The mission of the Institute for Child and Family Well-Being is to improve the lives of children and families with complex challenges by implementing effective programs, conducting cutting-edge research, engaging communities, and promoting systems change.
The Institute for Child and Family Well-Being is a collaboration between Children’s Wisconsin and the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The shared values and strengths of this academic-community partnership are reflected in the Institute’s three core service areas: Program Design and Implementation, Research and Evaluation, and Community Engagement and Systems Change.
In This Issue:
- Meet the ICFW
- Program Design and Implementation
- Research and Evaluation
- Community Engagement and Systems Change
- Recent and Upcoming Events
Meet the ICFW
Meet Our New Predoctoral Fellow
The ICFW continues to support a predoctoral fellowship training program that provides mentorship and funding to doctoral students whose research can be applied to promote better and more equitable outcomes for children and families.
We are proud to announce our newest predoctoral fellow Yuanyuan Yang. Her research focuses on applying data science methods to advance economic and health equity for children and families in resource-limited settings. She is committed to developing innovative interventions that address child poverty and improve mental and behavioral health outcomes for vulnerable children and adolescents.
Yuanyuan holds a master’s degree in public policy from New York University and is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in social work at Washington University in St. Louis
Program Design and Implementation
The Institute develops, implements and disseminates validated prevention and intervention strategies that are accessible in real-world settings.
Building Brains with Relationships
Building Brains with Relationships is an in-person, interactive, skill-building day at the Wisconsin Child Welfare Professional Development System. The day starts with building a shared understanding about human brain development and then transitions into a game, the Brain Architecture Game, to visualize the role of experiences on brain development: what promotes it, what derails it, and the larger impacts across a single lifespan. Then participants practice interaction skills that are shown to strengthen relationships and create partnerships because social connectedness has been shown to make the largest impact on resilience.
Register for the May 15th or the August 14th date at this link. The training runs from 9am-4pm.
Building Brains with Relationships Community of Practice takes place next on March 18th at noon. Email mchristian@childrenswi.org for the link to join.
Research and Evaluation
The Institute accelerates the process of translating knowledge into direct practices, programs and policies that promote health and well-being, and provides analytic, data management and grant-writing support.
Recent ICFW Publications
Addressing Maternal and Child Health Disparities Through Perinatal Home Visiting
Using data from an ongoing statewide evaluation of Wisconsin’s Family Foundations Home Visiting (FFHV) Program, ICFW recently published a study in the Wisconsin Medical Journal that shows the potential of the FFHV Program to promote maternal health equity. The paper was published by Drs. Joshua Mersky and Colleen Janczewski in collaboration with Davin Hami, a medical student and fellow in the TRIUMPH program at UW-Madison. Click here for more information.
Community Engagement & Systems Change
The Institute develops community-university partnerships to promote systems change that increases the accessibility of evidence-based and evidence-informed practices.
Workforce Inclusion and Innovation
Research has shown that a stable, well-supported workforce is more than just beneficial, it is the backbone of thriving communities! Without this foundation, families face instability, and critical relationships between case workers and families are disrupted. Furthermore, workforce turnover can undermine trust, delaying critical interventions and affect permanency outcomes.
In our Workforce Inclusion and Innovation Critical Pathway, we are laying the groundwork for transformative change. By partnering with the Children’s Home Society of America (CHSA) and Chapin Hall, we are simultaneously addressing community-based prevention and workforce gaps outlined in the National Research Agenda for a 21st Century Child and Family Well-Being System. This partnership is particularly unique and beneficial as it allows us to utilize Chapin Hall’s research, the Institute for Child and Family Well-Being’s (ICFW) transformational knowledge and strategies, and CHSA’s direct access to children and families to shift from research to action. Our proposal uses this relationship to integrate professional development, cultural training, and workforce retention strategies to operationalize the research, create a lasting impact.
As we look to the future, we acknowledge that our work in this space is far from over and that we need your input to help shape future conversations and strategies. By taking approximately 10-15 minutes of your time to complete the attached survey, you will directly influence our planning in this pathway, ensuring that our future activities reflect your opinions. Your voice matters, help us plan and move forward together!
Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities (SFTCCC) and Transformative Scenario Planning
Transformative Scenario Planning: A Blueprint for Systems Change in SFTCCC
The Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities (SFTCCC) initiative is a collaborative effort to reimagine how communities prevent family separation due to child neglect. At its core, SFTCCC recognizes that child neglect is a complex problem, deeply tied to systemic issues such as economic instability, siloed responses to overloaded families, and social isolation. Addressing these challenges requires a fundamental shift in how we think about and respond to families overloaded by stress. This is why we have embraced Transformative Scenario Planning (TSP) as a guiding framework to drive systemic change.
Why Are We Focusing on Neglect?
Neglect is the most common reason families are referred to Child Protective Services (CPS). Nationally, 25% of all children will experience a neglect investigation before the age of 18. In Wisconsin, neglect accounted for 61% of all screened-in CPS reports in 2023. However, 87% of neglect investigations were unsubstantiated, underscoring a fundamental flaw in the system: over-reliance on investigations rather than support. Families facing neglect reports are often struggling with chronic poverty, inadequate housing, and a lack of community resources. Without addressing these root causes, we cannot meaningfully reduce neglect or prevent unnecessary family separation.
Neglect as a Complex Problem
Neglect is not simply a matter of parental failure—it is the outcome of multiple, interwoven systemic issues. Families who lack stable housing, childcare, or adequate wages are often overwhelmed by stress, making it difficult to provide consistent care. These challenges do not exist in isolation, and their solutions cannot be found in one sector alone. A cross-sector, systems-change approach is essential.
