Breakdown of how investing in home visting can give children a strong start in Texas.
Type: Reports & Briefs
Project HOPES – Community Based Prevention
A breakdown of the benefits of Project HOPES to high-risk counties throughout Texas.
Health Services Initiatives (HIS)
A breakdown of how Health Services Initiatives provides federal funds to impact maternal and child health outcomes.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Statewide strategies to effectively and efficiently prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
Child Maltreatment Prevention
The true cost of child abuse and neglect in Texas.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Prevalence in Texas
The National Survey of Children’s Health most comprehensive data available on the prevalence of ACEs in Texas.
Frontline For Children | February 2021
- More than One in Four Latino and Black Household with Children Are Experiencing Three or More Hardship during COVID-19 (Child Trends)
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of families experiencing hardships across the country has risen dramatically, with a disproportionate impact on Latino and Black communities.… For the analysis presented in this brief, we used nationally representative data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, which has tracked the well-being of U.S. households during the pandemic, to examine seven types of hardships: unemployment, difficulty paying expenses, not being caught up on rent or mortgage, food insecurity, physical health problems, symptoms of anxiety or depression, and lack of health insurance.”
TexProtects Takeaway: The hardships brought on by COVID-19 affecting Black, brown, and indigenous families trickle down to their children. Issues like economic distress, food insecurity, and mental health challenges, exacerbated by the pandemic, impact how families can care for their children during this crisis and in the future. This places more stressors on caregivers, who are less able to help children cultivate the protective factors and resilience that help mitigate adverse experiences in childhood. To read more from TexProtects about the disproportionate impact on these families during COVID-19, click here.
2. Strategies to Virtually Support and Engage Families of Young Children during COVID-19 (Child Trends)
“As preschools and schools continue to reopen, caregivers (e.g., childcare providers and teachers) are quickly pivoting to using virtual platforms to support and engage families in children’s learning. This rapid transition has left little time to assess what we know (and do not know) about family engagement best practices within the virtual space. This brief offers an overview of four best practices and lessons learned from research and practice to assist caregivers and teachers with the transition to engaging families virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Virtual learning can be a strain on parents and children’s mental health and time. It is imperative that caregivers and teachers use all the tools necessary to ensure education and resources are provided in the least intrusive, most beneficial ways possible to ensure children, especially those at the critical ages of 0-5, are getting what they need out of virtual learning and early childhood experiences.
3. Buffing Child Maltreatment: School Connectedness as a Protective Factor in a Community Sample of Young Adults(Goldstine-Cole, K.)
“Identified or not, maltreatment increases the risk for substance use disorder, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder across the lifespan. This study examines whether school connectedness (SC), the sense of belonging at school derived from affective relationships in the school context and commitment to learning, protects against such effects. Specifically, in paper one, data from 349 young adults who completed the Protective Factor Questionnaire is used to develop a retrospective five-indicator, measurement model of school connectedness for K-12 and elementary, middle, and high school.… Paper two evaluates SC as a moderator in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and mental well-being during early adulthood, ages 18-25. Results indicate that SC buffers against intrafamilial maltreatment as well as five individual forms of abuse and neglect.… These results suggest that schools have roles beyond that of mandatory reporter in supporting the wellbeing of maltreated children.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Child abuse and neglect numbers may have risen during the pandemic and schools’ closures, despite fewer reports. Teachers and school staff are one of the main reporters of abuse and neglect, and with the move to virtual learning for many, picking up on the signs is more difficult. TexProtects is working to spread awareness in schools about staff intervening in abuse or neglect, not just as mandatory reporters. See our resources on recognizing abuse on our website.
4. Trauma-Informed Care in Child Welfare: An Imperative for Residential Childcare Workers (Brend, D. & Sprang, G.)
“Rates of traumatization among residential child welfare professionals are alarmingly high. The well-being of these professionals is associated both with their intention to stay in their jobs and outcomes of children in their care.… This manuscript details experiences empirically shown to have potential negative impacts on professional well-being, discusses why these impacts are of particular concern for residential childcare workers, and describes the types of organizational cultures and climates that appear to mitigate these negative impacts. Trauma-informed care at the organizational level is proposed both as a means to reduce harm to child welfare professionals and promote the rehabilitation of children within the child welfare system.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Organizations and agencies working with children from hard places need to implement trauma-informed care training for all staff. Not only does training help mitigate secondary trauma of professionals, but it also helps professionals best serve the children they are working with. TexProtects worked on HB18 last session to ensure school staff receive trauma training; however, Texas has more work to do to ensure high quality training and implementation are consistent across all sectors that impact children and families.
