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.

Social Current was pleased to be included at the in-person event to recognize the fifth anniversary of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), hosted by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, DC. To mark the occasion, on March 1, 2023, HHS and ACF leadership gathered stakeholders, delivered remarks, and brought together panels of legislators, national experts, and state and tribal leaders. The event featured videos from families with lived expertise in the child welfare system. The conversations reflected a rich understanding of why the legislation was created, what it has accomplished, its challenges, and where we go from here to better support families. The recording for this event is available here.

Five years ago, FFPSA was enacted to enhance upstream and supportive services for families to help children remain safely at home with their caregivers, reduce the unnecessary use of congregate care, and build the capacity of communities to support children and families. At the anniversary event, Social Current observed five takeaways that will help to shape future opportunities to support thriving families and communities.

Achieving these reforms will require a tremendous shift in resources, both at the federal funding level to redirect funding to more front-end resources, through policies that adapt to a more preventative approach, and in the way that place-based services are delivered by community-based organizations. Passage of FFPSA is a first step in that journey for child welfare. Too many of our social systems were structured to respond only after harm occurs – by realigning our nation’s social service delivery systems and reimagining the power and impact of the social sector, we can deliver on the promise of equitable access to health and well-being for all people.

By: Susana Mariscal and Bryan Victor

There is a shift taking place across the nation regarding child abuse and neglect fatalities. These heartbreaking tragedies make headlines across every community, with a focus on why systems failed our children and how these children fell through the cracks.

As the U.S. Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities notes, child welfare systems have historically been focused on addressing harm only after it has occurred. Fortunately, federal and state agencies along with local nonprofits and community leaders are beginning to work collaboratively and create a multi-system service continuum to provide the resources that families need beforehand, preventing abuse and neglect before it occurs. We can see evidence of that shift, with demonstration projects across the U.S., including Indiana, that are identifying risk factors (e.g., contributing factors) for child fatalities, moving resources upstream to support families, and building on protective factors with an emphasis on prevention.

The Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) is one of five sites nationwide participating in a Department of Justice demonstration initiative known as Child Safety Forward (CSF). With support from technical assistance providers and multidisciplinary child fatality review teams, IDOH has conducted research focusing on Clark, Delaware, Grant, and Madison counties that identified unsafe sleep-related deaths as the leading cause of death due to external causes (e.g., sleep-related, drowning) for children ages 0-18 years old, excluding medical reasons. The findings from IDOH – based on a 5-year retrospective review – highlighted that Black infants are at a heightened risk for sleep-related deaths (55.9%t; 19 of 34 deaths) and that sleep-related deaths have been underreported throughout the state due to inconsistent and incomplete documentation of Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths (SUIDs). High quality, accurate fatality data enables jurisdictions to better understand and address risk factors, improving the effectiveness and actionability of recommendations.

Based on these findings, IDOH took several steps to expand the state’s ability to prevent child fatalities. They developed Community Action Teams to implement prevention initiatives, and are working collaboratively with Prevent Child Abuse Indiana chapters and Family Resource Centers run by the Strengthening Indiana Families project to educate the public about safe sleep practices. Family Resource Centers are a one-stop-shop for families, providing tailored resources to address their needs and build on their strengths. IDOH has also developed videos providing safe sleep information and stories of parents who lost a child in unsafe sleep environments. (For more information on safe sleep, visit the IDOH website.)

Informed by findings from the CSF initiative, Indiana legislators passed House Enrolled Act 1169 — which went into effect on July 1, 2022 — establishing consistent standards for SUID investigations and data collection, aligning with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention best practices, including pathology and toxicology.


It is important to note that, in 2020, in 95 of 168 cases identified (56.5 percent), children were unknown to Child Protective Services before the fatality, indicating that government agencies like the Indiana Department of Child Services alone cannot prevent these deaths. The work of fatality prevention lies with all of us: neighbors, community members, and the full range of professionals that serve children and families. To increase our effectiveness at preventing these fatalities and reducing racial disparities, the multiple systems that serve families must collaborate and share information to provide coordinated, holistic services. Communities also need to increase their formal and informal supports for families, so that all parents in the community have equitable access to the resources they need to be connected and safe. Every parent needs help at some point and -as the Family Resource Centers’ motto says- “Kids don’t come with instructions. We’re here to help.” Let’s all join in the nationwide shift toward prevention by supporting families in our communities so that children can develop their full potential. Imagine what a difference we all can make in the lives of children in our community when we work together proactively to keep the most vulnerable among us safe.

A version of this article appeared previously in the Indianapolis Star on October 6, 2022.

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 and by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Administration for Children and Families, USDHHS, under grant 90CA1864. 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 and the Children’s Bureau.

By Amy Templeman, director of Within Our Reach at Social Current

There is a shift taking place across the nation regarding child abuse and neglect fatalities. These tragedies, long considered inevitable, make headlines across every community and jurisdiction, with a focus on why systems failed our children and how these children fell through the cracks.

