Dr. Cristina Mogro-Wilson

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Social Current, formerly the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and the Council on Accreditation, today announced the selection of Dr. Cristina Mogro-Wilson to serve as editor-in-chief of the Families in Society journal, which was previously led by Dr. Sondra Fogel, who served as editor-in-chief for the past seven years.

Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services has been a core journal in social work research for over 100 years. Launched in 1920 by Mary E. Richmond, a pioneer in the field and the founder of social casework, the journal built a knowledge base for the first systematized approaches to the practice of social work and has been stewarded over the years by the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. Families in Society is published in partnership with SAGE Publishing.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Mogro-Wilson, whose work as a recognized Latina scholar and expert in health disparities and culturally-responsive practice and education in racial minority populations will greatly inform the future direction of Families in Society,” noted Dr. Jody Levison-Johnson, president and CEO of Social Current. “Addressing the challenges that families face today, including socio-economic disparities, racism, substance misuse and behavioral health disorders, requires an evidence-informed approach that is grounded in social change through the lens of advancing equity. Dr. Mogro-Wilson’s body of work is uniquely attuned to addressing these vital issues and aligns closely with Social Current’s commitment to advancing equitable solutions to society’s toughest challenges through collaboration, innovation, policy and practice excellence.”

“As a Latina social worker, I value social justice and am committed to advancing equity,” noted Dr. Mogro-Wilson. “I look forward to working with the Families in Society team of scholars to increase the vitality and relevance of FIS though diverse representation in advisory board members, peer reviewers, manuscript authors, and – importantly – the readership. The art, science, and practice of social work are such important elements of the discipline because they can strengthen families and communities and help all people achieve their full potential. That’s why inclusiveness, transparency, and authenticity in Families in Society scholarship will help advance transformational research and practice, which in turn supports efforts to ensure everyone experiences well-being and opportunity.”

Dr. Mogro-Wilson received her master’s in social work from the University of Michigan, with a focus on practice with children, youth, and families in 2003, followed by her doctorate from the University at Albany, School of Social Welfare in 2007. Most recently, she has served as assistant professor in residence at the UCONN Health Center in the School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics from 2007-2009, transitioning to the School of Social Work (SSW) tenure-related tracks, achieving tenure in 2015 as an Associate Professor in SSW. As of August 2022, Dr. Mogro-Wilson will be a full professor at SSW.

She served as the director for the Puerto Rican and Latin@ Studies Project (PRLSP) from 2015-2017, leading them to sustainable achievements in the acquisition of research grants and the development of a bilingual/bicultural master’s in social work program. The PRLSP has been referenced and used as a model in various arenas such as the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and different social work programs throughout the nation.

From 2019-2022, she served as research director for the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) with a focus on supporting design and implementation of applied qualitative and quantitative research projects; the development of research proposals to secure private, state, and federal funding to sustain and grow the UCEDD’s research and evaluation agenda; and the development of policy analysis related to programs demonstrating the full inclusion of people with disabilities in education, work, and community life.

Dr. Mogro-Wilson’s publishing experience includes serving as an editorial advisory board member and more recently as an associate editor for Families and Society and Journal of Social Work Education (JSWE), which is the flagship journal for CSWE. She co-edited a special issue of JSWE on Teaching, Field Instruction and Administration in the Time of Pandemic or Natural Disaster, with Danielle Parrish and Nalini Negi during the COVID-19 pandemic, co-authoring an editorial on the hidden cost of caregiving during the pandemic. As a graduate faulty representative and member of the National Nominating Committee and Council on Publications for CSWE from 2018-2021, she also worked to ensure anti-racist and diverse representative content in CSWE publications.

“We are confident that Dr. Mogro-Wilson will build on the legacy launched by Families in Society founder Mary E. Richmond and the many who have helmed the journal since,” added Dr. Levison-Johnson. “A special thank you goes out to Dr. Sondra Fogel who has stewarded FIS for the past seven years, mentoring Dr. Mogro-Wilson and other scholars in the pursuit of academic excellence in the field of social work practice, policy, and research.”

For more information on a subscription to Families in Society, please contact Kirstin Anderson.

Social Current has released its first-ever federal public policy agenda. This agenda will power our policy and advocacy efforts for 2022-2024, as we work to build an equitable society where all people thrive.

