While Wisconsin defines neglect as the failure, refusal, or inability to care for a child for reasons other than poverty, we can’t ignore the fact that 85% of families investigated by our child welfare system live below 200% of the federal poverty line. Earlier this year, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago published a report on the impacts of poverty on child neglect and abuse. The message was clear. Income supports to families with low incomes, like those provided through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, reduce the risk of child maltreatment and the child welfare system involvement that results from it. What if we were to think about programs like TANF that we commonly think of as anti-poverty programs as child maltreatment prevention programs that keep families together? How might we build partnerships across systems that empower the economic stability of overloaded families? How might we follow the evidence, even if it contradicts how we have always done things, so that we may change the conditions that overload families and make them vulnerable to our most intrusive systems? Clare Anderson from Chapin Hall joins the podcast to share her expertise on the root causes and role of poverty and their intersection with child neglect, and the practices and policies that effectively address the economic needs of overloaded families that may reduce family separation for reasons of neglect.
Host: Luke Waldo
Experts: Clare Anderson – Senior Policy Fellow – Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
:00-:19 – Clare Anderson – “When families have access to sufficient economic and concrete supports through a variety of mechanisms, the risk for involvement with child welfare goes down.”
:20-5:10 – Luke Waldo – Introduction to Economic Stability and Clare Anderson
5:11-5:41 – Clare Anderson – Opening statement and gratitude.
5:42-6:22 – Luke – How has your work evolved from one of child and family well-being through a trauma and evidence-based intervention focus to an economic and concrete supports focus?
6:23-8:59– Clare – Early experience as a social worker in a hospital to the Obama administration in the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF), from clinical work to more upstream macro and policy work, there has always been a need to follow the evidence. The evidence has evolved over time, so Clare’s thinking has followed it.
9:00-9:27 – Luke – What did the evidence from the past few years around economic and concrete supports tell you about its intersection with child neglect?
9:28-11:55 - Clare – A few studies on living wage and child welfare involvement, Medicaid and child welfare involvement made her stop and think, “Really?” This led to the research that has been around for decades that show a strong correlation between access to economic and concrete supports and a reduction in child welfare involvement, and conversely, sudden economic shock like job loss and an increase in child welfare involvement.
11:56-12:35 – Luke – What are the underlying root causes of neglect?
12:36-15:19 - Clare – The evidence shows us that economic and concrete supports have an impact on child abuse and neglect. The lack of those supports create stressors at the individual, family, community and societal level. When we move from a Family Stress Model to a Family Investment Model, we create the bandwidth for caregivers to nurture and meet the basic needs of their children.
15:20-16:26 – Luke – Why do families that have economic stability not show up in the child welfare system?
16:27-20:21 - Clare – “Volatility on the edge of scarcity creates additional risk.” When you can buffer those risks through economic stability, then child maltreatment is less likely. Disparities between White and Black families - $180,000 and $24,000 net worth – are still disturbing.
We have mental models in this country that lead many to ignore the reality that many working families are susceptible to economic shock like the loss of a job, no access to paid family leave after the birth of a child, or a healthcare crisis that may lead to poverty.
20:22-21:05 - Luke – What are the benefits and risks of economic programs such as Women, Infant, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid?
21:06-24:29 - Clare – Medicaid expansion in states led to a reduction in child welfare involvement, especially screened-in reports for children under the age of 6. Conversely, they increased in states where Medicaid was not expanded. States with more generous SNAP and WIC benefits saw fewer reports, substantiations and family separation.
24:30-25:18 - Luke – Do these programs see themselves as part of the child maltreatment prevention system?
25:19-29:03 - Clare – If they are successful, then they keep the most intrusive systems from entering families’ lives. DHHS has convened a learning community of TANF and child welfare leaders to explore these questions. States are expanding Medicaid which prioritizes Social Determinants of Health to be able to pay for things like housing, food, and transportation. We can push out a lot more research that helps us reorient our approach to getting families what they need where they need it.
29:04-29:36 - Luke – This information hopefully provides a roadmap for our state as to how we can bring system actors together to support families more effectively.
29:37-30:57 - Clare – We now have different language and thinking within child welfare that might advance new partnerships that inspire accountability to and responsibility for prevention.
30:58-33:12 - Luke – What are the challenges facing families when it comes to accessing these economic and concrete supports?