One finding points to the fact that child welfare systems have historically been focused on addressing harm only after it has occurred. Now imagine a system that works collaboratively across multiple agencies to provide the resources and supports that families need to prevent abuse and neglect before it can occur. That is the shift taking place today, with demonstration projects taking place across the United States, including Indiana, that are identifying risk factors and moving resources upstream to address the stressors that families face and with an emphasis on prevention.

The Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) is one of five sites nationwide participating in a Department of Justice demonstration initiative known as Child Safety Forward. With support from a broad range of technical assistance providers, IDOH has conducted research that identifies unsafe sleep-related deaths as the leading cause of death due to external causes for children ages 0-18 years old, when excluding medically expected fatalities.

Their findings, which focused on Clark, Grant, Delaware, and Madison Counties, highlighted the fact that infants are at a heightened risk for sleep-related deaths and that those deaths were being underreported throughout the state based on inconsistent and incomplete child fatality reviews. Furthermore, they found that inconsistent and incomplete documentation of Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths (SUIDs) had the potential to limit knowledge of the true rates of SUIDs and the risk factors. High quality, accurate fatality data enables jurisdictions to better understand and address risk factors, promoting the effectiveness and actionability of recommendations.

It is important to note that, in 107 of 140 of the cases identified, children were unknown to Child Protective Services (CPS) before the fatality, pointing to the fact that CPS alone cannot address these deaths and supporting the need for a public health approach to child maltreatment-related fatalities.

Based on these findings, IDOH took several important steps. They developed Community Action Teams in each of the four counties to create avenues for distribution of safe sleep information and resources through pediatricians, vaccination sites, and other channels. They connected with Family Resource Centers and Prevent Child Abuse chapters to share information and identify resources for families.

They also shared their data with government leaders and policymakers, which helped lead to improved SUID policies in Governor Holcomb’s 2022 Next Level Agenda. On July 1, 2022, House Enrolled Act 1169 went into effect, establishing consistent standards for investigations into SUIDs, aligning with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention best practices. This alignment will ensure that coroner investigations into deaths among healthy children who die suddenly and unexpectedly are handled consistently across the state and include imaging, pathology, and toxicology.

Child abuse and neglect fatalities, including unsafe sleep deaths, are not inevitable. They are preventable, solvable and an issue that we all have a stake in addressing. For more information on safe sleep guidelines, visit the Indiana Department of Child Services website on Safe Sleep.

A version of this article previously appeared in the Indiana Herald Bulletin on September 15, 2022.

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.

If there is to be significant change, there needs to be significant research.

In 2020, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs, and the William T. Grant Foundation came together to address the gaps they saw in child welfare research. With their overarching goal to reduce inequality within the system, they identified research gaps that spanned community-based family supports, child protective services, out-of-home care, and post-permanency services. They partnered with 50 individuals representing an array of experts, stakeholders, and people with lived experience to identify these gaps. With information from those conversations, they outlined the most urgent needs in the report, Building a 21st-Century Research Agenda. This initiative continues to conduct research to address these identified gaps and answer key questions, as well as increase the use of this research in decision-making.

In partnership with these three leading organizations, Social Current is hosting a five-part webinar series that digs into the research agenda. These sessions highlight different areas of focus within the agenda.

Together, we can move toward a child welfare system that prioritizes equity and dignity and drives change with greater power and pace.

DOWNLOAD AGENDA

Read this recent blog by the William T. Grant Foundation to learn more about the initiative.

Hear more from initiative participants in this video.

By: Dr. Daniel P. Hall Riggins and Verleaner Lane

Children in the U.S. are healthier and safer than ever before, and medical advances in treating childhood diseases have made enormous strides over the last few decades. Despite this progress, national public health efforts to prevent Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) have hit a standstill, prompting the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to update its guidance on safe sleep practices.

When the Back to Sleep Campaign was first launched by AAP in the 1990s, our nation saw unprecedented decreases in infant death based on initial recommendations that babies are safer if placed on their backs to sleep. That progress stalled, however, by the early 2000s, with infant mortality rates remaining stagnant at around 85-100 deaths per 100,000 births each year. Part of this was because educational campaigns were not effective across all segments of the population. Today, dramatic racial disparities persist with American Indian/Alaska Native and Non-Hispanic Black infants suffering rates more than twice those of Non-Hispanic White infants. The reasons for these disparities, including the impact of structural racism and poverty, have largely been left out of the conversation.

Cook County SUID trends contrast from national ones in important ways. From 2015 to 2019, the county experienced great strides in reducing infant mortality, decreasing the overall yearly incidence from 291 to 203 deaths per 100,000 births. Despite those positive trends, the county’s rate is still twice the national rate. Although most of the improvement in Cook County is due to a reduction in SUID among black infants, the residual disparities remain starker than those seen nationally. In 2019, the Cook County incidence of SUID in Non-Hispanic Black people was over 10 times higher compared to Non-Hispanic White infants.