“We are thrilled to reach this milestone for Social Current. We realize this is just the beginning of our work and opportunity to realize our network’s collective power and influence,” said Social Current President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson. “We know we must work together to move the needle on key public policies to create an equitable society. Social Current looks forward to engaging our network of organizations, their communities, and all of our partners to advocate for these critical priorities.”

The 2022-2024 federal policy agenda is the result of months of input from the Social Current network through focus groups, surveys, and individual conversations. It represents the breadth and diversity of our network organizations, the challenges they face, and the future they envision.

Watch this webinar recording to learn more about the specific policies Social Current will champion. Jody Levison-Johnson and Derry Kiernan, field mobilization and policy manager, shared how you can join in supporting in our collective advocacy work.

Within our policy agenda, you’ll find our policy principles—our commitments that serve as the foundation of our policy agenda:

  • Center equity
  • Engage voices with lived experience
  • Promote prevention
  • Advance whole-person approaches
  • Create access and opportunity
  • Ensure the health and resilience of the social sector

Following our foundational principles, the agenda details the policies Social Current and our collective network seek to accelerate through leadership and policies we seek to accelerate through partnership with our coalition partners and other experts. These policies are in four key areas:

  • Advancing Equity. As the cornerstone of our agenda, we seek to advance equity by empowering community voices, utilizing data for equity, and ensuring equitable access and resources
  • Improving Health and Well-Being. We seek to advance healing-centered and trauma-informed policy, respond to behavioral health needs, and integrate cross-systems approaches that support health equity
  • Increasing Economic Opportunity and Mobility. We seek to expand economic supports so that all people can achieve upward mobility and financial security
  • Achieving Social Sector Health and Excellence. Our commitment to the health and excellence of the sector is absolute; we seek to ensure our sector’s financial viability and ability to attract and retain a strong workforce

Download Agenda
Watch Webinar Recording

A series of three evaluation briefs recently released by Child Safety Forward, a national initiative to reduce child abuse and neglect fatalities and injuries through a collaborative, community-based approach. This demonstration initiative, for which Social Current is the technical assistance provider, works to develop and test multidisciplinary strategies in five different demonstration sites over three years. These briefs were created as part of the initiative’s developmental evaluation approach.

“The developmental evaluation approach is critical to the success of the initiative and demonstration sites because it allows us to work collaboratively to uncover insight and use what we’re learning to adjust our efforts accordingly,” says Laura Pinsoneault, founder and CEO of Evaluation Plus, evaluator for Child Safety Forward.

During year one, the planning year, those participating in the initiative built a theory of change and implementation plans that would lead to a strengthened child and family well-being system. This approach elevated learning from across the sites and the technical assistance team as well as through the demonstration sites’ local data collection process.

In year two, while focused on implementation, the initiative refined the theory of change to include greater intentionality around three core conditions they believe are necessary to having this impact:

Each brief in this series takes a deeper look at one of these conditions. They highlight how Child Safety Forward is defining the condition, the strategies and approaches it believes will advance this condition, and the intermediate outcomes from those strategies. In addition, based on early learning during the first year of Child Safety Forward, it outlines a roadmap for this strategy. These roadmaps will be further refined through the implementation study conducted at the end of the second year of implementation and will contribute to each’s sites plans for sustainability.

Download the briefs online.

To mark the beginning of National Mental Health Awareness Month this May, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra reinforced the Biden administration’s commitment to expanding access to mental and behavioral health care. To spotlight the issue in recent months, Secretary Becerra announced the allocation of $35 million for community mental health services for children and young adults and $105 million for the 988 crisis care infrastructure, both funded through the American Rescue Plan.

In the State of the Union Address earlier this year, President Biden outlined his plan to address the national mental health crisis. This plan includes increasing the number of behavioral health professionals, incorporating mental health and substance use treatment into primary care, proliferating virtual care, and protecting the mental health of children. In a promising step forward last week, Sens. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, introduced the Mental Health Reform Reauthorization Act of 2022, which would provide funds to states to enforce existing mental health parity laws, expand SAMHSA’s Minority Fellowship Program, and increase funds for the Mental Health Services Block Grant, among other things. Though still far from passage, this bipartisan bill would make major headway toward addressing the national mental health crisis. 