33:13-35:19 - Clare – How might our systems take more responsibility to make things more accessible, remove barriers, and collaborate more effectively with other systems to ensure eligible families receive what they need?
35:20-37:43 - Luke – Story about Washington’s new law and how it leads to systems coordination questions as to how we ensure overloaded families are receiving the support that is available to them.
37:44-38:24 - Luke – How might we more effectively translate the research and evidence that you’ve shared today into practical strategies?
38:25-44:37 - Clare –We need a whole different operationalization of our systems collaboration than we’ve had in the past. Are we assessing families for the right things like the potential of economic shock? “Five or six years ago, I was not animated by universal childcare policy. I am now.”
Before CAPTA, the Comprehensive Child Development Act was vetoed which would have provided universal childcare to families. Policy was then influenced by the Battered Child Syndrome approach to our work, which led to a more intrusive child welfare system. Narrow our definitions of neglect and invest in differential response approaches such as Vermont.
44:38-46:17 - Luke – What are the policies and practices that show the most promise for keeping families together?
46:18-48:32 - Clare – Childcare, housing, access to healthcare and continuity in benefits, tax credits that create buffers, and reducing employment volatility all support families. States need to use data effectively to inform their strategies specific to their families’ needs and local context.
48:33-48:47 - Luke – What makes you optimistic about the future of this work?
48:48-50:45 - Clare – “I am extraordinarily optimistic.” Systems, states, organizations, and communities are as animated by this shift in thinking as I am, and we are already seeing real progress being made. We are seeing shifts towards Mandated Supporters rather than Mandated Reporters with an understanding that support requires concrete solutions rather than nebulous responses.
50:46-52:39 - Luke – Gratitude and Closing
52:40-53:14 - Clare – Gratitude for all the researchers and families that have led to this conversation and shift in thinking.
53:15-53:19 – Luke – Final Gratitude
53:33-55:10 - Luke – 3 Key Takeaways
55:11-56:38 – Luke – Closing Credits
Join the conversation and connect with us!
Clare Anderson 00:07
When families have access to sufficient economic and concrete supports through a variety of mechanisms, that the risk for involvement with child welfare goes down.
Luke Waldo 00:30
Welcome to Season Two of Overloaded: Understanding Neglect, where we explore the critical pathways that lead to child and family well-being and reduce family separations for reasons of neglect. Hey everyone, this is Luke Waldo, your host for this podcast series and the Director of Program Design and Community Engagement for the Institute for Child and Family Well-being, our partnership between Children's Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Helen Bader School of Social Welfare.
Luke Waldo 01:13
In season 1 of this podcast series, we explored poverty and its intersection with child neglect. While Wisconsin defines neglect as the failure, refusal or inability to care for a child for reasons other than poverty, it is impossible to ignore the fact that 85% of families investigated by our child welfare system live below 200% of the federal poverty line.
Earlier this year, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, one of our country’s leading research and policy centers that focuses on child welfare and family well-being, published a comprehensive report on the impacts of poverty on child neglect and abuse. The message was clear: “Income supports to families with low incomes, like those provided through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (or TANF) program, reduce risk for child maltreatment and the child welfare system involvement that results from it.” What if we were to think about programs like TANF or housing vouchers that we have traditionally thought of as anti-poverty programs as child maltreatment prevention programs that keep families together? If we read TANF’s purpose statement carefully, it seems clear that it was intended to do just that. “States use their TANF grants to fund monthly cash assistance payments to low-income families with children, as well as a wide range of services that are designed to address one or more of the program’s four broad purposes.” The first purpose reads: Provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives
So, in light of the evidence that shows that families that are living in poverty or experiencing a financial shock are much more likely to be investigated and separated by the child welfare system, how might we invest in children and families to overcome poverty and build wealth? How might we build partnerships across systems that empower the economic stability of overloaded families? And how might we follow the evidence, even if it undermines or contradicts how we have always done things, so that we may change the conditions that overload families and make them vulnerable to our most intrusive systems?
I invited Clare Anderson from Chapin Hall, and one of the authors of their report, to have this conversation today to share her expertise on the underlying root causes and role of poverty on overloading families and child neglect; the practices and policies that effectively address the economic needs of overloaded families; and the challenges and opportunities to advance these practices and policies that may reduce family separation for reasons of neglect.