With a focus on reducing disparities, including those that are racially-based, the AAP updated its safe sleep guidance in a new policy statement released on June 21, 2022. It focuses on contextualizing safe sleep behavior within broader societal and cultural factors. In addition to reiterating the “ABCs” that babies should sleep Alone on their Back in a Crib, the AAP makes the following updates:

Pediatricians have long faced limitations when working with families to implement safe sleep practices. Placing the burden on parents without a larger understanding of the health care disparities and limitations in access to quality care also affects how families address safe sleep. That is why community-based collaborations are so important to conveying guidance within cultural contexts.

That is the goal of Cook County Health’s participation in the Child Safety Forward initiative, one of five sites that was selected for a Department of Justice-funded grant to reduce child abuse and neglect fatalities and injuries through a collaborative, community-based approach. As part of the initiative, Cook County Health has convened a multi-disciplinary group of stakeholders and has deployed an innovative simulation training at the Child Protection Training Academy of the University of Illinois Springfield to help identify risk factors for communities that can lead to unsafe sleep practices.

The collaboration of several organizations, including Project CHILD, Be Strong Families and EverThrive Illinois has led to the development of a comprehensive education curriculum that draws on these new recommendations from the AAP. The curriculum and online training, Safe Sleep, Safety 101, will be available to communities across Illinois in the Fall of 2022.

Using a public health approach based on the AAP’s guidelines, we are working with a collaborative body of stakeholders to build a body of knowledge and share timely information. Educating specifically through an equity and diversity lens will more effectively achieve our goal of helping all families implement safe sleep practices to reduce child fatalities.

Daniel P. Riggins, MD is a pediatrician with Cook County Health. Verleaner Lane is the project director for Project CHILD of Cook County Health, one of five Child Safety Forward sites.

A version of this piece appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times as a letter to the editor on August 22, 2022.

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.

Social Current was proud to sponsor a national press panel held by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on May 31. Ruby Goyal-Carkeek, senior vice president at Social Current joined a panel of parents from the Alliance National Parent Partnership Council (ANPPC) along with child welfare professionals, and medical experts including Robert Sege, MD, PhD. The focus of the panel was to help members of the press better frame future stories that touch on child welfare and child protection with a pro-family lens. There were approximately 70 participants including reporters from The Boston Globe and Washington Times in attendance.

During the panel, Ruby Goyal-Carkeek highlighted several key insights to improve child and family well-being including work that Social Current has undertaken:

  1. Despite research studies such as the one presented by Dr. Sege and research from Chapin Hall and others on the benefits of economic and concrete supports for families, prevention remains under-prioritized as a public policy. Only 15% of child welfare spending is to support parents and keep children safely in their homes, compared to 45% of spending on out-of-home placements (the other 40% is divided between CPS/investigations, adoption, and guardianship)
  2. Three federal programs are due for re-authorization by Congress this year and can help to make community-based prevention more of a priority. They are 1) the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), 2) Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, and 3) the Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program. A modest investment in families allows parents to care for their children the way they want to. Other critical supports to families are the expanded Child Tax Credit, paid family and medical leave, and quality childcare with improved access. Access to behavioral health services is another critical component to supporting families during difficult times, as multiple studies have shown an increased need during the pandemic.
  3. Solutions to improve child and family well-being must address equity and racial justice. Most families come to the attention of CPS for allegations of neglect, which are often related to economic insecurity. These families need economic and family support much more than child protection involvement. In fact, CPS often doesn’t have the resources to provide these types of economic and family support services and doesn’t do a good job of connecting families to resources. The policy solution is to disentangle economic hardship from neglect, showing how they are different, and offloading economic stressors experienced by families. We also need to better understand the results of mandatory reporting policies and look to reshape them as mandatory supporting policies. More than half of all Black children and more than ⅓ of all children in the U.S. are a subject of a child abuse or neglect investigation by the age of 18. This type of mandatory reporting structure does not encourage reporters to connect families with help from supportive programs before harm occurs and before families become involved with CPS, and it is a racial justice issue that requires immediate attention.
  4. Social Current is the national technical assistance provider to five demonstration sites for a federal demonstration initiative funded by the Department of Justice called Child Safety Forward. This national initiative is working to reduce child abuse and neglect fatalities and injuries through a collaborative, community-based approach. One of the five sites, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, is putting equitable solutions into practice as they expand Family Resource Centers across the state and improve safety planning to better address serious injuries and child fatalities from abuse and neglect. Through a collaborative approach to systems change, they are looking to respond differently to neglect allegations by focusing on protective factors and working to promote supportive services to families.
  5. As the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities stated in its 2016 report “Within Our Reach,” child welfare agencies cannot do this work alone. Media can help to improve outcomes for children and families by covering child welfare more thoroughly, beyond the tragedies that occur, and increase public attention to prevention programs that work. In a national survey of parents with young children, even before the pandemic, 48% of parents report not receiving the help or support they need. Together, we can illustrate that a community-wide, public health approach to child and family well-being is required so that all parents are supported, and all families can thrive.

Panel handouts from the event:

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.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. In recognition, new 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 new 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.