Policymakers in Minnesota have increasingly been focusing on policies that positively impact young children and promote overall child well-being. Not only did the House of Representatives create a committee devoted to early childhood and youth development policy in 2013, but both the education and health and human services omnibus bills included several large provisions that seek to enhance child well-being; these provisions include:
- full funding for voluntary all-day kindergarten in Minnesota’s school districts,
- funding for early learning scholarships for preschool-age kids,
- reinstatement of the 25 absent day per year limit for recipients of the child care assistnace program (CCAP),
- medical exemptions to the CCAP absent day limit, and
- promotion of continuity of care for young children receiving child care assistance via the Basic Sliding Fee program by allowing a 30-day reinstatement period.
This post, written by Dr. Erin Maher, Director of Program Evaluation at Casey Family Programs, highlights a new report released by Casey Family Programs that emphasizes the need for early intervention among young children involved in the child welfare system. Legislators, policymakers, and advocates within the child welfare and early childhood fields will be very interested in this report.
“We don’t know normal.”
This poignant quote from a parent, whose child attends the Day Treatment program at the Washburn Center for Children, brings home the challenges faced by the children, their families, and caregivers that Developmental Repair was designed to help. Due to their extreme disruptive behavior, routine daily accomplishments, such as learning letters in a pre-school classroom, bonding with their adoptive parent, or playing with peers at daycare, are out of reach for the majority of these three-to-five year olds when they first enter the program. The program serves young children age three to eight years with aggressive and disruptive behaviors due to complex trauma, including child abuse and neglect.
Making the Case for Early Intervention in Child Welfare
Developmentally-appropriate, nurturing, and trauma-informed programs such as this, serving primarily a population under five, are needed in child welfare. Casey Family Programs is conducting a national scan of interventions targeted to families with young children in child welfare and what we know of their effectiveness. Developmental Repair is one of the programs that Casey staff visited to gain a more in-depth understanding of elements of success.
Given the need to encourage more effective programs for young children in child welfare, Casey Family Programs released Making the Case for Early Intervention in Child Welfare: A Research and Practice Brief.
The brief highlights why young children and their families deserve special attention to safely reduce the number of children in foster care, improve child and family well-being, and prevent long-term involvement in child welfare. This brief is the first of two that summarizes the state of programming and evaluation for child welfare interventions that specifically target families with young children and outlines policy, practice, and investment recommendations for the field including:
- Monitoring the outcomes and successes from the Title IV-E Child Welfare Demonstration Projects (Title IV-E waivers) focused on young children
- Engaging the judicial system
- Incorporating and maintaining a focus on early childhood development, trauma-informed care, young children’s mental health, and the importance of nurturing and secure relationships in child welfare practice
- Supporting program evaluations for these interventions
View the report here. To find out more about the work Casey Family Programs does, please visit Casey Family Programs’ website at: www.casey.org