Clare Anderson is a Senior Policy Fellow at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. She uses research, policy, and fiscal levers to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families. She engages child welfare agencies, stakeholders, and constituents in large-scale system change. Additionally, Clare is a national thought leader on economic and concrete supports as core to prevention of child welfare involvement, and the development of a family and child well-being system that prioritizes family support and cross-sector partnerships.
Prior to joining Chapin Hall, Clare was Deputy Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) in the Obama Administration. There, she provided leadership for federal programs including child welfare, runaway and homeless youth, domestic and intimate partner violence, and teen pregnancy prevention. During her tenure at ACYF, Clare co-led the development and implementation of a national well-being policy agenda. She was among the chief architects of the effort to address trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and toxic stress in children known to child welfare. Previously, she spent a decade at the Center for the Study of Social Policy helping states and urban jurisdictions change policies and practices to improve outcomes. Clare started her career as a frontline social worker.
Clare, thank you again for joining us for this conversation. I’d like to begin our conversation by learning more about you and your experience researching child neglect, poverty and their impacts on family well-being. Welcome, Clare.
Clare Anderson 05:11
Thank you so much for having me. I'm just delighted to be on the podcast today and being engaged in this conversation and dialogue with you and with the nation about what could make a difference for kids and families and how we might reorient our services and supports to ensure that we are, we are helping families strengthening their ability to care for their kids in their own homes. So super grateful to be here. Thank you.
Luke Waldo 05:41
Well, thank you again. And it's a real pleasure to have you today. So I'd like to start, as I mentioned, with your history, in this field, right, as well as this kind of recent evolution that you and I've talked about, in the past few months, specifically around how you see our role within the child welfare, or child maltreatment prevention systems. And so your past work around well-being heavily focused on addressing trauma in the child welfare system with evidence-based interventions. However, your more recent work has really evolved to focus on economic and concrete supports. Can you tell us how that evolution evolution took place? And why?
Clare Anderson 06:24
Yeah, absolutely. And maybe I started back with where you ended, my, my experience in child welfare. I actually started working in the emergency room at a children's hospital, really on their trauma protection team really focused in on meeting kids and families where they were when there had been abuse or neglect, suspected, and and in emergency rooms. And, in doing that work for about a decade, it, it occurred to me at some point, that there might be a better way to come at the same problem that I was seeing over and over and over again. And I transition to policy and more macro-level work. So moving from clinical work upstream to more macro level thinking. And, I'd say that over the last three or five years, my work has continued to focus more on okay, if I'm still saying the same thing is the nature of the problem that I'm trying to solve is the solution for that problem found someplace other than child welfare. Similarly to how I experienced that way back in like 1998 to 2000, might the solution be found in PA in the policy space? So I want to make that a little more concrete. Really, my work today is a natural extension of the Wellbeing Framework that Bryan Samuels and I worked together to develop in the 2010s at HHS and really helping child welfare to begin to think about integrating well-being robustly into safety and permanency and having it be a co-equal in child welfare that if kids and families were coming to the attention to child welfare, how might they? How might we orient so that they have something better as a result of engagement with child welfare? And I really see the evidence of economic and concrete supports continuing to influence my thinking, is evidence-based policymaking bringing evidence to inform policies, and bringing evidence to explore what direction to put energy and effort.
Luke Waldo 09:02
So when you think about the evidence, right, as somebody who has now for a couple of decades really been focused on not just policy change, but also more specifically evidence-based policy change. What did the evidence from the past few years, in particular, tell you about the intersection of economic and concrete supports, neglect, and the families that are impacted by our child welfare system?
Clare Anderson 09:27
Yeah, you know, several years ago, maybe for this point, I saw a couple of studies that really had me rethink many things. I saw a study about minimum wage and increase in the minimum wage having an effect on involvement with child welfare, Medicaid expansion having an effect on family involvement with child welfare. And I had this moment where I thought well, that that ever since isn't fully consistent with how I've understood this problem, and I wanted to understand more about that, surely this isn't, isn't like, really? And so what many people have seen in my work of late is trying to, in some ways, prove myself wrong or prove these studies wrong only to find that there's the researchers for more than 30 years, have been pretty consistently finding the same thing. That when families have access to sufficient economic and concrete supports, through a variety of mechanisms, that the risk for involvement with child welfare goes down. And when their economic shocks are cumulative material hardship, housing instability, food instability, less discretionary money, job shocks, that their risk for in the deployment of the government's, the activation and deployment of the government's, most intrusive intervention that we have in the lives of families, that risk goes up. And so really, I view my work as trying to understand the evidence, having the evidence, surprise me, and then being surprised that I didn't know about the evidence, that it was hidden behind paywalls, that it wasn't coalesced in a way that I saw it. And a deep gratitude for the researchers who long before me and with great energy and effort have been trying to help the US see and understand this for a very long time.