Why Systems Change?
Traditional child welfare responses focus on individual interventions or responding differently within the context of the Child Protection System (CPS), rather than addressing the broader conditions that push families into crisis. Our work in SFTCCC aims to shift the conversation from blame to support—ensuring that families receive the resources they need before neglect occurs and community members know how to connect families to resources they need. This requires collaboration across child welfare, housing, healthcare, education, law enforcement, and economic systems to create lasting, preventative solutions.
How Transformative Scenario Planning Aligns with SFTCCC
Transformative Scenario Planning (TSP) provides a structured yet adaptive way to address the complex and unstable nature of neglect. Developed by Adam Kahane, TSP is designed for situations where existing approaches have failed, and where collaboration among diverse stakeholders is needed to create meaningful change.
The process involves five key steps:
- Convening a diverse group of stakeholders who are invested in addressing the issue.
- Observing what is happening by gathering data and insights from different perspectives.
- Constructing stories about what could happen—plausible future scenarios that explore how neglect might evolve under different conditions.
- Identifying what we must do to create the best possible future and mitigate the worst-case scenarios.
- Continuing to act and learn—implementing change strategies and adapting based on new insights.
Where We Are and Where We’re Headed
SFTCCC has focused on Steps 1 and 2 since its launch in 2022— building a diverse team and observing what is happening. Through roundtables, storytelling cafes, and data analysis, we have deepened our collective understanding of how neglect manifests across different communities. During these, and all of our activities, we work to build relationships with and between those participating and supporting the share energy of the community in learning communities (Mandated Reporting, Social Isolation), projects (Cost Analysis), and information sharing in our online Basecamp community. This year, we will continue to invite new perspectives in and collectively learn, while also transitioning into Step 3—constructing future scenarios. These scenarios will help us anticipate challenges, identify leverage points, and design solutions that align with the realities faced by families and service providers.
How You Can Get Involved
We invite you to join us in shaping the future of child welfare prevention. Whether you are a practitioner, policymaker, advocate, or community member, your insights and collaboration are invaluable.
- Engage in our online community discussions to contribute ideas and stay informed.
- Share your experiences and expertise by joining monthly discussions on issues like reimagining mandated reporting and addressing social isolation.
If you have questions or would like to get involved, join our Basecamp virtual community.
Announcing Overloaded: Understanding Neglect Season 3 and Unpacking Overloaded: A Podcast Discussion Series
By Luke Waldo
Announcing season 3 of Overloaded: Understanding Neglect, a podcast series from the Institute for Child and Family Well-being.
In season 3 of Overloaded: Understanding Neglect, we confront the complex challenges of poverty, social isolation, and systemic failures where, too often, overloaded families are expected to beat the odds that have been stacked against them. In this season, we explore how we might change the conditions so that we improve the odds for children and families to thrive.
Through conversations with national and local experts and changemakers, we dive into the innovative ideas that aspire to transform our systems through community leadership, build an aligned and comprehensive primary prevention ecosystem, and unlock the power of lived experience through true collaboration.
Through the first couple years of our Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities’ initiative, which included seasons 1 and 2 of this podcast series, we were able to align the insights and experiences of those who know these issues best with the evidence that has shown promise in advancing meaningful solutions. This collaborative effort identified four critical pathways – Economic Stability, Social Connectedness, Community Collaboration, and Workforce Inclusion and Innovation – that will shape the future of our initiative that aspires to reduce family separations for reasons of neglect.
Join me as I explore how we might transform systems and change the conditions for children and families with research and policy, practice, and lived experience experts Samantha Copus (Jefferson County Parents Supporting Parents), Jennifer Jones (Prevent Child Abuse America), Kate Luster (Rock County Department of Human Services), Marlo Nash (Children’s Home Society of America), Blake Roberts Crall (Madison Forward Fund), Bryan Samuels (Chapin Hall), and Allison Thompson (Center for Guaranteed Income Research at University of Pennsylvania).
We also have the honor this season of highlighting the many changemakers that presented at this year’s Wicked Problems Institute hosted by Children’s Home Society of America and the Jordan Institute for Families at the University of North Carolina. Anthony Barrows (Project Evident), Bryn Fortune (Nurture Connection Family Network Collaborative), and Sixto Cancel (Think of Us) present their powerful lived experience and frameworks to Unlock the Power of Lived Experience through True Collaboration.
We believe neglect is preventable. Subscribe and Listen to the season today wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Then join us at an upcoming Unpacking Overloaded: A Podcast Discussion Series for a guided and inspiring conversation with changemakers from across the country to reflect and act on questions and ideas presented in the Overloaded: Understanding Neglect podcast. See dates and registration information below in Upcoming Events.
Recent and Upcoming Events
The Institute provides training, consultation and technical assistance to help human service agencies implement and replicate best practices. If you are interested in training or technical assistance, please complete our speaker request form.
Upcoming Events
- Unpacking Overloaded: A Podcast Discussion Series with Children’s Home Society of America
- Unpacking Overloaded: Expert Series
- March 13th – Parents’ Game Night In: Social Connectedness and Health
- Are you a UWM Student and a parent? Join other Student Parents at UWM’s Children’s Learning Center on 3/13 at 5:30 for Parents’ Game Night In: Social Connectedness and Health. Eat a free, catered meal with your kids and then spend some time with other Student Parents while your kid(s) enjoy play in the CLC with exceptional supervision provided. Learn about the power of social connectedness in health outcomes, connect with new people, rest a little, take steps to be more connected and maybe even play a game or two. Register here.
- Building Brains with Relationships Workshops with WCWPDS