In other news, almost 200 organizations, including many in the Social Current Network, joined a sign-on letter to send a strong message to the Hill in support of $468 million for the Full-Service Community Schools program for FY 2023! Please keep an eye out for more advocacy opportunities for FY 2023 in the coming weeks as Congress advances its appropriations discussions.

SNAP Recipients Now Automatically Eligible for Head Start

Dr. Bernadine Futrell, director of the Office of Head Start, announced that families participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will now be automatically eligible for Head Start. Before, many families that were eligible for SNAP were also eligible for Head Start; however, they had to provide proof of income to both programs, which was a burden on families and program administrators. Now, families will only have to prove eligibility for SNAP in order to enroll in Head Start. Futrell stated that this change reflects the aims of President Biden’s Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government from December 2021. The Office of Head Start has provided resources to help families and Head Start operators understand the recent policy change.

Rural Partners Network Takes Shape

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice announced the creation of the Rural Partners Network (RPN), a whole-of-government initiative with the goal of providing economic and infrastructure support to rural areas. The announcement was part of President Biden’s Building a Better America Rural Infrastructure Tour, which has featured dozens of presidential trips to rural communities. The RPN will launch in Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Arizona, and will hear and learn from rural communities about their policy needs. A Rural Prosperity Interagency Council, made up of 16 federal agencies and regional commissions, will incorporate rural voices into the policymaking process. The administration plans to expand the program into additional states later this year, including Nevada, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Alaska.

New SNAP Guidance for Childless Adults

The Federal Nutrition Service released guidance on how to determine whether an individual can receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits if they voluntarily quit a job over insufficient COVID-19 safety measures. In general, individuals ages 16-59 must fulfill certain work requirements to receive SNAP benefits; however, they can quit voluntarily or reduce their work hours and continue to participate in SNAP, if they have good cause. The newly released guidance provides state agencies with resources on how to determine if working conditions meet certain requirements for COVID-19 safety. Individuals can also cite these resources to SNAP administrators if they wish to continue receiving benefits after leaving a job due to insufficient COVID-19 safety measures.

While there are many ways to build your organization’s capacity for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), they all require an overarching commitment and investment. With limited resources and many priorities, some may wonder if there is really a tangible ROI to EDI efforts.

Well, just look at the data.

Research compiled by the Performance Excellence Network shows that investing your organization’s time and resources in EDI strategies can support your business, in addition to your mission. Highlights from that research include:

So now what?

To ensure that your investment leads to real change at your organization, make sure you receive the right level of support you need. One unique opportunity that can help you build and sustain momentum toward your goals is our upcoming EDI Learning Collaborative. Participants will collaborate with peers at other organizations in a supportive environment and receive guidance from EDI experts in developing, implementing, and advancing their equity work. This collaborative offers continual support over a 15-month period.

Apply by submitting the online application by June 30.

Our three-part virtual workshop offers learning and support to participants over the course of a month. It combines valuable information, facilitated discussions, reflection opportunities, and focused work time to begin developing an EDI action plan. We recommend sending multiple staff who serve on your EDI committee or advance EDI in other ways. This workshop will provide the tools, guidance, and dedicated time they need to be successful. 

Register now for our upcoming June session (June 9, 16, and 23). Additional sessions are being offered in September/October and November.

Last week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to talk about a tax increase and deficit reduction bill. Manchin argued that deficit reduction could help mitigate rising inflation. He pushed for the corporate tax rate to increase from 21% to 25% and for certain loopholes to be eliminated. He also is open to allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, which would also help reduce the deficit.

Though he had shown openness to including child care provisions in previous proposals, Manchin said he no longer supports any social spending moving forward. In theory, the bill would be able to pass with only 50 votes, as opposed to the usual 60, through the budget reconciliation process, which is reserved purely for tax and spending bills. However, it is unclear whether the critical 50th vote, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), will sign on, as she has publicly opposed corporate tax increases in the past. Though Social Current is disappointed in recent congressional deadlock, we will continue to advocate for the nonprofit sector and the families and communities we serve.

