Community Systems

Build an Infrastructure to Advance and Sustain the Work

Promoting a Community Approach to Strengthening Families

According to the Center for the Study of Social Policy, “collaboration across multiple systems is central to the Strengthening Families approach.” Because this is an approach rather than a model or specific curriculum, Strengthening Families™ can be applied by practitioners in a wide variety of systems that serve families. In Pennsylvania, members of the Strengthening Families Leadership Team represent a variety of types of programs including early childhood education, family centers, home visiting programs, parent education, the K-12 system, public health departments, local nonprofit groups, child welfare and more.

The Strengthening Families™ approach can provide a shared language for how we support families in a strengths-based way and create environments where they can build protective factors. For example, how each program or agency connects families with concrete supports in times of need may vary, but all can agree to do so in a way that maintains family dignity, reduces stigma and honors both their strengths and opportunities for growth.

Explore the links below to learn how the Strengthening Families™ approach might look in communities.

National Organizations that Incorporate the Strengthening Families Approach

The Center for the Study of Social Policy’s (CSSP) website section Strengthening Families Collaboration contains resources about messaging and community-level work. The Strengthening Families Systems section explores how this approach can guide the systems that impact families and children. CSSP also provides a scripted curriculum, which contains the module Taking a Community Approach to Strengthening Families.

The Building Healthy Communities section of the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance website provides tips, resources and examples of how communities around the United States have utilized the protective factors and a strengths-based approach to work with families to improve community well-being and prevent child maltreatment.

Child Welfare Information Gateway provides a variety of resources that explore community approaches to building protective factors. Each year they publish a Prevention Resource Guide with articles, tips and resources for community members, families and practitioners. Protective Factors Approaches in Child Welfare examines how several types of protective factors frameworks (including Strengthening Families) are incorporated into child welfare systems around the United States.

Other Resources that Support a Community Effort to Support Families and Prevent Child Maltreatment

Center for Schools and Communities (CSC) produced a Community Asset Mapping Webinar Series which covers how this community development tool can identify existing resources in the community by involving its members. The Family Support Team at CSC also hosted the Community Assets and Connections webinar.

The Centers for Disease Control has a resource called Making the Case: Engaging Businesses, which explores how programs that support families and promote public health can partner with businesses to prevent child maltreatment and promote family well-being.

The Community Tool Box website includes a plethora of free resources from the Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas that support community development and social change efforts.

Build Parent Partnerships: Engaging Family Members as Partners

Parents and caregivers are crucial partners in the work to support children. The Strengthening Families™ approach advocates for a shared partnership with families that values the knowledge, skills and insight that parents bring to the table. As we walk alongside caregivers to support their children, we honor their self-determination and role as leaders in their families and the community. Efforts to build effective systems and advocate for policies that support families should be planned, implemented and evaluated not only with family member input but also with caregivers in leadership roles. Explore the resources below to learn how family members are engaged as leaders in this work.

From National Strengthening Families Partners

The Children’s Trust Fund Alliance’s Partnering with Parents webpage provides many resources related to family engagement and leadership, including the Building and Sustaining Effective Parent Partnerships document and information about their various parent groups. Their Parent Voice webpage includes parent-developed resources that will help community members engage in meaningful conversations about supporting families.

Find resources to guide collaboration with family members on the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s (CSSP) Building Parent Partnerships webpage. CSSP’s initiative Early Childhood Learning and Innovation Network for Communities (EC-LINC) produced the Parent Engagement and Leadership Assessment Guide and Toolkit. The EC-LINC also hosts the Parent Leader Network.

The FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention’s Parent Leadership webpage has resources to strengthen family member involvement in all aspects of programming.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway’s Parents and Caregivers webpage features resources to support partnering with families in meaningful ways in child welfare work.

Pennsylvania Resources

The Pennsylvania Department of Education, Office of Child Development and Early Learning, and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education created a Family Engagement Coalition that developed the Birth through College, Career and Community Ready Family Engagement Framework to guide the effective partnerships with family members in the Commonwealth.

The Pennsylvania PTA is a volunteer organization comprised of parents, family members and educators committed to providing support and programming to children and youth in Pennsylvania, as well as advocating on their behalf.

Shift Practice, Policies and Systems toward a Protective Factors Approach in Communities

Policies that Support Family Well-being

An important aspect of community work to strengthen families is the development and adoption of policies at multiple levels that are meant to support families and promote the healthy development of children. Family-friendly workplaces, paid family leave, promoting the voices of fathers, family preservation in child welfare and ensuring access to needed services are all examples of ideas that could have associated policies. At the national level, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance advocate for policies across family-serving systems that support families to build protective factors.

In Pennsylvania, the Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) co-chairs the Strengthening Families™ Leadership Team. The Pennsylvania Children’s Trust Fund, which is administered through OCDEL, provides funding for Strengthening Families™ work and has incorporated the Strengthening Families™ Protective Factors Framework (SFPF) into its grant-making. OCDEL also incorporates the SFPF into its Family Support programs including home visiting, family centers and parent education. The Strengthening Families™ approach has also been incorporated into the Pennsylvania Early Learning Standards and the quality rating and improvements system, Keystone STARS.

Resources for Policy Advocacy

Thriving PA is a campaign focused on ensuring that Pennsylvania families have access to quality perinatal and child health services.

Childhood Begins at Home is an initiative of Early Learning PA that focuses on increasing access to evidence-based home visiting.