5. AGED OUT: How We’re Failing Youth Transitioning Out of Foster Care (Cancel, S., Fathallah, S., Nitze, M., Sullivan, S., & Wright-Moore, E)
“To understand the aging out experiences of foster youth, Think Of Us and Bloom conducted in-field discovery sprints using proven human-centered design and participatory research methodologies in five participating locations” (Santa Clara, Solano, San Francisco, and San José counties in California, Hennepin County in Minnesota, and New York City). “During these sprints, we spoke to a total of 206 people in 92 research sessions. The research team conducted in-depth interviews and participatory design workshops with a wide range of foster youth, former foster youth, child welfare staff and leadership, supportive adults, foster parents, and more…Over the course of the project, three key themes began to emerge. To us, these themes represent where the child welfare system is most failing transition-age youth, and where we must urgently focus our attention. These themes are: 1. Healing and dealing with trauma; 2. Centering youth in their preparedness; and 3. Helping youth build a supportive network.”
TexProtects Takeaway: The state must not forget the needs of youth transitioning out of the foster care system. TexProtects is supporting our partners’ work this legislative session to support improved services for transitioning youth. Check out our bill tracker to learn more.
6. Why Do We Focus on the Prenatal-to-3 Age Period? Understanding the Importance of the Earliest Years (Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin)
This research brief discusses why researchers and practitioners in early childhood consistently describe the first few years of life as being the most critical period for children’s development. The authors highlight that investing in families during a child’s earliest years can have a lasting impact on children’s lifelong health and well-being. They point to key practices that can strengthen families, and therefore, promote the healthy development of children. Some of these factors include access to quality health care for mothers, safe and supportive childcare settings, and other social services, such as early intervention programs for children with developmental delays or disabilities.
TexProtects Takeaway: TexProtects is part of the Prenatal to Three initiative alongside our partners Children at Risk and Texans Care for Children. We support investment in increasing the following for low-income mothers and infants and toddlers: access to prenatal and postpartum health services; health screening and successful connection to necessary services; and access to high-quality childcare programs. Read more about the initiative.
7. Three Trimesters to Three Years: Promoting Early Development (Princeton University and the Brookings Institution)
“The period from pregnancy through age three is the one in which the most rapid growth of the brain and behavior occurs. Yet most researchers and policy makers have treated the nine months of development during pregnancy separately from the first three years of life. Prenatal experiences are part and parcel of the postnatal experience of mothers and their babies; the postnatal period is sometimes referred to as the fourth trimester, a way to highlight the fact that after a child’s birth, mothers themselves need continuing services and screening. Indeed, children’s wellbeing very much depends on their mothers’ health and wellbeing. The title of this issue of the Future of Children, “Three Trimesters to Three Years,” highlights continuity in development, the continuing intersection of mother and baby, and the rapid growth that occurs from conception to three years of age.”
The prenatal and postnatal periods are critical to a child’s health and development. We advocate for investment in home visiting programs that support families in nurturing their children’s development and resilience from an early age, such as Family Connects and Nurse-Family Partnership. Read more on home visiting programs.
How Texas Bills Become Laws
The process of bills becoming laws in Texas.
Frontline For Children | January 2021
“In this brief, Child Trends examines the prevalence of children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) in the foster care system. CYSHCN have—or are at increased risk for—chronic physical, developmental, or behavioral/emotional conditions. This brief provides an overview of the literature on CYSHCN and their experiences in the foster care system, a detailed explanation of the methodology used for the current brief, an explanation of our findings, and a brief discussion of practice and policy implications.” A key finding of this research suggests that “children and youth’s reasons for entering foster care, their experiences while in care, and their reasons for leaving care vary depending on whether they have an SHCN.”
TexProtects Takeaway: 18% of children in Texas foster care have special health care needs with older youth and Black or Hispanic children having a higher likelihood of having an identified special health care need. These children come into foster care for different reasons than their peers and have different experiences and needs. More must be done to identify which placements and strategies are available and needed to best ensure their safety and success in care.