Centrist Democrats Introduce Slew of Health Care Bills

A sleight of centrist House Democrats, called the New Democrat Coalition, have endorsed 22 health care bills, urging leadership to put them up for a vote. The bills cover numerous topics, including mental health for children in schools and opioid addiction prevention and recovery. Each bill has at least one Republican cosponsor and 13 have companion bills in the Senate. The New Democrat Coalition is proposing to pass as many of these bills in a bipartisan manner as possible before the midterm elections in November. Lawmakers are discussing whether to pass each bill separately, or as a combined package. Furthermore, it is unclear which of these bills can pass in the Senate, which requires 60 votes for a measure to pass. Leaders of the New Democrats hope to have the bills marked up in May and introduced onto the floor of the House during the summer. Here is a list of the endorsed bills:

Administration Releases Resources for Mental Health Parity Compliance

The Biden administration has released three resources that will help certify that insurers comply with existing mental health parity requirements. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 requires that insurers do not apply more restrictive financial requirements and treatment limits to mental health or substance abuse disorder benefits than to medical or surgical benefits. The Biden administrations says insurers and health plans aren’t complying with the law. The White House has pushed Congress to update the law, but, in the meantime, it has released three tools to improve enforcement:

With these resources, families will learn their consumer rights and lawmakers will be able to advocate more effectively for the health and well-being of their constituents.

Nonprofit Sector Strength and Partnership Act Introduced

On April 26, Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Fred Upton (D-Mich.) introduced the bipartisan Nonprofit Sector Strength and Partnership Act of 2022, which will improve collaboration between the social sector and the federal government. The bill would create a White House Office on Nonprofit Sector Partnership, housed in the Executive Office of the President. A nonprofit advisor, serving as an assistant to the president, would influence policy relating to the nonprofit sector. That position would establish an online portal that would allow charities to register for fundraising opportunities across multiple states simultaneously. The bill would also create two entities that would weigh in with recommendations on how to strengthen the nonprofit sector:

Finally, the bill would also require the Bureau of Labor Statistics to compile and release quarterly economic data about nonprofit organizations, allowing regular updates on the health of the nonprofit sector, the third largest sector in the economy.

The important work in our communities cannot be achieved without the support of diverse community-based partnerships. Global Service Month provides a great opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate partners that donate time, resources, and expertise to make a difference in our communities.

Social Current is grateful for three of its corporate partnerships, helping our network drive impact through the engagement of corporate volunteers and generous donations of resources.

Aramark

Rooted in service and united by purpose, Aramark strives to do great things for its employees, partners, communities, and planet. Their global volunteer program, Aramark Building Community, launched in 2008 and engages the talents and passions of employees to develop solutions that address challenges caused by lack of access to healthy food and proper nutrition, financial insecurity, and inequitable environments. The program drives stronger communities, creates employee volunteer opportunities, and encourages employees to give back to their local communities.

Throughout the year, and during the annual Aramark Building Community Day, thousands of Aramark employee volunteers work to build vibrant, sustainable communities for all. They also offer complimentary resources to nonprofit organizations that equip families and individuals with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to discover, choose, and prepare healthy food. This is often in conjunction with volunteer activities like food drives, cooking demos, and meal prep workshops. Last year alone, nearly 200 community-based organizations were provided regrants by Social Current, while dozens more strengthened community health and well-being through Healthy for Life® resources, thanks to Aramark’s tremendous support.

Aramark Partner Spotlight: The Aramark Chicago Star Team, lead by Angila Faison, works in partnership with Social Current client UCAN. UCAN Director of Corporate and Foundation Grants Lauren Birchlove shared, “Many of our program participants have young children for whom they struggle to provide healthy food, school supplies, and holiday gifts. Our participants were grateful to receive funds through the Aramark Building Community holiday grant program, in partnership with Angila, to purchase healthy food, gift cards, and toys, creating a special holiday for their children.” Lauren went on to praise, “Aramark volunteers are top notch. They are serious about completing projects, which means that they do high quality and efficient work. We can’t wait to welcome Aramark volunteers back in-person soon.”