Luke Waldo 11:56
So as somebody who has paid attention to the evidence, and who's explored the evidence, probably much more thoroughly than many of us do, what do you see as the evidence really underlying the root causes of neglect? You've talked obviously, about economic hardship, poverty, jobs, you know, job loss. Thinking about the decades of looking at the evidence, what do you see as really the underlying root causes of child neglect?
Clare Anderson 12:35
I want to back up and reframe that question a little bit in, and I want to expand our thinking beyond neglect. We see the evidence showing us that economic and concrete supports, or the lack thereof having an effect on both neglect and abuse. So we often think about this solely from someone doesn't have something and that is neglect. But I think it's more complex than that. I think that there are there is a way to understand economic and concrete supports are or the lack thereof, in the lives of families creating stressors, stressors in neighborhoods, stressors in the household, stressors at the community level, I might even argue at the societal level that when there is not access to sufficient resources to meet basic needs, creates a potential cascade of challenges for families that elevate risk. We see that in a family stress model, theoretical model. And when that family stress model is turned into a family investment model, you know, from a theoretical or conceptual standpoint, we see that investing in families creates the context in which families can direct their energy and attention to nurturing relationships and caregiving in the household and having the bandwidth to provide for kids, for their children. So, you know, I think the root causes are a multitude of interrelated factors. But certainly, the deployment of Child Protective Services and pointing it predominantly and at families who are of limited income really does beg the question of, of the converse, if families who have a fair amount of money, how might they be buffered against abuse or neglect, or the deployment of Child Protective Services. So the research and the evidence just sort of makes you turn the kaleidoscope a little bit. And understand both root causes and root solutions very differently.
Luke Waldo 15:20
I want to work off of the point you just made about the inverse. Right? So, you know, as I shared in the intro 85% of families that are investigated by our child welfare system, are living below 200% of the federal poverty level, right.
Luke Waldo 15:42
So why? Why do you believe? And you've answered this at some level, but I want to give you an opportunity to expand out why do you, why do you believe that the families that do have their basic needs met, that have some form of economic stability, and we could have a long conversation about whether or not the federal poverty line is truly financial or economic stability. That said, why do you believe that those families that do have certain levels of economic stability are not being investigated, are not showing up in our child welfare system or our child welfare system investigations?
Clare Anderson 16:27
I think they're probably a multitude of reasons. The evidence of economic and concrete supports suggests that there's something particular about volatility on the edge of scarcity. That creates additional risk. And when you have sufficient resources to buffer those economic shocks, I think that that creates context in which there might be less abuse and neglect and certainly less deployment of Child Protective Services. By way of example, the net worth of White families is considerably larger than the net worth of Black families. And while in this most recent consumer finance survey from the Federal Reserve, we see a pretty exponential bump in net worth of Black families. The disparity is, is still enormous. In the 2019 data, the net worth of White families, the median net worth is about $180,000. And the median net worth of Black families is about $24,000. So there's a different buffer, I think is part of the answer. I think another part of the answer is when families have sufficient resources, they are able to access services to address things like substance use disorders or mental health challenges, or to have more agency to leave intimate partner violence situations, right? So there are more resources there that reduce the very proximal risk factors that we see show up in child welfare pretty frequently. So those are just a few examples. I think we probably could talk all day about the various ways in which having additional money or access to resources, creates buffers. I also though, do want to note that we see some really interesting data for working families, right? We have and I bring that up because we have, I think, a mental model about who's coming to the attention of child welfare. That is families who are not working or families who have substance abuse problems that create such catastrophes in their lives. That is not that that's why kids are being abused or neglected. There are a few studies that show us something very interesting. Paid Family Leave for example of families who are working and have jobs that offer a good benefit package. Or a state has expanded paid family leave, we see reductions in abusive head trauma for young children. We also see foreclosures of home purchases is increasing risk for involvement with child welfare as well. So understanding that economic shocks, when sufficiently stressful in the lives of families, put far more families at risk than I think we fully understand.
