Child Welfare

Creating systems focused on youth, family, and community well-being

Children and youth experience better physical, emotional, and social health when they have access to safe, stable, and caring relationships, as well as supportive and nurturing environments. Conversely, exposure to child abuse and neglect decreases the chances that they will reach their full potential and truly thrive. Many children still experience abuse and neglect, resulting in involvement with the child welfare system.

On June 18th, 2024, AIR hosted Transforming Child Welfare Systems: A Discussion with Systems Leaders, a webinar with three nationally recognized child welfare leaders and early adopters of integrating health, human services, and child welfare systems to improve youth, family, and community outcomes.

Historically, child welfare systems have focused on serving children and youth (and their families) who have been, or are at risk of being, removed from their homes and placed into foster care. This is a worthwhile and important goal. Ideally, child welfare agencies can also work to actively prevent child abuse and neglect. To do so, they must partner with families, communities, public health, education, healthcare, and other systems to adopt cross-cutting, evidence-based approaches that help build the protective capacities of both families and communities.

AIR is committed to advancing this shift by promoting this public health approach and supporting evidence-supported strategies for children and families who are already systems-involved. AIR aspires to help young people, families, and communities flourish.

Our Work

AIR brings years of experience in advancing public health prevention strategies and response-interventions through research, evaluation, and training and technical assistance. This interdisciplinary focus and collaborative approach allow us to wraparound child welfare systems to address the root-causes of child maltreatment and its impacts.

AIR’s interdisciplinary expertise includes the following:

Behavioral health
Child welfare
Education and early childhood development
Health care and related financing
Juvenile justice and delinquency prevention
Public health and prevention
Substance use prevention and addictions treatment and recovery
Trauma informed systems
Violence prevention
Youth and family engagement
Participatory and co-design methodologies

Contact

Bridging Research to Practice

AIR’s research and evaluation identifies and evaluates best practices while building an evidence base of effective strategies. Our training and technical assistance supports the implementation of these best practices and effective strategies across health, human services, and educational domains to build capacity. Our approach centers youth, family, and community voices through true partnerships to help everyone thrive.

Explore these examples of AIR’s interdisciplinary approaches to improved child, youth, and family well-being.

Advancing prevention through public health approaches:

Promoting fairness in child welfare and juvenile justice systems: