OUTCOME AREA 2

Strong, Stable, Nurturing, Safe, and Supported Families

Strong, resilient families provide children the love and care that sustains their growth and development, building foundations for bright futures.

Families are best able to nurture their children’s growth when their basic needs are met. But when families don’t have the resources to meet their basic needs, a child’s foundation for success can be compromised. When families seek help, they often can’t find the support they need. Many communities lack resources to address family needs, while national, state and local policies often perpetuate inequities.

It’s critical that we establish system-wide supports for families when they’re navigating challenging times. It must also become easier for all families to access the right support, in the right place, at the right time — while making sure those supports are culturally responsive to the unique needs of each family.

An Asian grandmother smiles as she is kissed on each cheek by her two young grandchildren.

To support all families, we must address two longstanding threats to their well-being: toxic stress and poverty.

What Will Success Look Like?

Communities help families find the services and supports they need. Strong and resilient families provide children the love and care that sustains their growth and development.

Goals

Parents are healthy, resilient and offered opportunities for healing-centered supports as needed. Families can meet the basic needs for their families, such as safety, housing, transportation, food, clothes, hygiene and employment. Supports are provided for all families, including single parent households, support for custodial and noncustodial parents, and LGBTQIA+ parents.
All families thrive with access to community social connections that honor their unique shared experiences, culture and language.
Families with young children are able to identify, connect, access and benefit from the services and supports they need. Outreach to families enables services to be proactive, family-centered, culturally responsive, strengths-based, interconnected, and provided in environments where families feel safe and supported.

Strategies

Meet basic needs of families, aligning with – and building on – the strategies identified by the Poverty Reduction Work Group.
Supports Goal A
Support and expand paid time off for parents to provide flexibility for parents to support their family and children’s health across their ages and stages.
Supports Goal A
Increase opportunities for parents and families to get support and build trusting personal connections through expanding and promoting peer-to-peer support groups, in-person (or virtual) groups and informal/online/social media groups, and hiring community leaders to serve as family liaisons at the school or district levels to help navigate transitions and school protocols, mindful of the needs for particular communities (e.g., rural communities and communities where fewer resources exist, supports in different languages, responsiveness to different cultural norms).
Supports Goal B
Expand culturally sensitive universal prenatal screening for a broad spectrum of possible supports (safety, housing, economic, child development, mental health, etc.) with referrals and follow-up to meet family needs.
Supports Goal C
Expand statewide information resources to help parents and families connect with the services and supports they need, coordinate their care, and provide referral feedback opportunities, from prenatal to school entry.
Supports Goal C
Expand community-based family supports that provide culturally sensitive navigation assistance to help parents and families access needed services and supports, including outreach to communities who have been historically and are currently underserved.
Supports Goal C
Expand culturally responsive supports for parents – including home-based and community-based family education, two-generation approaches to build capacity and skills (supporting both adults and children in a household), expanding kindergarten teacher visits to the homes of children before beginning school to build relationships with family members and children, and respite care for parents of children with disabilities.
Supports Goal A