Luke Waldo 20:22
Thank you, Clare, I'd like to shift now, very concretely into kind of the economics of neglect or economics of child maltreatment. And, again, give you an opportunity to to expand upon some of the things that you've already shared, and more specifically, how poverty contributes to child neglect, child maltreatment and family separation. And let's just start with some of the kind of concrete programs, concrete supports and programs that are available to families. So how do our current safety net programs like WIC, SNAP, otherwise known as food stamps by many, and Medicaid create both benefits and risks for low-income families?
Clare Anderson 21:06
I'll start with Medicaid because I noted it early on. We, and I think about Medicaid as health coverage, which is, you know, access to health care providers, and access to health care benefits. We see states that expanded Medicaid early on compared to states that did not have reduced involvement with child welfare. And one of the really interesting findings in a study from 2019 shows us that the rate of screened-in neglect reports for children under the age of six decreased in states that expanded Medicaid but increased in states that did not expand Medicaid. So we see this effect in several other studies that are not related to Medicaid, where there seems to be a really interesting effect happening for young kids in particular, that may have something to do with the research angle, particular study. But it might also have something to do with what's happening out in the environment for young kids. You mentioned SNAP, which is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and WIC, the Women Infants and Children program and let me talk about those. A recent study from 2022, looking at individual policies inside of SNAP found that states with more generous SNAP policies experience large reductions in CPS reports, fewer substantiation, and fewer foster care placements. So I also want to elevate that last finding. Often we think about or I've been talking about involvement with child welfare. And many times I mean reports into the hotline or investigations or substantiation, but I also want to make sure that people understand and that many of these studies also show us an effect on foster care placements, the removal of a child from his or her family and placed into foster care. So that's really important for us to understand that these upstream policies, SNAP, TANF, that you talked about, at the very beginning, have enough facts that the decision-making there seems to be related to kids entering foster care. Really important for us to understand SNAP and WIC together, or separately also, show us decrease, when families access those benefits show us a decrease in substantiated maltreatment reports. So we see this sort of across the public benefit platform.
Luke Waldo 24:31
I'm curious as somebody who has worked in government and now working at Chapin Hall, who oftentimes is in or interacting with both government agencies and private nonprofits, research outfits, etc. Do you see these programs that you've just talked about, or systems, do you believe that they see themselves as part of a maltreatment prevention service array, and if so, or if not, excuse me, how might we engage them differently so that they do become part of this kind of prevention service or prevention system altogether?
Clare Anderson 25:18
I think that's a great question. And I'm spending a lot of time thinking about that question and talking across the country. About that very question. And you read the first statutory purpose of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program in the opening, but I'm going to, I'm going to state it again, relative to your question. The first statutory purpose of TANF is to provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own home or with relatives. So, TANF statutorily is yoked to our prevention mandate. And one can make the argument that by extension, our public support system has that as an implicit goal to to provide assistance and support to families so that kids can be cared for in their own home. And to prevent and avert the activation and deployment of the government's most intrusive intervention of Child Protective Services and lives of families. I'm finding that states and practitioners across the country are beginning to embrace that core mandate in a variety of ways. Still small, but we are beginning to see people understand that, that not only is there a need for but there are ways today that people can operationalize a cross-sector, human service responsibility and accountability for prevention. It is possible. And we're seeing states begin to do that. The US Department of Health and Human Services has recently convened a learning community that puts together TANF leaders with child welfare leaders to explore this question. We are beginning to see states request Medicaid waivers that incorporate social determinants of health and have fee schedules that allow for Medicaid to pay for things like housing, food, transportation, they're not always pointed at or I'd say they're sort of rarely pointed at this point, specifically at preventing CPS involvement. But I think over time, we're going to see that begin to occur. And I think we also see researchers continuing to push out really rigorous studies that help us to understand how all of this is interrelated. And in doing so if you sit back and you look at this evidence long enough, it is not a foreign leader, to understand this need for a reorientation of our human service sector and our supports, to meet the needs of families to do that in communities and figure out pipelines for resourcing community-based organizations so that families get what they need where and when they need it.
Luke Waldo 29:04
Thank you. That was very helpful. I think those examples really illustrate some of the opportunities within our state, if it's not already happening, to really implement some, some needed changes to ensure that, that these different systems are talking to one another, or at least ensuring that families are aware of their opportunities, their eligibility, he's so on to, to access the services and the resources that are available to them.
