained that 2.6 million home care workers make up half of the total direct care workforce, which is the largest occupation in the country; yet 43 percent of home care workers live below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. She called on Congress to pass the Better Care Better Jobs Act because it would increase the federal match for Medicaid home and community-based services, thereby raising wages and benefits for the workforce. The testimony of Jacinta Burgess, a home care worker, illustrated the challenges that the workforce faces. As her mother’s caregiver, she earns $13.38 per hour for only 15 hours per week, even though she works around the clock. Pam Lowy, the Executive Director of Great Bay Services, said her organization serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage because of the low reimbursement rates in the Medicaid program.

Harsh Cuts to Social Programs in the Offing

With both Democrats and Republicans publicly committed to not cutting Social Security or Medicare as a solution to the growing budget deficit crisis, an array of other social programs will come under intense scrutiny as targets of possible cuts. In fact, some lawmakers in the House are mulling proposals that could slash budgets for Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Housing. Eliminating Medicaid expansion under Obamacare and cutting the Section 8 housing program by 43% are being considered. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, one proposal could kick 10 million people, or one in four SNAP participants, off the program by implementing stringent work and work-reporting requirements. This includes three million households with school-age children. This year the farm bill, which covers SNAP and other Agriculture Committee programs, will be reauthorized by Congress. Social Current will continue to monitor these developments and challenge efforts to cut back on integral safety net programs.

New Factsheet on the Child Care Stabilization Program

The American Rescue Plan, passed in March 2021, provided $24 billion for the Child Care Stabilization Program to aid providers as they came out of the pandemic. A new factsheet from the Office of Child Care details how these funds were spent. More than 220,000 child care providers received funds to pay for wages and benefits, rent and utilities, and materials and supplies. This impacted 9.6 million children. Eight out of 10 child care centers received assistance. On average, child care centers received $140,600 and family homes received $23,300. These dollars helped centers stay in business and provide child care services that were pivotal to the successful emergence of the economy from the pandemic.

Subscribe to the Policy and Advocacy Radar to receive our biweekly policy roundup, which includes commentary on issues in Social Current’s federal policy agenda, opportunities to take action, and curated news and opportunities.

By: Regina Dyton and Chavon Campbell

When Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn. was chosen by the U.S. Department of Justice for a demonstration initiative to develop strategies and responses to address child fatalities from abuse or neglect, we didn’t expect the transformative nature of this project.

We began our efforts on the Child Safety Forward initiative three years ago with research and data analysis that showed that Hartford was an outlier when compared to Conn. and national child maltreatment rates. From 2015-2017 Hartford averaged 17.6 substantiated cases of child maltreatment per 1,000 children, nearly double the state and national rates during the same period. This and other disparities evident in the data demonstrated the need for a greater understanding of the underlying causes of disparities and risks for child maltreatment, particularly around prevention messaging for communities of color.

With a guiding principle of “those closest to the problem are closest to the solution,” we sought to bring parents together to form a Parent Engagement Work Group that would work closely with a multidisciplinary team of stakeholders composed of state agencies and community-based organizations to better understand the underlying issues.

 We recruited parents from existing relationships in the community, with the Greater Hartford Family Advocacy Center at Saint Francis Hospital, and with members of the Hartford Parent University (HPU), a grassroots organizing agency that trains and supports parents to advocate for quality education. We met with state agency leaders, child abuse pediatricians, and community agency directors to review the data and better understand the risks for child maltreatment that contributed to injuries and fatalities.

Perhaps the greatest area of learning on this topic was the parents’ perceptions of risks. Early in the formation of the Parent Engagement Work Group, parents made it clear that they wanted to address issues beyond child abuse and neglect by caregivers, noting that there are many environmental, systemic, and other types of threats to the safety of children. Examples included non-caregiver abuse and exploitation, drugs, suicide, and community violence, in short, all threats to child safety and well-being.

This led parents to focus on the ways in which they receive child safety education, which in most cases, was only mandated by child protection agencies after an allegation of abuse or neglect, leading parents to view child safety education as reactive and punitive. They wondered if other communities or families had better access to comprehensive and preventative child safety education.

The biggest impact came when the parents were presented with the data that showed that the death rate of Black children due to abuse and neglect was two times that of white children.

They asked how people who were not members of their communities (not just racially/ethnically but socio-economically and culturally) knew more about their collective reality than they themselves and made plans for them without communicating with those directly affected.

