Family Voices United launches regular "Share Your Perspective" questions on timely topics relating to child welfare. This new paper asks experts with lived experience across the country, "What services or supports would have helped prevent you and your family or relatives from coming into contact with the child welfare system? (e.g. child welfare workers, families, attorneys and judges, and others involved in the child welfare system)?"
Lived Experience Experts identified the following priorities in response to the question:
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Families need accessible resources prior to child welfare intervention
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Legal assistance is crucial to support families in child welfare processes
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We need to see more accountability in the pathways to reunification and greater systemic oversight
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When exploring placements for children and young people, systems should be require more thorough searching for existing family members, more resources to these family members,and stronger vetting for ensuring placements can meet the children and young people's needs
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Community wrap-around supports and services are essential to preventing interaction with child welfare
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Mitigating biases/ judgment must be prioritized in order to equitably meet families needs
Please click below to access the full paper and read quotes from young people with experience in foster care, birth parents, kinship and relative caregivers, and foster/ resource and adoptive parents.