Clare Anderson 29:37
Yeah, and I, I probably would also add, I think it gives people who've been working in child welfare for a long time different language about partnerships, or you know, or advocacy groups. I think it gives us different language or different ways of thinking about and what we've been asking of states for years, decades, go partner upstream, right? Go take the cause upstream or go partner with folks. But I think we very rarely understood how to operationalize that or what we were asking for, or what states we're asking for. And I think this evidence gives a whole new meaning to what the partnership is, I think it's less about asking for something for individual families. While that's important, I think it's also about helping to read this reorientation, and being clear about where responsibility and accountability for prevention truly lies and, and getting them sources to families through communities.
Luke Waldo 30:58
Awesome, thank you. So I want to kind of round out our conversation on just the emerging evidence around economic and concrete supports influencing family stability. So as I'm sure you're aware, Matthew Desmond, who did some really important work here in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, in his first book, Evicted, most recently wrote a book called Poverty, by America. And I've listened to him on a number of podcasts. And what I've found particularly interesting and troubling about his research, in this area of poverty in this country is that we have a number of programs, some of which you've talked about extensively in our conversation today, but in particular programs that are, are driven by tax credits. So the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, for example, have gotten a lot more news, especially during the pandemic, right, and the impacts that they've had on reducing childhood poverty, family poverty, etc. What I found troubling about his research, or what I've heard from him is that there are billions of dollars in this country that are earmarked for low-income families in this country that are never accessed, because families are not aware of their eligibility for those programs, or don't have the resources oftentimes to file their taxes. So I'm curious, when you think about all of these programs, because this will set up our conversation for kind of the solutions portion of our conversation, where are you still seeing real challenges, practical challenges for families to access these many economic and concrete supports that we know have a positive impact on their lives? What are those particular challenges that you see when it comes to access to these economic and concrete supports?
Clare Anderson 33:13
So I think I would start with answering that question about how all of our systems behave first. When families are accessing services and supports, or education services or childcare services, the extent to which we are asking or we've built the capacity to help families connect the dots and ensure that they are accessing the supports that are available to them, I found is really highly uneven. When I talked to, when I talked to child welfare leaders, and we've just released a survey of child welfare leaders asking them about how often they are asking families how often our child welfare systems are asking families about their benefits or whether or not Child Welfare has the capacity to navigate families to those benefits, actually pretty slim capacity on the side of the system. Right? So in some ways, your framing even as well is that the onus is on the family to go out and get this stuff. These are already pretty stressed families who have one or more kids who are making decisions about where and how to put their time to make their households work as smoothly as possible. And I think we don't first look at us and say where and how do we reorient to make things more accessible to ensure that administrative burdens are reduced to do cross-programmatic eligibility to ensure we have the capacity to navigate and walk families through accessing these resources that we build our own barriers that make it harder for families to access the dollars that are available to them.
Luke Waldo 35:21
Thank you that's, that's helpful. It makes me think about a conversation I had just yesterday with a partner in Washington State. Because Washington State, earlier this year passed a bill that quite dramatically changed how they approach family separation into their child welfare system, right, that basically raised the standard to imminent risk of harm, physical harm to the child. So essentially, shifting families that are experiencing, for example, financial instability, certain neglect that doesn't necessarily lead to physical harm, as essentially not eligible for family separation. And I had this this conversation yesterday in which I asked the question of when you then are, approaching those families that are not going to be separated by the system, but are clearly still vulnerable, right, are still overloaded? Is there a process in which the child welfare professional, the initial assessment professional, for example, do they have a process in which they are determining whether or not that family has access to the supports concrete supports, for example, that they're eligible for? Right? How are our systems actually talking to one another to ensure that that family three months from now doesn't come back to the attention of the child welfare system if in fact, their real challenge is, is poverty? Right? And there's not a good answer for that, necessarily. Right. And I don't think that Washington is alone in this. So. So I think I think what you've just shared, I think, is really important. It's something that we all need to consider within the system, as professionals, because as you pointed out, when we're talking about overloaded families, the stressors are significant. And the kind of the ability to have the executive functioning to navigate complex systems is just, it's, it's stressed, right? And we need to be able to facilitate that in a different way of being more direct. That sets up our transition here into how might we better support overloaded families the with the ultimate goal of our initiative here of reducing family separations for reasons of neglect. And how do we do that through the use of concrete and economic supports? Right. And so I guess, more specifically, how, how might we more effectively translate all the research and evidence that you've shared today into practical policies and practice practices? Right. So in other words, what practical strategies can you offer to individuals that are working directly with overloaded families?
