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In This Issue

• A Protective Timeline For The Child Welfare System
• South Cook Launches Revitalized Network
• Family Child Care Providers Get Support Strengthening Families
• United Way Strengthens Families Nationally
• National Meeting Highlights Early Childhood/Child Welfare Innovations
• CYS Head Start/DCFS Cross-Trainings Help Make Local Collaboration a Reality
• NAEYC Conference Wowed by Peoria Presentation and Video
• A New Phase, A New Strategic Plan for SFI
• Kane County Christmas Celebration a Big Hit with Local Families
• Mental Health Consultation Picks Up Speed On-Line
• Find a Parent Cafe On-Line!
• Thanks to
• Calendar

A Protective Timeline For The Child Welfare System

Strengthening Families and the Protective Factors were developed as a framework for preventing child abuse in early childhood centers. Now, recently confirmed IDCFS Director Erwin McEwen is giving the protective factors a broader application with plans to embed them throughout the department in all child welfare services.  

Director McEwen’s vision includes a protective timeline that uses the Protective Factors framework throughout the course of each child and family’s involvement with the system, from child protective services to achieving permanency. Child welfare agency staff will assess which Protective Factors are present in the family and which ones need to be created or enhanced. This represents a paradigm shift in child welfare, changing the basic terms of the relationship between caseworkers and parents.

South Cook Launches Revitalized Network
Strengthening Families Expands Reach Through 40 School Districts

More than 17 school district superintendents signed on to participate in the new South Cook County Strengthening Families Learning Network on December 5, at an opening luncheon in University Park. Since the launch, the network has expanded to over 40 school districts by including two groups of schools organized by Speed and Eisenhower districts.

Attendees were welcomed by Dr. Doug Hamilton, Superintendent of school district 151 and heard from Terri Cronin, Principal of deLacey Early Education Center and member of Kane County’s SFI Learning Network who spoke to how Strengthening Families has been working at her school.  Parent leaders Anis Jeter Butler and Inez Mackey Argue also spoke to the group about the positive experiences they have had with their early care and education programs.

Other speakers at the launch were:

• Kay Henderson, Administrator of Early Childhood Division for the Illinois State Board of Education
• Cynthia Moreno, Deputy Director for Service Intervention at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS)
• Sharifa Townsend, Director of ECHO Family Enrichment Program
• Michael Byrd, Regional Administrator of the Cook South Region for IDCFS
• Kathy Goetz Wolf, Project Director at Strengthening Families Illinois.

“We are keeping children safe and preventing abuse and neglect in a strategic, ongoing way with parents from diverse populations, across school districts,” said Sharifa Townsend at the launch, who will also fill the hub coordinator role in the region.  The new network includes early childhood program staff from each participating school district—two who implement Strengthening Families in classrooms and take part in peer learning meetings, and others who train all of the schools’ early childhood staff in the Strengthening Families curriculum. The new South Cook County Strengthening Families Learning Network had its first meeting January 15.

Family Child Care Providers Get Support Strengthening Families

“Does Strengthening Families apply to family child care homes?” asked Maria Whelan, Executive Director of Action for Children, at the first SFI Leadership Team meeting in 2005, knowing that more than 60% of Illinois kids 0 to 5 are cared for in these settings. The answer was “not yet”, but SFI set about changing that to “yes” and has been committed to learning more about family child care providers and developing resources to help them strengthen families:

Assessment: Learning Network members and DCFS staff from the southern region adapted the Strengthening Families self-assessment tool to create a self-study for family child care providers.

Training: Family Child Care Providers have received Protective Factors training and SFI resources. These were delivered by SFI, the Midwest Learning Center, and mental health consultants with support from Action for Children and Chicago Safe Start.

Partnership: SFI has been presenting to and meeting with family child care providers involved with the Partnership for Quality Childcare and the Illinois Association for Family Child Care (IAFCC) and at the annual IAFCC Summit.

FFN Cafés: SFI formed a work group with family child care providers and SFI partners to adapt the World Café process for family child care providers. The group developed the Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) Café series, where family childcare providers engage in structured discussion, information sharing, peer-to-peer support and technical assistance, and self-reflection as they discuss topics from taking care of oneself to connecting families to support.