This feature of the MMWR features research on national child maltreatment reports during eight months of the global pandemic. Findings suggest that during COVID-19, “the total number of emergency department visits related to child abuse and neglect decreased, but the percentage of such visits resulting in hospitalization increased, compared with 2019. The pandemic has affected health care–seeking patterns for child abuse and neglect, raising concerns that victims might not have received care and that severity of injuries remained stable or worsened. Implementation of strategies to prevent child abuse and neglect is important, particularly during public health emergencies.”
3. The Neglected Ones: Time at Home During COVID-19 and Child Maltreatment (Bullinger, L., Raissian, K., Feely, M., & Schneider, W.)
“We combine early release child maltreatment reports in Indiana with unique and newly available mobile phone movement data to better understand the relationship between staying at home intensively during the COVID-19 pandemic and child maltreatment. Our findings indicate that the prolonged stays at home promoted by the public health response to COVID-19 resulted in reductions in child maltreatment reports overall and in substantiated reports of maltreatment. However, relative to areas that stayed home less, children in areas that stayed home more were more likely to be both reported for and a confirmed victim of maltreatment, particularly neglect. These areas have historically been socioeconomically advantaged and experienced lower rates of maltreatment. We only observe increases in confirmed child maltreatment in metropolitan counties, suggesting that the effects of staying home on child maltreatment may reflect both the differential risk of leaving home and access to services in metropolitan–rather than non-metropolitan–counties.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Despite the decreases in reports during the earlier months of COVID-19, research supports an assumption that the stresses of COVID-19 on families is likely increasing the risk of child maltreatment. TexProtects wrote a brief summarizing relevant research that points to the ways in which economic recessions, unemployment, increases in family violence, mental health, substance use, and parental stress have been correlated to increases in child abuse and neglect.
4. Child Well-Being Spotlight: Children Living in Kinship Care and Nonrelative Foster Care Are Unlikely to Receive Needed Early Intervention or Special Education Services (OPRE & RTI International)
“The purpose of the spotlight is to examine the degree to which early intervention and special education services are being received by children who may have developmental delays and/or compromised cognitive or academic functioning, and the difference in unmet needs between children in voluntary kinship care, formal kinship care, and nonrelative foster care.” Findings indicate that young children (ages 0-2) in nonrelative foster care are significantly likelier than those in formal kinship care or voluntary kinship care to have a developmental delay. Further, among children ages 3-17 in foster care, those in nonrelative foster care and formal kinship care are likelier to have developmental delays than those in voluntary kinship care. Authors state: “it is especially important to note that across all types of placements, most children involved with the CWS who potentially need these critical services do not receive them.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Kinship care can be a safer and more effective placement for children involved with the child protection system. TexProtects is a big proponent of putting policies in place to provide more support and access to resources to kinship caregivers, whether formal or voluntary, so that they may provide the best care for children.
5. Supporting Social-Emotional and Mental Health Needs of Young Children Through Part C Early Intervention: Results of a 50-State Survey (National Center for Children in Poverty & Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, Center for Children and Families)
“This report examines features of states’ Part C Early Intervention programs that help them identify and serve infants and toddlers with social-emotional (SE) delays and mental health conditions. A 50-state survey conducted by the National Center for Children in Poverty and Georgetown University Center for Children and Families asked state Part C Coordinators about their programs’ policies and procedures related to screening, evaluation, eligibility, services, and financing that affect the program’s capacity to meet the SE needs of infants and toddlers. The survey results are shared in this report, along with information from follow-up interviews with state Part C Coordinators. Overall, the findings point to both critical gaps in the capacity of Part C programs to meet infant-toddler SE and mental health needs and promising strategies some states are using to support children in this domain.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Increasing access and quality in Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) is a policy agenda item for the Prenatal to Three Collaborative and an unexpected but effective part of a robust system to prevent child abuse and neglect. ECI providers in Texas face numerous obstacles and this session, the legislature must increase investments so that the rates per child are adequate to meet demand and deliver quality.
