Emergency Preparedness Training
In partnership with Rebuild Texas, the Center staff developed Emergency Preparedness Training courses available to foster parents and child welfare professionals seeking to further their education and earn CEU credits. Participants who attend the training learn tips on how to prepare their families and communities for natural disasters, lessons learned from survivors of Hurricane Harvey, and how to develop internal resilience to combat compassion fatigue. Please visit our online learning center to take the course. Certificates are automatically submitted with course completion.
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Building Bridges Initiative
Building Bridges (BBI) is a national initiative identifying and advancing best practice and policy for youth and families receiving residential interventions. BBI creates strong partnerships between families, youth, residential and community service organizations, and policy makers to ensure high-quality supports and services. BBI’s goals are to reduce readmissions to residential settings, strengthen youth and family engagement in treatment planning, and sustain long-term positive life outcomes. for youth and families receiving residential interventions. Expanding BBI throughout Texas will create better futures for vulnerable Texas children, youth, and families, and provide a clear roadmap for future policy and funding considerations.
For more information, updates and tools relevant to Building Bridges Initiative Texas, visit our website launched in August 2021.
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Protected: Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative
In April 2021, the Texas Center for Child and Family Studies was selected as one of the 10 sites to participate in the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities’ Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative, a 2-year cohort funded by the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, the Episcopal Health Foundation, and the Powell Foundation.
The goal of the collaborative is to build the capacity of Texas organizations to develop innovative ways to translate the research on early childhood brain development, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), positive childhood experiences, and race equity into real world applications that will advance a culture of health and well-being for all children and families in Texas.
Throughout the Center’s engagement in the Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative, we will work towards embedding brain science principles into our organization at all levels to strengthen our ability to translate brain science concepts into programs, practice, and policy change. Our learning through the collaborative will equip us to embed the core story of brain development into our mission of providing Texas child, youth, and family service agencies with the knowledge, skills, and ability they need to provide high-quality services in their communities to ultimately improve the lives of children and families in Texas.
Texas Children’s Commission
The Texas Children’s Commission is using funds from a Federal Court Improvement Program grant to staff a continuous quality improvement (CQI) analyst to support the judiciary’s efforts at improving permanency outcomes for children and youth in foster care. Our CQI analyst is using court and child welfare data to inform the judiciary about child protection systems at both statewide and local levels, in addition to providing data analysis support on special projects and assisting courts in embedding continuous quality improvement into court processes.
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Texas Permanency Outcomes Project (TXPOP)
In partnership with the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Institute for Child and Family Well Being and in collaboration with the federal Children’s Bureau, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, and the Children’s Commission, the Texas Permanency Outcomes Project (TXPOP) is developing sustainable best practices, tools and resources to be utilized by child welfare agencies and professionals across Texas to connect children to their birth families, regardless of their permanency outcome.
TXPOP is refocusing practice, strengthening the workforce, and transforming how systems treat families and children within foster care.
Vision: The TXPOP vision is to build shared power with children and families to reinvent foster care. Creating authentic relationships between all parties involved in child welfare (youth, their families and everyone naturally connect to them, foster families, caseworkers, judges) will improve permanency outcomes and strengthen families.
Pilot Region: DFPS Regions 2, 6 and 11
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