United Way Strengthens Families Nationally

The United Way of America is supporting Strengthening Families nationally, thanks to a three-year grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The new initiative, Strengthening Families United, will build local and state United Ways’ capacity to strengthen families in all of their work. It will also disseminate lessons learned, promote replication, and create materials to help a national network of United Ways implement Strengthening Families in local communities. 

National Meeting Highlights Early Childhood/Child Welfare Innovations

On December 12, Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin joined together to promote their innovations in linking early childhood and child welfare professionals. The meeting was convened by the Center for the Study of Social Policy and the A. L. Mailman Family Foundation, which are supporting a national project to strengthen links between the two fields in multiple states. Erwin McEwen, Director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, presented his protective timeline (see above) as well as highlighting his top five priorities for IDCFS:

• Embed the Strengthening Families Protective Factors across all child welfare domains
• Ensure children 3 to 5 in the child welfare system are enrolled in quality early care and education programs
• Ensure collaboration at the community level among early childhood programs and agencies
• Advance developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed child welfare practice for children o to 3
• Embed Strengthening Families Illinois into other state-funded prevention and early childhood activities

IDCFS is taking concrete steps to promote collaboration and advance the Director’s priorities, including:

• Creating a provider database that includes SFI Learning Network centers and will be used by caseworkers to connect families to services
• Filling six new staff specialist positions and a supervisor that will drive local collaboration between early childhood staff and child welfare caseworkers
• Sponsoring cross-trainings between local child welfare agency and Head Start program staff

CYS Head Start / DCFS Cross-Trainings Help Make Local Collaboration a Reality

For  kids in the child welfare system, quality early care and education programs can make a world of difference—especially if the caseworker and program staff are working together. Throughout January, a series of trainings hosted by the City of Chicago Department of Children and Youth Services (CYS) and IDCFS began turning collaborative  agreements into reality. The four sessions welcomed close to 500 attendees: half from DCFS or its contracted child welfare agencies and half from Head Start programs funded by CYS. In addition, staff were invited from programs funded through Cook County’s two other Head Start grantee agencies, the Community Economic Development Association and the Ounce of Prevention Fund.

Over a year ago, DCFS and Head Start grantees across the state signed local collaborative agreements outlining partnerships of this type in communities across the state. Collaboration was to include: increasing enrollment in Head Start among children in the child welfare system and children of wards, sustaining their enrollment, ensuring humane transitions when children need to leave a Head Start program, collaborating on child welfare service planning , child abuse prevention, mandated reporting, and providing cross-training opportunities between Head Start program staff and child welfare agency caseworkers.  

In addition to developing relationships, the training helped both groups understand the basic elements of the collaborative agreement and their role in implementing it.  But most importantly, the trainings helped attendees understand why collaboration is crucial to providing stronger supports to the families they serve and can be used as a mechanism for making their own jobs easier and more effective.

CYS is following up with quarterly informal “suite” talks, where caseworkers and Head Start staff talk about working with children with challenging behaviors, the relationship between DCFS service plans and Head Start family plans, and other topics.

NAEYC Conference Wowed by Peoria Presentation & Video

Peoria County Bright Futures, an SFI Learning Network participant, was a hit at the NAEYC national conference in Chicago. Staff members Penny Smith, Sandy Hartman, and Linda Meyer told the early childhood educators how Bright Futures and the Peoria Learning Network have been implementing Strengthening Families in their program and community—and they brought some of their practices to life with an awesome video! It’s no wonder they received high marks from attendees.  Click on the play button below to watch the video developed by Penny Smith. 

If you are having trouble viewing, click here to download or right-click here to save target directly to your computer (Download speeds will vary depending on connection).

A New Phase, a New Strategic Plan for SFI

Since the Strengthening Families Initiative started, the Leadership Team has been a driving force behind creating its strategic plan. Now that the pilot phase is over, it’s time to draft a new strategic plan for the next five years. The Leadership Team kicked off that process at its January meeting, where participants divided into groups to brainstorm about the revised mission of SFI and how DCFS can most effectively use its leadership role to advance the goals of the initiative.

