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Introduction to�Strengthening Families: �A Protective Factors Framework

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Strengthening Families: �Not Your Ordinary Initiative

Implementing Strengthening Families is about:

small but significant changes in everyday practice

and

the shifts in policies and systems that allow/promote those changes in practice

Implementation funds come from existing dollars
All national implementation tools are available free of charge

Strengthening Families is not “another initiative” that adds to the workload of a program or agency. It is an approach that can be applied to any interaction with children and families.

Implementing Strengthening Families is about small but significant changes in everyday practice, and about the shifts in policies and systems that allow and promote those changes.

In most cases, Strengthening Families has been implemented using existing funding streams. While a few states in the Strengthening Families National Network have found dedicated funding streams to implement Strengthening Families on a large scale, most states have integrated the Protective Factors Framework into existing grants, professional development systems, trainings, and so on. Many implementation activities for Strengthening Families can be carried out at little cost, particularly when partner agencies and systems bring resources such as staff time to the table.

To support this work, implementation tools are available free of charge from the Center for the Study of Social Policy and many of our national and federal partners.

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Four big ideas behind Strengthening Families

Focus on protective factors

An approach, not a model

A changed relationship with parents

Alignment with developmental science

1. A protective and promotive factors approach

The first step in developing Strengthening Families was thoroughly investigating what the research tells us about reducing child maltreatment – about what is right with families that protects against child abuse and neglect. CSSP worked intensively with researchers and advisors for over a year to develop a synthesis of protective factors that reduce the likelihood of child abuse and neglect.
Protective factors act as a counter weight to risk factors. They buffer the impact of what the researchers call “toxic stress”. Risk factors, it turns out, are not very predictive of future events. And we cannot get to good outcomes for children only by focusing on reducing risk.
The protective factors in the Strengthening Families framework both protect against risk and promote positive outcomes.

2. An approach, not a model

Strengthening Families is not a scripted, structured program or model designed to be implemented in a specific setting.
It is not an “evidence-based program” but rather, an evidence-informed approach that can be adapted to many different settings and service delivery models.
It is an approach that can be applied in any setting that serves young children and their families. Strengthening Families is implemented through small but significant changes in how professionals interact with families. It is not parallel to, but integrated into existing practice.
Cross-sector implementation is core to the approach. Strengthening Families brings together program-level and system-level partners from multiple sectors that serve children and families – providing a common language and set of outcomes to work toward.

3. A changed relationship with parents

Strengthening Families represents a shift for many systems that are designed to serve children. Programs and service providers in these systems sometimes see parents as irrelevant to their work, or worse, as obstacles to achieving the outcomes we all want for children. But we know that children grow up in families, not programs – and we cannot achieve good outcomes for children without engaging their parents as partners.
Working from a protective factors approach, workers and service providers will support parents’ ability to parent effectively and involve them as partners in achieving good outcomes for children. Programs also have a role to play in engaging parents in mutually supportive relationships that build protective factors.
Programs that work in this way will also engage parents as partners, leaders and decision-makers at the program level.
Parents who have had positive experiences shaping the programs that serve their children can then be engaged in helping design systems and policies that work for children and families.

4. Alignment with developmental science

Strengthening Families is committed to paying attention to what the research tells us, and helping programs and workers align their practice with what developmental science tells us will be most effective.

Critical periods of development – therefore we have the Strengthening Families framework for early childhood and the parallel Youth Thrive framework for adolescence
Looking at early childhood in particular, Strengthening Families emphasizes the importance of nurturing and responsive relationships with caregivers.
A fast growing body of research underscores the effects of traumatic experiences on children and youth – effects that can carry into the rest of a young person’s life. We know now that the presence of a buffering adult can be critical in helping children come through stressful experiences without negative effects on their development. But we also know that typical system responses to children’s traumatic experiences can exacerbate those negative effects – such as removal from the home, or punishment for “misbehavior” when children react to their experiences.

Through Strengthening Families and Youth Thrive, we provide tools and guidance to help those who work with children and families align their practice with what we know about development.

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Focus on protective factors

Risk �Factors

Protective and Promotive Factors

Big Idea #1

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What we know: �Families gain what they need to be successful when �key protective factors �are robust in their lives and communities

What we knew intuitively and from the research is that families thrive when key protective factors are robust in their lives and communities.