6. COVID-19 Job and Income Loss Jeopardize Child Well-Being: Income Support Policies Can Help (Gennetian, L., Gassman-Pines, A., & Society for Research in Child Development)
“The burdens of job loss and continued economic uncertainty are felt by a wide range of families, though they are especially elevated among lower-income households and families of color. COVID-19-driven increases in job loss, income instability, and resulting strains on housing and food security are impairing child and family wellbeing. Temporary policy supports – such as stimulus checks, expanded Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits, rent moratoriums, and expanded food programs – helped stem these losses and protect children.” Given the demonstrated ability of income support policies to mitigate harm among children and families experiencing unemployment and insufficient access to basic needs during the global pandemic, these researchers recommend that policymakers renew and reinstate economic supports.
TexProtects Takeaway: A healthy child comes from a healthy family. Especially during this pandemic, children and their families need economic support to stay safe, nurtured, and resilient. Policymakers can ease one aspect of childhood adversity – income instability — by making sure families who are struggling get the support they need.
7. 50-State Comparison: Early Care and Education Governance (Education Commission of the States)
“This 50-State Comparison provides data on states’ early care and education governance systems, with a focus on the agencies that oversee these programs, the level of alignment of these programs and the advisory entities for early care and education in the state.” The individual profile for Texas can be found here.
TexProtects Takeaway: Texas has an increasingly fragmented system of care for young children and their families that includes the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Education Agency, Department of Family and Protective Services, Head Start Collaboration Office, and Health and Human Services among others. which makes collaboration, strategy, and coordination critical elements. The Texas Early Learning Council and PN3 Collaborative are a few of the groups working on improving collaboration and alignment to better ensure access and effectiveness of early childhood supports and services.
8. How Racism Can Affect Child Development (Harvard University: Center On the Developing Child)
“Advances in science are presenting an increasingly clear picture of how significant adversity in the lives of young children can disrupt the development of the brain and other biological systems. These early disruptions can undermine young children’s opportunities to achieve their full potential. And, while they may be invisible to those who do not experience them, there is no doubt that both systemic racism and interpersonal discrimination can lead to chronic stress activation that imposes significant hardships on families raising young children.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Childhood adversity and racism are some of the greatest public health crises in the U.S. We are working hard this legislative session with policymakers to create a Texas framework to address and prevent childhood adversity in our state. Stay tuned for ways you can advocate for this framework by signing up for our advocacy alerts on our home page.
“The federal Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 (Family First Act) seeks to keep children safely with their families through the provision of evidence-based services to prevent foster care entry… In this brief, we present two evidence-based models (EBMs), implemented in NYC, as case studies: Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) and Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP). Drawing on interviews with the purveyors of the two EBMs, as well as community-based provider agencies, we identify four key factors that influence the scale-up of EBMs in child welfare.
In addition to the brief above, the authors developed a fact sheet on program purveyors. “Program purveyors, who disseminate their program models through activities such as training staff and providing technical assistance, play an essential role in successfully implementing evidence-based models and scaling services. This fact sheet provides an overview of the role of purveyors in implementation and identifies four factors that may impact purveyors’ capacity to scale services under the Family First Act.”
TexProtects Takeaway: It is important to continue assessing various strongly-backed evidence-based models that could be included under FFPSA as promising, supported, or well-supported. States must begin scaling up their use of these models under FFPSA to better serve vulnerable and at-risk children and families.
10. Using Operations Research & Analytics to Increase the Effectiveness of Service Allocation to Families with Infants Out of Home Care Due to Substance Abuse in the Texas Child Welfare System (Barrameda, C., Clemente, J., Conroy, J., & Calnan, M.)
“This project is an extension of a 2018-2019 academic year MQP that conducted an initial investigation improving service allocation in the United States child welfare system. Our team narrowed the scope of the project by improving service allocation to infants from urban areas of Texas who were placed into foster care as a result of parental substance abuse. Through predictive analytics, we determined the impact services and other factors had on a child’s length of stay in the system. Then using prescriptive analytics, we developed a mechanism that reallocates services to minimize a child’s length of stay in the system. Our results demonstrate an opportunity to improve service allocation by examining both a child’s case details and the environmental factors surrounding their case.”
TexProtects Takeaway: Child involvement with the child welfare system due to parental substance use is a subject that needs more attention. TexProtects advocates for these children to receive the best care possible, including minimizing their continued involvement in the system. Texas can take note from this study to better improve service allocation to these vulnerable children and families.