To set the context for those discussions, DCFS Director Erwin McEwen presented on the protective timeline he and his staff are using to embed the Protective Factors in the child welfare system (see above). Former Evaluation Workgroup chair Dr. Jamilah Jor’dan then presented a preview of highlights, challenges, and lessons learned from the Strengthening Families Illinois pilot evaluation report, planned for completion in February.  Click here to view the highlights.

Kane County Christmas Celebration a Big Hit with Local Families

The Kane County Learning Network held a Christmas party December 20 for local residents at deLacey Family Education Center that included refreshments, activities, and gift giveaways. Families sang Christmas carols, and some moms got free makeup tips from expert cosmetologists. The event was organized by Learning Network member Ineabelle Mercado, who coordinates the Spanish Speaking Helpline that came about after the network identified the need. To see pictures of the event from the community paper El Conquistador, click here.

Mental Health Consultation Picks Up Speed On-Line

Now there are three ways to learn about the crucial role that mental health consultants play in strengthening families at early childhood centers. A new paper produced by the SFI Building Resiliency Workgroup is available as:

• A summary in the Illinois Infant Mental Health Association’s Winter 2008 newsletter
• An executive summary on the SFI Web site
• A full 10-page paper with executive summary on the SFI Web site

The paper, When a Need Meets an Opportunity: Strengthening Families and Mental Health Consultation in Illinois, was written by SFI consultant John Roope, Project Manager of Caregiver Connections’ Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Project.

Find a Parent Café On-Line!

By now you’ve heard about—and maybe taken part in—“Love Is Not Enough” Parent Cafés, where parents have guided, deep conversations about what it takes to keep their families strong. Now, you can find a Parent Café in or near your own community just by visiting www.keepyourfamilystrong.org or by clicking here. You’ll also see listings for Partner Cafés, where staff of family-serving organizations can learn about the Parent Café process and start the process of hosting these events. Each Parent Café listing has contact information so you can reserve your spot at one of these powerful family-strengthening events.  You can also become a member of the Google calendar by clicking on the button below, creating a ‘Google Calendar’ account, and adding the calendar to your profile. Subscribe to SFI's Calendar on Google by clicking the button:

Thanks to …

Inez Ague, Anis Butler, Michael Byrd, Terri Cronin, Douglas Hamilton, Kay Henderson, Cynthia Moreno, and Sharifa Townsend for their participation at the South Cook Learning Network launch ... Penny Smith and the Staff at Peoria County Bright Futures for their excellent work in implementing Strengthening Families and developing the video presentation highlights ... Director Erwin McEwen, Cynthia Moreno, and Jamilah Jor'dan for their presentations and contributions at the SFI Leadership Team Meeting and incredible commitment to SFI ... Joanne Kelly and The Department of Human Services for hosting SFI's Leadership Team Meeting in Chicago and Springfield ... Nilofer Ahsan, Bonnie Becker, Ida Butler, Mirlene Cadichon, Lina Cramer, Maria Gandara, Laura Hansen, Linda Hermes, Jamilah Jor'dan, Luz Maria Macias, Patricya Merchant, Phyllis Nickel, Kathryn Mueller, Celina Orozco, and Juanita Seaton for their help in developing the Family, Friend, and Neighbor Cafe process ... John Roope for developing an executive summary for the white paper on Mental Health Consultation and SFI and The Illinois Infant Mental Health Association for including the White Paper in their recent newsletter ... Illinois Family Partnership Network for their tremendous work in planning and rolling out Parent Cafes ... Paulette Baqai, LaTrice Berry, Jackie Bright, Michael Byrd, Joyce Hall, Sylvester Harris, Rafael Leon, Beatrice Nichols, Vanessa Rich, Victor Santiago, Cherlyn Shelby, Lynn Swan-McLendon, and Monaco Whittington-Eskridge for their roles in developing, coordinating and implementing the DCFS/CYS cross-trainings ... SFI's Learning Network Participants statewide for the efforts and contributions in implementing Strengthening Families statewide ... and the many other people who contribute their time and support to strengthen Illinois children!

Know someone involved with SFI who deserves thanks? Send us an email.