What we also discovered is that fewer than 10% of children 0-5 are reached by any kind of preventive service such as home visiting or parent education.

The research also indicated:

Child abuse and neglect, strong families and optimal child development are outcomes that are tied together.
Risk is not predictive—because of protective factors.
Five specific protective factors are tied to child abuse and neglect, strong families and optimal child development.
You can build these protective factors IN MANY DIFFERENT SETTINGS.

The challenge faced by the developers of Strengthening Families was to find a way to help the many people who see children and their families every day to become part of a significant support system for the families they connect with.

In the end we are interested in protective factors because they are correlated with many of the outcomes that we care about.

CSSP’s original focus was on early care and education programs, where the largest proportion of young children – and their families – go every day. These familiar places are much more likely to match a family’s language, culture and traditions – and have been chosen by the family in the first place. Their hypothesis was that if these places chosen by families could be mobilized to be prevention agents and early warning responders, impact could be had on millions of children. And by focusing on positive outcomes and healthy development, which could engage more families much more easily than prevention programs based on identifying “at risk” families.

Besides the extensive literature reviews and the lengthy discussions with the advisory committee, exemplary programs were sought out to learn what they might already be doing to build protective factors with families. A national survey of all states, individual 27 page surveys with 200 programs, and extended site visits and interviews with 25 programs showed us dramatically that a wide variety of exemplary programs are already building protective factors with families every day. Our most powerful, convincing information about the impact of programs on PARENTS were family members themselves and the community partners who worked closely with these programs.

They also discovered that these early childhood programs along with after school programs, home visiting programs, family resource centers and other places where families already go and feel comfortable, were eager to think with them about what more they could do to reduce stress for the families they serve. Their consistency with the culture and values of the families who come there, their daily contact, and mission of healthy child development make them ideally trusted coaches for all kinds of parents.

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Risk factors �are not �predictive factors �because of �protective factors

Dr. Carl Bell, University of Illinois

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Family Protective Factors

Parental resilience

Social connections

Knowledge of parenting and child development

Concrete support in times of need

Social and emotional competence of children

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Youth resilience

Social connections

Knowledge of adolescent development

Concrete support in times of need

Cognitive, social and emotional competence of youth

Protective & Promotive Factors

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An approach, not a model

Integrated into existing practice

Research-based and evidence-informed

Small but significant changes

Applied in many settings

Cross-sector coordination

Big Idea #2

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A family support system: �What does it look like?

Light touch family support in the settings families are in every day

Connections to and support from dedicated family support resources

Connections to more intensive services when needed

Navigation supports to help make the connections

Common language and commitment to helping families build protective factors

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A changed relationship with parents

Engaging with their children

Shaping programs and services

Influencing policies

Big Idea #3

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Children don’t grow up in programs…

They grow up in families and in communities.

Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner, Cornell University

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Alignment with �developmental science

Importance of early childhood and adolescence

Role of nurturing relationships in brain development

Effects of trauma and adversity

Big Idea #4

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A Protective/Promotive Factors Frame Across Development

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Family Protective Factors

Parental resilience

Social connections

Knowledge of parenting and child development

Concrete support in times of need

Social and emotional competence of children

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Parental resilience

What it looks like

Resilience to general life stress

Hope, optimism, self confidence
Problem solving skills
Self care and willingness to ask for help
Ability to manage negative emotions

Managing stress and functioning well when faced with challenges, adversity and trauma

Resilience to parenting stress

Not allowing stress to interfere with nurturing
Positive attitude about parenting and child

One resilience researcher, Dr. Mark Katz summarizes resilience as “strength in the face of adversity”

Resilience is the lifelong process of enduring and growing through crisis and change. No one can prevent stress or crisis from happening to families at some point in time. A variety of strategies can help families find the tools they need to respond effectively so a crisis does not escalate, and the fall-out from a crisis does not negatively impact their parenting.

Sometimes we hear resilience referred to as “bouncing back” – but it is also the ability to bounce forward, to use moments of stress and crisis to effectively motivate yourself, reorganize your priorities and actions and move on.