And while child fatality data is released publicly by state agencies, for a variety of reasons, including a lack of trust between families and state agencies, that data rarely reaches the populations who need it most.

Parents asked if and how they could be more involved in planning and carrying out research on their own communities and then using that data to plan improvements for child, family, and community well-being.

Based on their findings, the parents came together to develop a comprehensive educational guide to teach parents about multiple topics related to child well-being. Entitled “From Pain to Parenting,” the guide outlines a series of training workshops, led by parents, on a range of topics related to child well-being, including unsafe sleep, domestic violence, sexual abuse and assault, mental health, firearm safety and gun violence, and disabilities.

The Child Safety Forward Hartford initiative will serve as a springboard for establishing ongoing planning and action on preventing child maltreatment fatality and near fatality. The project will transfer from Saint Francis Hospital to the Institute for Community Research (ICR) as the lead agency, with Voices of Women of Color and Hartford Parent University as partners. ICR will train a group of parents to design and implement their own research and will conduct sessions to help parents understand data and advocate for data-sharing with communities. 

Hartford Parent University will provide ongoing training on topics identified by parents as they relate to Hartford Public Schools, especially regarding children with disabilities and children belonging to other marginalized communities. Voices of Women of Color will provide training in community organizing and advocacy and will lead the recruitment of a parent engagement group for each of Hartford’s thirteen neighborhoods.

The Hartford Child Safety Forward site was unique among the other demonstration sites in focusing on parent and community organizing and the purposeful shifting of power to those most affected. By combining the disciplines of research, community organizing, and prevention education, we were able to engage parents in a meaningful dialogue about the things that matter to them most – the safety and well-being of their children.

By elevating their voices and experiences and authentically shifting power to these parents, we ultimately learned far more from them about how to prevent abuse and neglect and build a Child and Family Well-being System that can strengthen families and enable all children to thrive. Our field will be all the richer for it.

Regina S. Dyton, MSW, served as principal investigator and project manager for the Child Safety Forward Project in Hartford. Chavon Campbell, MBA, is director of compliance for Hartford Communities That Care and project manager for the Pain to Parenting Project.

 This commentary was supported by cooperative agreement number 2019-V3-GX-K005 Reducing Child Fatalities and Recurring Injuries Caused by Crime Victimization, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Today’s workforce expects fulfillment and sustainable culture change.

The workforce crisis continues. Workforce trends clearly demonstrate that staff expects leaders to move beyond pre-pandemic, top-down, employee recognition and self-care initiatives. To truly partner with them to improve engagement, retention, equity, and communication, the workforce of today expects leaders to focus on fulfillment and sustainable culture change, and to teach new skills to take on today’s challenges. i

As leaders, we are persuaded to practice empathy, compassion, connection, inclusivity, psychological safety, mindfulness, and gratitude. But guidance on how to do these things is lacking. The pressing questions are: Where do we focus our learning first? What is the foundational framework to guide our actions?

The answer to the first question is simple – our brain. And the intervention is straightforward – create brain friendly work environments. Sound intimidating? It truly is not. The basics about brain functioning are easy to learn. Applying this knowledge in everyday interactions is trickier and requires focus, practice, and intention. But it is doable. The hardest task may be embracing the need to create brain friendly work environments.

Our sector has made strides in understanding the urgency to build healthy brains in new babies and young children. Early childhood resilience strategies such as “serve and return” and efforts to strengthen executive functioning skills are now commonly built into trainings and practice. However, the human services field has been slow to translate emerging brain friendly interventions into learnings and practices with adults, especially our workforce.

Bringing this knowledge into our work cultures is critical to creating well-being and resilience, especially in our complex and stressful work settings. Our brain mediates our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and as Dr. Bruce Perry notes “…a brain aware perspective helps me when I’m trying to understand people.” ii With this knowledge, we can prevent and mitigate the impact of toxic stress on our brains and bodies. And we can lay the foundation for being well at work.

Start Building Brain-Friendly Practices

If we want to strengthen brain friendly practices at work, where do we start? Here are three basic strategies to begin your work.

Understand Basic Brain Architecture

The brain is built from the bottom up, and different parts of the brain mediate different functions. As you go from the lower part of the brain, or brainstem, to the highest part of the brain, the frontal cortex, you go from the simplest to the more complex functions. Core regulatory networks, which originate in the lower part of the brain, are the backbone of the stress response system. Our brain gets input from all these networks to tell us if we are safe or threatened. If there is no insignificant need that is unmet, we can access our frontal cortex. However, when we are threatened or perceive we are threatened, this impacts how we think, feel, and behave. The more threatened we are, the more we shut down the thinking part of our brain.

So why care about this at work? We know that first responders, child protection workers, street outreach workers, and others who work in physically unsafe situations need to understand this basic physiology. But most of us are physically safe at work, so why does it matter to us? Well, threats that impact how we think, feel, and behave fall along a wide continuum of needs – from the threat of physical harm to the threat of feeling undervalued, unheard, and disconnected. When our core stress response networks warn us that we are in the out group, our voice is unheard, our work is undervalued, or we are in conflict with someone, we may easily default to our lower brain. Our frontal cortex shuts down, and we struggle to problem solve, innovate, create, advocate, hold others accountable, and take risks. We remain vigilant, push back, check out, and feel physically and emotionally exhausted. Our already complex work becomes harder, and the risk of burn out increases.

The good news is there are countless ways, as individuals and organizations, to create brain friendly cultures in which we can stay in our thinking brain, mitigate toxic stress, increase connection, improve equity and accountability, and reach the outcomes we are so hungry to achieve.

Regulate, Relate, Reason

Regulation is the basic strategy for calming our lower brain and staying in our thinking brain. Focused breathing, taking a short walk, listening to music, and using a standing desk are all ways to keep our mind clear and focused. There are dozens of regulation strategies to use in the work setting, both for large groups and individuals.

Dr. Bruce Perry’s sequence of engagement – regulate, relate, reason – is a simple practice for effective communication that starts with regulation.i The steps work in this order:

  1. Regulate: First, ensure we are calm and centered before we start talking. You and your colleagues can use regulations strategies that work for you.
  2. Relate: Next, connect human to human. Ask a colleague: What are you looking forward to? What are you worried about? What are you thinking about today?
  3. Reason: Finally, move to the content of the conversation: to-do lists, a pending project, or complex equity dynamics in a work relationship.

When we do this at every meeting, supervision session, and human interaction, especially the hard ones we avoid, we have greater success in our communications. We move closer to achieving the workforce outcomes we strive for – increased trust, stronger relationships, candid conversations, and more accountability.

Understand Executive Functioning

Our brains are exposed to about eleven million pieces of information at any given time and can only process about 0.00001% of that incoming data. This knowledge about the brain is critical to understanding equity, diversity, and inclusion concepts, such as implicit bias and power differentials.i It is also central to understanding executive functioning skills, which help our brains manage an overload of information to prioritize tasks, filter distractions, and control impulses. The Harvard Center on the Developing Childii notes that these skills are like an air traffic control system which ensures planes navigate safely in flight and at an airport. Learning these skills in childhood is critical to healthy brain development. As adults, we need environments that support optimal executive functioning so we can plan, meet goals, practice self-control, follow multiple-step directions even when interrupted, and stay focused despite distractions.

Ideas to Start Elevating Executive Functioning Skills at Work

Write Short, Succinct Emails

Long, unfocused emails are hard to understand, especially when we are under stress, in our lower brain, and our air traffic control is too busy. If staff are not reading emails, it could be because the messages are not brain friendly. Write short emails that are absent of unnecessary words and focused on the most important content and requests.

Discourage Multitasking

Our brains micro-switch, not multi-task. When we try to do more than one content-related task simultaneously, we fail. We cannot answer an email and hear the content of an online training at the same time. When we do one thing at a time, we are more effective, efficient, and productive. Modeling this concept at work and mitigating the workload our staff carry are key strategies for building a brain friendly environment.

Ready to take the next steps in creating a brain friendly work environment?

There is much more to learn about the brain and how it makes us think, feel, and behave. The first step, and possibly the hardest one, is understanding that brain friendly awareness is a critical cornerstone for working with adults and is at the core of building a healthy workforce. The concepts and strategies are teachable, applicable, and worth the investment of time and resources. When we embrace building brain friendly environments, we lay the foundation for workforce culture change that our staff needs to thrive and be well during these challenging times.

Social Current can help with that journey:

i O.C. Tanner Institute (2023). Global Culture Report.

ii Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey. (2021). What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing. Flatiron Books.

iii ibid.

iv Short Wave, NPR (2020). Understanding Unconscious Bias.

v Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University (n.d.). What is Executive Function? And How Does It Relate to Child Development?