CSC ServiceWorks

CSC ServiceWorks is the leading provider of laundry solutions and air vending services throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Through their CSC CommunityWorks Signature Services initiative, they are helping to enhance lives by working with community centers to provide reliable access to clean laundry and basic supports. They believe access to clean laundry is essential to helping people be successful in school and work and maintain healthy lifestyles. CSC teams support work within the communities they operate by lending their expertise, providing washer/dryer and air/vacuum equipment to community organizations, ongoing service for these machines, as well as volunteer support. Through their donations of washers, dryers, and ongoing equipment maintenance, CSC helps strengthen the capacity of our partners who are providing these essential services. In 2021, CSC ServiceWorks donated hundreds of washers and dryers, at a value of approximately $125,000, as well as ongoing maintenance services to provide reliable laundering operations for nearly 30 Social Current network partners.

CSC ServiceWorks Partner Spotlight: Michigan-based CSC ServiceWorks employee Paul Martin worked with Social Current client Ruth Ellis Center to install a donated washer and dryer to support their Kofi House program serving low-income LBGTQ youth. Program Director Kathie Griffin-Futch shared “Clients are able to wash up to two loads of laundry every week. Because of this donation, clients don’t have to decide between clean clothes or food on the table. All CSC employees were very caring and professional. This was the most amazing experience and a beautiful gift to the community.”

Bank of America

Bank of America offers Better Money Habits, a free financial education platform, that builds know-how around topics like budgeting, saving, credit, homeownership, retirement, and more. Community-based organizations can leverage these resources in a variety of current programs by engaging staff in train-the-trainer or direct-to-community-member Better Money Habits sessions.

Bank of America Partner Spotlight: Social Current client Northwestern University Settlement House in Chicago worked with Mary Bovalis, Better Money Habits Champions Lead and Treasury Product Manager with Bank of America, to train its staff on these financial literacy education tools. “The Better Money Habits website and tools were really easy to access and use,” said Katie Taylor, director of development at Northwestern University Settlement. “Our program staff are able to easily pull what’s needed for our different populations and specific needs.”

Additionally, in honor of National Financial Capability Month, Bovalis hosted a 30-minute demonstration of the Better Money Habit’s platform for all Social Current community-based organization partners.

Social Current celebrates and thanks all of its corporate volunteers, working in partnership with our network of organizations and helping us implement equitable solutions to society’s toughest challenges. For questions about Social Current’s corporate partnerships, please contact Emily Merritt, network and corporate engagement manager.

On April 7, the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, paving her way to become the first Black woman on the highest court in the nation, once Justice Stephen Breyer steps down at the end of the current term. In her speech from the South Lawn of the White House the next day, she proclaimed: “It has taken 132 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. But, we’ve made it. We’ve made it, all of us.” All 50 Democrats and three Republican senators supported Jackson’s historic confirmation.

In other news, on Thursday the Biden administration released the results mandated in his executive order from last year, which called for the elucidation of a whole of government approach to addressing equity and racial justice. More than 90 federal agencies released Equity Action Plans, which detail over 300 steps these agencies will take to overcome systemic barriers in federal policies and programs. For instance, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has committed to eliminating the racial gap in homeownership, and the Department of Health and Human Services will increase engagement with communities of color to facilitate enrollment in free and low-cost health care. Within the federal government, data collection efforts will be improved to include key demographic data and encourage cross-agency information sharing. The administration says that this project is a major step forward in “a generational commitment” to advancing equity and achieving justice for underserved communities.

House Education and Labor Committee Introduces Workforce Development Bill

Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Higher Education Workforce Investment Subcommittee Chairwoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) introduced legislation that would reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. This important training and career services program, which expired in 2020, supports state workforce development systems. The proposed legislation would pump $78 billion into the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) over six years, thereby training one million workers per year by 2028. It would also create a permanent program at the Department of Labor committed to assisting formerly incarcerated individuals find gainful employment and career pathways. Expanded summer and year-round jobs programs for youth and increased support for partnerships between employers and community colleges are also included in the reauthorization package. According to the committee’s press release, federal workforce development funding has decreased 45% since 2002, adjusting for inflation.

Extension of Child Nutrition Waivers in the Works

Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the Support Kids Not Red Tape Act, which would extend school meal flexibilities from June 30, 2022, to September 30, 2023. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Department of Agriculture began issuing child nutrition waivers that allowed schools to serve meals during closures and gave them flexibility to respond to operational and personnel challenges. The proposed bill would provide schools with space and time to return to normal operations while keeping children well-fed and healthy. Without the extension, schools will not have flexibility given the constraints from COVID-19 and supply chain issues, putting countless meals in jeopardy. 50 colleagues joined Sens. Stabenow and Murkowski in introducing the bill.

