Title : Utilizing Publicly Available Data to Inform Prevention Planning for Adults and Children Involved with Child Welfare Service Systems
Abstract:
In the United States, there is an emerging trend to move public child welfare service efforts upstream in the fight against maltreatment. By addressing community level conditions and barriers that keep families from functioning in a healthy and thriving manner, service systems can more adequately address root challenges that contribute to adverse experiences for children and their caregivers. Part of this shift in service paradigm requires that child welfare service agencies and their community partners engage in robust assessment of local and state conditions, strengths and needs. These needs often center on access to affordable care, the presence of early childhood services, food insecurity, housing, and employment conditions (social determinants of health). There are multiple sources of underutilized publicly available data that can inform this prevention programming. In this presentation, the co-authors will provide an overview of data available for use in assessment of individual adult, child and family level conditions that could be influential in the delivery of child welfare services. Specifically, information regarding the use of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration’s Drug Abuse Warning Network, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration’s National Mental Health Services Survey, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System will be provided.
