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
Georgia Ecclestone is a Master of Social Work student at Concordia University-Wisconsin. She joined the ICFW team for her final internship beginning in August 2025 and ending in April 2026. Georgia obtained her bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in December 2021 where she studied forensic science and criminal justice. She is currently employed at the Lakeshore Regional Child Advocacy Center (LRCAC) as a family advocate and an Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) coordinator.
Georgia also holds a private detective license in the state of Wisconsin. Prior to her work at the LRCAC, she worked as a deputy medical examiner in Ozaukee County. Georgia is passionate about the child welfare system and providing trauma-informed care and advocacy to those who need it most. She is excited for the opportunity and experience the ICFW has to offer her.
Chelsea Miller (she/her/hers) is an MSW/MPH student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a concentration in Community and Behavioral Health. Driven by an interest in primary prevention and early intervention for childhood trauma, she approaches her work through a macro-level lens on the social determinants of health – particularly how trauma both impacts and is shaped by systemic inequities. She is especially interested in advancing racial and economic equity as essential pathways to prevent trauma and foster healthier, more resilient communities.
Program Design and Implementation
The Institute develops, implements and disseminates validated prevention and intervention strategies that are accessible in real-world settings.
The Social Connectedness Toolkit
How is it that so many are isolated and disconnected if social connection is crucial to thriving? Social connectedness is incredibly place-based and personal. This creates challenges in replicating what may work in one place to another.
Social connectedness is a human need and benefits our financial, physical, and emotional health. Oppositely, isolation has been compared to smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Times with friends and companions has decreased by about 14 hours per month in the last 20 years. What’s happened and what can be done?
What might you need more of in order to connect? Take the poll!
The Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities’ (SFTCCC) Social Connectedness critical pathway group developed a customizable toolkit, Social Connectedness Toolkit: Life & Leisure for Well-Being that helps connect, inform and guide people who seek to decrease isolation and loneliness. The goal is for people and organizations to have a usable framework to promote conversations and actions meant to increase social connectedness. Join SFTCCC today to get access now!
Building Brains with Relationships
For over a decade ICFW has been working on shifting practice, from focusing on symptoms to asking “what happened here?” and “how might we prevent what happened here?” ICFW also helps other organizations do the same thing: use strategic learning and guide best practices.
Oconto, Juneau, Rock, Racine and Milwaukee County home visitors, foster parents, family support workers and ongoing case managers came together in August to expand their knowledge of brain architecture and functioning, resilience and galvanize their belief in the power of prevention. They also have the chance to regroup soon virtually to best support adult learning.
Building Brains with Relationships is a full day, in-person interactive workshop offered by ICFW. The August workshop was hosted by Wisconsin Child Welfare Professional Development’s extension site in Glendale, WI as is the upcoming November 14th workshop (9am-4pm). The price (FREE) and location, just minutes from beautiful Lake Michigan, make it a great day trip for individuals and teams. To register, log into your PDS account or start a new account here.
Another custom-to-customer training is coming up at Sojourner Family Peace Center. This will be the 2nd custom training of the year. This is a continuation of the last few years that we’ve been supporting Sojourner Family Peace Center implement strategic learning and scale academy-style trainings for new staff from all the partnering agencies.
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
Janczewski, C. E., Mersky, J. P., & Kaiser, D. (2025). From foster care to incarceration: A prospective analysis of the National Youth in Transition Database. Child Abuse & Neglect, 164, 107469.
Background: Children in foster care often face significant adversity in adulthood, including a heightened risk of incarceration. Yet, it is uncertain whether adult incarceration rates differ between youth who age out of foster care, youth who are reunified with their families, and those adopted or placed with a legal guardian.
Objective: This prospective study investigates the prevalence of adult incarceration for youth in care at age 17 and examines whether the risk of incarceration varies by foster care exit type, both overall and among different racial/ethnic groups.
Read more about this publication.
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.
Introducing our New Services to Partner for Systems that Work
Partnering For Systems That Work
Complex challenges like neglect, poverty, and social isolation can’t be solved by one sector alone. At the Institute for Child and Family Well-Being (ICFW), we partner with communities to build prevention systems that last. We bring structure, learning, and strategy to help changemakers turn local energy into lasting solutions. Building prevention systems takes more than good ideas. It takes practical tools, strong partnerships, and the right support at the right time. That’s where we come in. Through technical assistance, evaluation, and network-building, we help changemakers turn learning into action and align their efforts for greater impact.
Our Technical Assistance Services
Community Systems Change Support
Systems don’t change because of a plan; they change when people work differently together. We help communities move from good ideas to shared action, building the local capacity to lead and sustain change. Helping cross-sector partners align around a shared vision to take action on the root causes.
Learning-Focused Evaluation & Storytelling
Turn learning and data into action. Use stories to drive change. We help communities use strategic learning to make better decisions, strengthen alignment, and tell the story of their impact. Our approach blends reflection, adaptation, and storytelling with evidence and research to support real-time improvement.
Network Building & Strategic Collaboration
Networks don’t just spread ideas, they build power. We help changemakers build shared language, trusted networks, and aligned strategies across places and systems. Through learning communities, roundtables, and field-level tools, we strengthen the infrastructure that enables collective impact.
Who We Work With
We partner with changemakers who are building better systems for families—those ready to lead change from within their communities. Community-based organizations, local governments, public agencies, coalitions, and national networks turn to ICFW to:
- Reimagine how systems show up for families
- Build lasting capacity for learning, adaptation, and coordination
- Break down silos to tackle complex challenges together
- Embed equity, trust, and community voice into their strategy
What Guides Us
We are grounded in tested systems change principles and practice-based evidence. At the heart of our approach is relationship building—trust, collaboration, and connection are the foundation for lasting systems change.
- Systems change happens when relationships shift, not just policies
- Lived experience belongs in leadership
- Equity is not an add-on—it’s foundational
- Learning drives progress
- Communities already hold the wisdom needed for change
What Success Looks Like
- Families are thriving—their needs are met earlier, and fewer are overloaded.
- Communities lead, guided by evidence, accelerated by relationships.
- Cross-system work aligns, accelerates, and strengthens local strategy.
- People closest to the challenge—practitioners, lived experience experts, and community leaders—drive the work.
Let’s Work Together
We help changemakers turn momentum into action and ideas into aligned strategy. We bring the tools, partnership, and perspective needed to build systems that truly support families. See our work in action:
Let’s connect and explore what we can build together.
Learning-Focused Evaluation and Storytelling – Child Welfare Lessons Learned
The Workforce Innovation & Inclusion Critical Pathway (WII) calls for innovation, inclusion and a commitment to workforce stability. As such, ICFW partnered with the Child Welfare team at Children’s Wisconsin to understand how they successfully reduced staff turnover since their employment crisis of 2021.
Over the last several months, we facilitated a reflective process rooted in storytelling and guided by Tamarack’s Most Significant Change method. Through a series of focus groups, and conversations with leadership, we listened to staff and supervisors share their perspective of the staffing crisis, what changed in the last four years and why it mattered. Ultimately, this partnership sought to surface the lessons behind the progress, what compels staff to stay in challenging roles and what supports are still needed. Several themes emerged, but those most influential were, strong and consistent supervision, flexible work arrangements and culture of transparency and care. These themes were supported by direct quotes and personal stories from staff:
| Category | Representative Quote |
| Communication | “My supervisor checks in weekly and always asks how I’m doing personally.” |
| Flexibility | “She lets us shift our schedules if we need to handle family responsibilities.” |
| Emotional Support | “Sometimes just hearing ‘you’re doing great’ keeps me going after a hard week.” |
| Team Connection | “Debriefing as a team after a crisis really helps us stay grounded.” |
| Recognition | “It feels good to hear ‘thank you’ during team meetings – it’s rare but appreciated.” |
| Training & Mentorship | ‘When I shadowed her on a tough call, I learned more than from any training.” |
| Workload Management | “They adjusted my caseload when things got overwhelming. That really helped me stay.” |
To supplement our focus group data, a follow up survey is currently underway. Once all data is collected, these insights and stories will inform hiring, recognition and retention strategies that reflect those doing the work to support overloaded families.
ICFW at the Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA) National Conference
By Luke Waldo
Gabe McGaughey and I had the great honor to be part of Prevent Child Abuse America’s Power of Prevention conference in Portland, Oregon in August.
We presented two breakout sessions, “Transforming Neglect Prevention: A Systems Change Framework to Support Overloaded Families” and “Overloaded: Understanding Neglect – Transforming the Narrative through a Podcast Series” to over 250 attendees from all over the country. I also shared our work with the Overloaded podcast when I co-presented with PCAA leaders Jennifer Jones and Irmes Dagba-Craven and Prevent Child Abuse Arizona’s Claire Louge on “Shifting Mindsets: Innovative Projects to Transform Perspectives”.
I also co-hosted the conference’s podcast “The Shift: Voices of Prevention” with Nathan Fink, which produced powerful episodes with the keynote speakers Desmond Meade, Dr. Bruce Perry and Dr. Nadine Burke Harris along with conference presenters Samantha Mellerson and Tshaka Barrows of the Haywood Burns Institute and State Representative Annessa Hartman.
Gabe and I also hosted an exhibit table to unveil the exciting new developments with our new service lines that aspire to partner for systems that work. We are grateful to PCAA for creating an inspiring space for changemakers from across the country to share our transformative work and the power of prevention.
Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities Announces Its Steering Committee
The Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities’ (SFTCCC) network has grown nearly 300% since our first full year of the initiative to over two hundred members representing over thirty counties and all five Wisconsin regions. As our team at the ICFW serves as a field catalyst in this initiative, it is important that a steering committee that represents the initiative’s membership works closely with us to provide leadership and direction towards our objectives.
A kickoff meeting was held in July to build relationships and begin basic initiative governance tasks. The steering committee will engage throughout the year through Basecamp and bi-annual meetings.
We are grateful to the changemakers from policy and research, child welfare and prevention, to system leadership and lived expertise who have accepted this role and look forward to working with them to achieve our goal of reducing family separations for reasons of neglect.
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
- September 26th – Reimagining Mandated Reporting – Community Collaboration Critical Pathway Virtual Network Convening
- Presenters from the American Bar Association on the Stop Overreporting Our People (STOP) initiative.
- September 26th – 2025 Conference on Child Welfare and the Courts
- October 1st – SFTCCC Welcome and Onboarding Session
- October 6th – Housing and Its Impacts on Family Economic Stability – Economic Stability Critical Pathway Virtual Network Convening
- Presenters from Wisconsin’s Family Keys project
- October 8th – Advancing Social Connectedness – Social Connectedness Critical Pathway Virtual Network Convening
- November 14th – Building Brains with Relationships Workshops with WCWPDS.
- Join the Building Brains with Relationships Community of Practice. Email mchristian@childrenswi.org for the link to join.
Recent Events
- August 12th-14th – Prevent Child Abuse America’s National Conference – Power of Prevention
- The Shift: Voices of Prevention podcast co-hosted by Luke Waldo.