Nebraska Children Events

9:30 am -- Press conference
10:30 am -- Welcome, Transition, and Celebration
11:30 am - Noon -- Lunch
Noon - 3 pm -- Listening Session with CWLA and DLH

Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and a coalition of statewide partners are proud to celebrate the successes of the first year of Bring Up Nebraska, promoting local community partnerships to keep children safe, support strong parents, and help families address life’s challenges before they become a crisis. Governor Pete Ricketts and First Lady Susanne Shore will be on hand to help celebrate the hard work and successes of the community-based prevention efforts.

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) has been in existence for 99 years 99 years as a membership-based standard setting and advocacy organization for child welfare and related services. Throughout our history we have worked with our member organizations, researchers, child welfare stakeholders, and others to define aspirational policies, best practices and collaborative strategies that will ensure the safety, permanency, and well-being of children, youth, and their families. CWLA focuses in particular on children and families who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing abuse and neglect. We provide information, opportunities for shared learning, training and consultation and advocacy at the federal level for policies and funding that support implementation of best practices.

DLH is a trusted provider of program management solutions supporting large-scale Federal health and human service programs, with a focus on programs populations that are at risk. For more than 20 years, DLH has focused on ensuring children and their families receive the best early education and parenting support for a solid foundation. Through our work with Federal agencies servicing immigrant families, we ensure we meet the social service needs of immigrant children, youth, and families as they transition through family residential centers. In addition, our disease prevention work and our work training substance abuse treatment professionals have helped us understand how capacity building can positively affect the populations we serve.

In line with DLH’s work supporting children and families at risk and CWLA’s initiatives to advance best practices and collaborative strategies for the child welfare workforce, we share the Children’s Bureau’s dedication to improving the lives and futures of our most vulnerable children and families. Together, we are working to propose a new way of helping child welfare agencies build capacity through the support and services provided by the Children's Bureau.

We understand child welfare agencies cannot do this work alone, and a multi-system approach to child protection and child well-being promotes sustainability. An effective child welfare system must include contributions from all segments of society. Organizations providing social services, law enforcement, health, mental health, education, housing, economic self-sufficiency, and faith-based support all must contribute.

DLH and CWLA recognize when we integrate systems, not only can child welfare agencies achieve their individual purposes and goals, but this integration also can have a huge effect on the array and quality of services delivered to young children and families. Our experience tells us that to build capacity, we must identify efficiencies to affect system change and innovate toward best practices for the current generation of families.

1) Purpose of Listening Sessions
To understand:
• What types of supports and resources are needed for child welfare agencies and their partners to develop internal and external capacity to prevent and address child maltreatment; and
• How your agency currently uses data to measure and assess your capacity building strategies.

2) Key questions:
a) Who are the key agencies and community organizations in the community that need to work together in order to achieve improved outcomes for the children and families you serve?
b) What does your collaborative capacity look like? What are its major challenges and accomplishments?
c) How does the state child welfare agency influence and work with other agencies and community organizations around the prevention of child maltreatment (organizations such as: law enforcement, public health, mental health, substance abuse, education, child care, housing, economic self-sufficiency and faith-based organizations)?
d) How/Where do agencies find and use current materials on capacity building?
e) How does the collaborative and the individual agencies use data to improve outcomes for children and families?

3) Suggested representation includes: CW Director, Prevention, Foster Care, key community partners and other key agencies your agency is currently partnering with or would like to partner with (including, but not limited to: public health, substance abuse, mental health, education, housing, legal partners (court, CASA etc...) research community).

4) Agenda:
Introductions
Agency Overview and Key Issues
Discussion of Key Questions
Follow-Up Questions/Thoughts
Summary and next steps

When registering, please let us know if you will be attending either the press event or the listening session or both.