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1. Parents are more likely to achieve healthy, favorable outcomes if they are resilient.
Resilience is the process of managing stress and functioning well even when faced with
challenges, adversity and trauma.
2. Demonstrating resilience increases parents’ self-efficacy because they are able to see evidence of both their ability to face challenges competently and to make wise choices about
addressing challenges.
3. Role as a caseworker:
As a caseworker my role is to make the child welfare experience as constructive as possible by:
• Projecting a positive and strengths-based approach to the family
• Supporting the family as key decision-makers throughout the case planning process
• Making self-care a part of the case plan
• Encouraging the parent to explore their own past experiences of trauma and address how those experiences impact them in the present
• Normalizing the fact that parenting is stressful and helping the parent plan proactively about how to respond to stressful parenting situations
• Validating and supporting good decisions

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1. Assisting parents to identify, find and receive concrete support in times of need helps to ensure they and their family receive the basic necessities everyone deserves in order to grow (e.g., healthy food, a safe environment), as well
as specialized medical, mental health, social, educational or legal services.
2. Parents need experiences that enable them to understand their rights in accessing services,
gain knowledge of relevant services and learn how to navigate through service systems.
3. The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) works to create new ideas and promote
public policies that produce equal opportunities and better futures for all children and
families, especially those most often left behind. The foundation of all of CSSP’s work is a
child, family and community well-being framework that includes a focus on protective and promotive factors.

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Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development:

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Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development:

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1. Understanding child development and parenting strategies that support physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional development.
2.Seeking, acquiring and using accurate and age/stage-related information about:
a. parental behaviors that lead to early secure attachments
b. the importance of
● being attuned and emotionally available to one’s child
● being nurturing, responsive and reliable
● regular, predictable and consistent routines
● interactive language experiences
● providing a physically and emotionally safe environment for one’s child
● providing opportunities for one’s child to explore and to learn by doing
c. appropriate developmental expectations
d. positive discipline techniques e. recognizing and attending to the special needs of a child

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1.Access to concrete support and services that address a family’s needs and help minimize stress caused by challenges.
a. being resourceful
b. being able to identify, find and receive the basic necessities everyone deserves in order to grow (e.g., healthy food, a safe environment), as well as specialized medical, mental health, social, educational or legal services
c. understanding one’s rights in accessing eligible services
d. gaining knowledge of relevant services
e. navigating through service systems
f. seeking help when needed
g. having financial security to cover basic needs and unexpected costs

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Social and Emotional Competence of Children:

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Social and Emotional Competence of Children:

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Family and child interactions that help children develop the ability to communicate clearly, recognize and regulate their emotions and establish and maintain relationships.
a. having a positive parental mood
b. having positive perceptions of and responsiveness to one’s child
c. responding warmly and consistently to a child’s needs
d. being satisfied in one’s parental role
e. fostering a strong and secure parent-child relationship
f. creating an environment in which children feel safe to express their emotions
g. being emotionally responsive to children and modeling empathy

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Strengthening Families is a research-based, cost-effective framework developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) over the last decade to increase family strengths, enhance child development and reduce child abuse and neglect. This approach helps child welfare systems, early education, prevention organizations and other programs work with parents to build five protective factors that, when present, increase the overall well-being of children and families. Protective factors are attributes that serve as buffers, helping parents who might otherwise be at risk of abusing their children to find resources, supports, or coping strategies that allow them to parent effectively, even under stress.
Five Protective Factors are the foundation of the Strengthening Families approach:

Enhancing parental resilience

Providing an array of social connections

Providing parents concrete support in times of need

Facilitating knowledge of parenting and child development

Supporting healthy social & emotional development in young children

Families thrive when protective factors are robust in their lives and communities.  By providing parents, child care professionals and others who work with children more information about these protective factors, we can help build protective factors in families with young children, building on family strengths and promoting optimal child and youth development.