Policy and Practice | August 2022

promoting child fatality reviews. 21 The expertise of early childhood leaders can help make these plans more effective. n Educate mandated reporters, including early care and educa tion providers, on how to identify maltreatment when appro priate—and to avoid reporting when child welfare intervention is not appropriate. State policies vary in their specifications of mandated reporters 22 (i.e., which groups of individuals are required to report suspected child abuse or neglect). Child care providers are mandated reporters in 49 out of 52 states (including Puerto Rico and Washington, DC). However, at least 30 states do not require training for them. States’ definitions of abuse and neglect 23 can be complicated, 24 so training early childhood providers to understand reporting requirements may not only identify when child welfare intervention is appropriate, but also prevent unnecessary inves tigations. Organizations like Evident Change have been supporting states in updating and revising mandated reporting policies and trainings. 25 n Include members of both systems in race equity efforts. To increase equity for families of color, both the child welfare and early child hood systems must come to terms with their respective histories and deconstruct systemic racism. A joint equity agenda—such as the one laid out in the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s “Supporting the First 1,000 Days of A Child’s Life: An Anti-Racist Blueprint for Early Childhood Well-Being and Child Welfare Prevention” 26 —could be one strategy to advance this work. The blueprint includes both guiding principles and questions to help leaders find common ground and a unified path forward. n Authentically engage parents working to reunify, relatives caring for children, young parents who were in foster care, foster parents, and kinship caregivers in early childhood equity efforts. These stakeholders can help shape policies that truly address families’

needs, because they understand the challenges created by system involvement for themselves, their children, and the children for whom they care. Engagement should be meaningful and in a safe and acces sible format, and participants should be compensated for their time. Early childhood stakeholder groups may be able to coordinate with existing groups of parents and caregivers, such as the Illinois Statewide Foster Care Advisory Council. 27 n Invest in data that allow states to set goals toward more equitable access to services and a more equitable child welfare system, and use the data to regularly monitor progress and adjust course when needed. Connecting data between systems is useful for understanding how children are faring, and for learning which efforts are working for children and families. However, many states struggle with data integration. 28 Exploring how data can inform a key policy question, such as whether children in foster care are accessing high-quality child care, can be a helpful first step. Federal projects such as the Child and Caregiver Outcomes Using Linked Data Project 29 and state efforts, such as Rhode Island’s, 30 work to understand child care access issues for young children who have expe rienced maltreatment, show how connecting these data can help leaders better understand and meet the needs of families. alignment-between-early-childhood-and child-welfare-systems-benefits-children and-families 2. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/ files/documents/cb/afcarsreport28.pdf 3. https://www.nctsn.org/what is-child-trauma/trauma-types/ early-childhood-trauma 4. https://www.nctsn.org/what is-child-trauma/trauma-types/ early-childhood-trauma/effects 5. https://www.nctsn.org/resources/ resilience-and-child-traumatic-stress 6. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ media/press/2020/ Reference Notes 1. https://www.childtrends.org/publications/

first-its-kind-national-partnership-aims redesign-child-welfare-child-and-family 7. https://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/ uploads/2021/01/Title_IVB_SFY2018.pdf 8. https://www.childtrends.org/ wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ Other-federal_SFY2018.pdf 9. https://cssp.org/our-work/project/dulce 10. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/ factsheets/about 11. http://www.nccp.org/wp-content/ uploads/2017/03/text_1164.pdf 12. https://www.nccp.org/dyadic-treatment 13. https://www.nccp.org/prism-project 14. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/ systemwide/laws-policies/federal/ family-first 15. https://www.childtrends.org/publications/ applying-the-research-and-evaluation provisions-of-the-family-first-prevention services-act 16. https://preventionservices.acf.hhs.gov 17. https://humanservices.hawaii.gov/ wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Family First-Hawaii_FFPSA-Plan_Final-May21_ PDF-2.pdf 18. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/ files/documents/cb/cm2020.pdf 19. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-11-599 20. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/ within-our-reach-national-strategy eliminate-child-abuse-and-neglect fatalities 21. https://www.ncsl.org/research/human services/child-fatality-legislation.aspx 22. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/ manda.pdf 23. https://www.scanpoliciesdatabase.com 24. https://www.childtrends.org/ wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ ChildWelfareDataCompanionGuide_ ChildTrends_March2022.pdf 25. https://www.evidentchange.org/ blog/keeping-children-safe-everyones mandate#:~:text=Evident%20 26. https://cssp.org/wp-content/ uploads/2021/02/Supporting-the-First 1000-Days-of-a-Childs-Life.pdf 27. https://www2.illinois.gov/dcfs/ lovinghomes/fostercare/Pages/ com_ communications_statefpadv.aspx 28. https://www.childtrends.org/ publications/2018-state-of-early childhood-data-systems-interactive-map 29. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ documents/d8f17022f085efd79013d33d81 994e91/ccould-project-brief.pdf 30. https://www.rikidscount.org/Portals/0/ Change%20has%20developed%20 reporting,suspected%20child%20 abuse%20or%20neglect

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August 2022 Policy&Practice