Clare Anderson 38:24
I think there are a multitude of them. And we've just talked about some of them, right, which is, we should first and foremost be thinking about, what does the family need in terms of meeting its basic needs? And how do I help them accomplish that? That requires a whole different set of partnerships and operationalization of partnerships in a very different way than I think we've had before. I think it also and I think we've previewed this a little bit to families are in communities where they are accessing family resource centers, or childcare centers or other kinds of supportive home visiting other kinds of supportive services. And we should really be thinking about what are we assessing for? Ae we assessing for economic shocks? Are we assessing for cumulative material hardship? Are we making a set of assumptions that families need service navigation, because we know from the evidence that there's a lot of money and benefits and resources left on the table, and that part of our job is not just for taking care of the child for eight hours, but it's also about navigation to other things that make a difference in the lives of families. I am going to also talk about at the policy level, like the set of policies that that might animate us might be different than what they've always been if we're focused on child welfare, or we're focused on preventing abuse and neglect, right? Said differently, five or six years ago, I don't know that I, well, I'm certain I would not have been animated by policies like universal childcare. I am now. And I am a child welfare person, I you know, I've been doing Child Welfare kinds of work for 33 years at this point. I'm, I'm mostly animated by these bigger policies that can create context for families that make it possible to have nurturing, attentive, focused relationships, relational health, in the family, to reduce risk for involvement with child welfare. So I think, you know, what, what we what we're focused on, how we're focused on, what we're assessing for, and what we're making sure is part of the holistic set of services and supports. And I'll do a little bit of a tangent here, that's policy and policy history, I guess, because I see the world through a policy lens. And so I almost can't, I can't answer a question about on the ground, without reminding us that for almost every single child welfare policy that we have, we bifurcate or separate out policies that relate to resourcing families separate and distinct from policies that are about child safety. You opened this question talking about Washington state, and it's new, we look at it as at what constitutes the ability of the state to bring a child into foster care in this imminent danger. When CAPTA, the Child Abuse Prevention Treatment Act passed, several years prior, the Comprehensive Child Development Act was vetoed, it would have provided universal childcare 24/7 for all families, and it was vetoed. And instead, a policy that was really focused on this imminent danger on the back of the battered child syndrome book, right and work from Dr. Kemp, so they were separated there. And then Child Welfare really was pushed and designed to address this super imminent danger thing that was being written about. And then we've expanded over time, to these more like well-being things that have brought kids to the attention of child welfare, because the the bigger system doesn't address those problems effectively. Not enough resources, pointed in prevention and, and support. And so Child Welfare gets deployed and activated. Right. So as we start to narrow the window of things that will bring kids into foster care, I think we can continue to make the mistake of separating those policy decisions from economic and concrete support decisions so differently. I fully support us narrowing our definitions of neglect. But we also have to at the same time, craft some type of economic differential response or expansion of other kinds of supportive programs that meet basic needs, and address these wellbeing concerns. At the same time. I'll give you an example Vermont, it has the highest rate of reported neglect in the US, but the lowest rate of substantiated neglect. They have an economic differential response that includes their TANF system, and their other supportive network systems to meet family's basic needs so that child welfare is not the entity that responds to those concerns.
Luke Waldo 44:38
I appreciate you bringing up the Vermont example because that's been coming up a lot in our conversations recently about the opportunities to potentially split off part of our child welfare system into a system that is focusing on empowering families who, quite frankly, are coming to the attention of the system solely because of economic shock or right, kind of chronic poverty and therefore being able to deploy many of the services and supports that, that you've identified here today. And so I think it's important to note examples where that's already happening, right? Whether formally or, or, you know, through just some kind of implemented processes that have met specific needs. So thank you for sharing that. I also want to revisit real quickly, you mentioned universal childcare. I think a couple a couple times in that last response. And I'm curious what the evidence is showing in those cases, because I know there are some states that have deployed some universal approaches, whether that's universal childcare, right universal home visiting, that's something that we've been exploring at the Institute here, in certain counties across the state to kind of round out our conversation by really focusing on potential solutions, right. And so what what practices and policies are likely to have the greatest impact on reductions in child maltreatment, and in keeping families together?