New Bipartisan Bill Embraces Two-Generation Approach

Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced the Two-Generation Economic Empowerment Act, which would address the health and well-being of parents and children by encouraging a holistic framework that links existing funding streams and systems. The bill would codify the Council on Economic Mobility at the Department of Health and Human Services, which would tackle multigenerational poverty by coordinating efforts across a wide array of federal agencies and departments. The bill would also foster innovative two-generation programs by granting transfer and waiver authority to participating agencies, which would break down silos and facilitate blending and braiding of federal programs. Finally, a pilot program would be established, allowing state, local and tribal governments to stand up their own two-generation programs.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. In recognition, resources to support organizations in communicating about childhood adversity are now available at: BuildingBetterChildhoods.org.

These easy-to-use tools were developed through a partnership between Social Current and Prevent Child Abuse America and grounded in recent research from the FrameWorks Institute.

They are intended to support practitioners and professionals at human services organizations in describing how childhood adversity is a public, preventable, and solvable issue. The Building Better Childhoods website provides important guidance on how to talk about child abuse prevention in a way that resonates with a broad range of audiences. The tools can be used when communicating with media, funders, policymakers, and the general public.

The toolkit includes:

This Child Abuse Prevention Month and beyond—we hope you will join us in this movement to effectively frame childhood adversity and communicate about the benefits of prevention and upstream resources.

Visit BuildingBetterChildhoods.org to download the toolkit.

About the Reframing Research

Building Better Childhoods is based on recent research from the FrameWorks Institute, which was shared in the 2021 framing brief Reframing Childhood Adversity: Promoting Upstream Approaches.

The communications guidance is designed to be highly accessible and actionable. In addition, it takes recent science and current communications contexts into account, speaks to racial and social justice, and aligns with efforts to reimagine child welfare systems into child well-being systems.

Download the reframing brief online and view our on-demand webinar for a guided tour of the recommendations.

By Verleaner Lane and Daniel P. Riggins of Cook County Health

The nation’s child welfare systems have long been structured in a way that responds to incidents of child abuse and neglect after harm has occurred. There is a new movement in child welfare to change this and devote more resources to using data to identify those children most at risk. Based on what the data shows, front end resources and services can then be brought to bear in support of families before abuse or neglect occurs.

A good example of this can be found in the Child Safety Forward initiative. Funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Child Safety Forward is a demonstration initiative to develop multidisciplinary strategies and a public health response to address fatalities or near-death injuries as a result of child abuse, neglect, or unsafe practices. The initiative takes place across five sites, including Cook County Health in Illinois.

Cook County Health established Project CHILD in 2019 to better understand and address infant-specific deaths due to maltreatment.

Our strategy includes bringing together a diverse group of community stakeholders that work with most affected families in a variety of different settings, including healthcare and mental health providers, community health workers, maternal infant health providers, faith leaders, educators and social service providers. Our work has been focused in three Illinois counties: Cook, Peoria, and Vermilion, with a goal of identifying the highest-risk geographic areas and targeting resources at 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 findings, we are now able to appropriately target resources and educational interventions to protect families from these catastrophic events. We are currently working with pediatricians and community organizations to develop safe sleep messaging and interventions targeted to these high-risk neighborhoods.

Child Safety Forward is an example of what can be accomplished through a data-informed, place-based approach that facilitates community engagement and targets interventions to families that need them the most. It reflects a growing trend in child welfare to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach and to highlight the importance of data sharing and collaboration when addressing complex problems like child safety.

By working across agencies and directing resources upstream, we can continue to support a shift from child welfare systems to child wellbeing systems that better serve all families.

_________________

A version of this oped was previously published in The Daily Herald on March 31, 2022.

Verleaner Lane is the project director for Project CHILD of Cook County Health. Daniel P. Riggins, MD is with Cook County Health. This commentary is provided in memoriam of Dr. Majorie Fujara, former pediatrician at Cook County Health, who served as the principal investigator for Project CHILD and a tireless advocate for the welfare of children.

Disclaimer: This product 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 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.