In the Strengthening Families framework, we think about two different components of resilience – the ability to function well under stress in general as well as the ability to parent well in times of stress. Caregivers may exhibit greater resilience in one area than in the other. We need to think about both as we look at how we can support parents in building their resilience.

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Everyday actions

Demonstrate in multiple ways that parents are valued
Honor each family’s race, language, culture, history and approach to parenting
Encourage parents to manage stress effectively
Support parents as decision-makers and help build decision-making and leadership skills
Help parents understand how to buffer their child during stressful times

Parental resilience

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Social connections

What it looks like

Multiple friendships and supportive relationships with others
Feeling respected and appreciated
Accepting help from others, and giving help to others
Skills for establishing and maintaining connections

Positive relationships that provide emotional, informational, instrumental and spiritual support

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Social connections

Everyday actions

Help families value, build, sustain and use social connections
Create an inclusive environment
Facilitate mutual support
Promote engagement in the community and participation in community activities

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Knowledge of parenting & child dev’t

What it looks like

Nurturing parenting behavior
Appropriate developmental expectations
Ability to create a developmentally supportive environment for child
Positive discipline techniques; ability to effectively manage child behavior
Recognizing and responding to your child’s specific needs

Understanding child development and parenting strategies that support physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional development

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Knowledge of parenting & child dev’t

Everyday actions

Model developmentally appropriate interactions with children
Provide information and resources on parenting and child development
Encourage parents to observe, ask questions, explore parenting issues and try out new strategies
Address parenting issues from a strength-based perspective

Delivering accurate, evidence based knowledge in a way that parents can hear it and use the information effectively is not always easy. While there are some excellent parent education classes available most studies show they do not work for all families. Adult learning theory provides insight on how to develop a broader range of strategies for conveying parenting information:

Information is provided when people are struggling with an issue and need it urgently
Learning doesn’t depend on didactic material but on seeing the ideas in action and having ample opportunities to test out how to use the knowledge in real life
The context for learning and the person who delivers the information is supportive, comfortable and trusted by the learner.

What this points to is the important role that those who see and interact with families on a day to day basis as the conduit for parenting information.

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Concrete support in times of need

What it looks like

Seeking and receiving support when needed
Knowing what services are available and how to access them
Adequate financial security; basic needs being met
Persistence
Advocating effectively for self and child to receive necessary help

Access to concrete support and services that address a family’s needs and help minimize stress caused by challenges

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Concrete support in times of need

Everyday actions

Respond immediately when families are in crisis
Provide information and connections to services in the community
Help families to develop skills and tools they need to identify their needs and connect to supports

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Social & emotional competence of children

What it looks like

For the parent:

Warm and consistent responses that foster a strong and secure attachment with the child
Encouraging and reinforcing social skills; setting limits

Family and child interactions that help children develop the ability to communicate clearly, recognize and regulate their emotions and establish and maintain relationships

For the child:

Age appropriate self-regulation
Ability to form and maintain relationships with others
Positive interactions with others
Effective communication

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Social & emotional competence of children

Everyday actions

Help parents foster their child’s social emotional development
Model nurturing care to children
Include children’s social and emotional development activities in programming
Help children develop a positive cultural identity and interact in a diverse society
Respond proactively when social or emotional development needs extra support

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This graphic summarizes how implementation of the Strengthening Families approach leads to the outcomes we are working toward: strengthened families, optimal child development and reduced likelihood of child abuse and neglect – as shown in the box farthest to the right.
The second box from the right (light blue) shows the protective factors that families are supported to build when they experience program and worker practice as described in the stacked boxes. Shifts in program culture, policies and everyday practice will support parents in building these protective factors, just as workers’ knowledge, skills, approach to parents and everyday actions will. (Workers can make these changes on their own – and often do – but those efforts will be much more successful when their organizations make shifts that support and enable those changes.)
The rust-colored box on the left describes the functions that are carried out by leaders – at any level – to influence the shifts in program and worker practice that help families build their protective factors and achieve better outcomes.

We believe the future of Strengthening Families is in creating a “new normal” for child and family serving organizations and systems, so that they see their work as building protective and promotive factors to reduce the potential for child maltreatment, to bolster resilience and mitigate the impact of traumatic events when they occur, AND to create the best possible environment for development of children and youth.

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Many resources available at www.strengtheningfamilies.net

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