Clare Anderson 46:19
I think it really is a package of things. I don't think the evidence suggests that there is only one thing that is going to make the biggest did you know that we do X and the problem is solved? So I'd caveat it there. But certainly, I think that we do see in the evidence, pretty consistently that childcare has an effect on reducing involvement with child welfare. We know that housing and housing stability often brings or instability often brings children and families to the attention of child welfare. And we talked a little bit about foreclosures earlier. Access to health care and continuity of benefits, I think that the tax credits, which really do serve as a buffer or additional income for families are beneficial. You know, reducing employment volatility seems to have an effect as well. So consistent employment, where families can bank on the amount of money that's coming in instead of big swings in income. So there, I think there are a number of them. I often get this question, or if I only have $1, where should I spend it? I also think it's really important to use data in a state or in a jurisdiction to understand local context. Are there specific things that are elevating risk for families, in our community or in our state? Because $1 spent in state A might not be the same effect as that $1 spent in state B You know, it's complicated. And yet, we have more than enough information now, to act.
Luke Waldo 48:32
That leads me to the last question, which is really about your kind of vision for the future of this work. And what, Clare Anderson, makes you optimistic about the future of this work?
Clare Anderson 48:48
So many things. I see communities, states, child welfare agencies, TANF agencies, policymakers, legislators, being equally as animated by this evidence as I am and taking action with it. So I see progress happening already. And states making decisions about investments in families through their budgeting process. Agencies being interested in doing work differently and engaging with families, communities, taking to heart and bringing to the dialogue mandated supporters rather than mandated reporters. And supporting means truly ensuring that families get the supports they need and that they say that they need, not just a nebulous we're going to support you. So I'm extraordinarily optimistic based on evidence that things are already happening. Even if any one particular big policy hasn't passed, dates are making changes on their own. And families are beginning to be resourced differently. That's not to say that there are not enormous challenges. There absolutely are. But I think the front end of the ship seems to be turning to me.
Luke Waldo 50:46
I can't thank you enough, Clare, for especially ending on that note, but for throughout our conversation today, really pointing to the many examples where we both have learned from the evidence, what families need, and what can not only stabilize families, but really empower families to reach their potential. And just as importantly, stay out of these intrusive systems. Because I think we're in a moment where it's easy for people to assume that nothing's changed, right that that the challenges that our families face, that our communities face are the same challenges that they faced decades ago or generations ago. And if we're to do this work, and do this work effectively, and to really promote meaningful community-level change, family-level change, that I think it's really important that we elevate the examples where that's happening. And that we don't get lost in kind of the general malaise that can be overwhelming, right, especially for those of us that are working in this, oftentimes very difficult, very tragic work. And so I really appreciate you shining a light on, again, the evidence that does demonstrate that we can do better. And in many cases, we are doing better. And so thank you for all the work that you do in this field. Thank you so much for taking the time today to share that with us, to share your wisdom. And I hope to continue this conversation with you in the months and years to come.
Clare Anderson 52:40
Thank you. It's been a delight. And I think that we also should thank the researchers who've been plugging away at this diligently, concertedly, and helping us to understand. And I think, also thanking families who've been saying for some time, a very long time as you know, what it is that they need. And it just turns out, not surprisingly, that the evidence supports what they say.
Luke Waldo 53:15
Great point and a wonderful way to end, so thank you again.
Luke Waldo 53:33
I hope that today’s episode and insights from Clare Anderson have you thinking more about how we might change the conditions for overloaded families through economic and concrete supports. Before we go, I wanted to highlight three key takeaways to reflect on as we move into our next episodes.
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This podcast would not have been possible without the support and talents of Carrie Wade, who is responsible for our technical production and original music composition. I can't express my gratitude enough to Carrie for all she has given to this project. I'm also grateful to my team at the Institute for Child and Family Well-Being at Children's Wisconsin, who drive the Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities Initiative, and contributed to the ideas behind this podcast. Finally, I would like to thank all of our speakers that you have heard today and throughout the podcast for their partnership, their willingness to share their stories and expertise with me and all of you, and their commitment to improving the lives of children and families. I'm Luke Waldo, your host and executive editor. Thanks again for listening and see you next time.